Graphite
Graphite's answer to its own CVE backlog is a pre-release nobody calls official.
Comparison · Analytics
Cortex vs Fulcrum
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Cortex and Fulcrum — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Cortex vs Fulcrum: at a glance
| Feature | Cortex | Fulcrum |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Analytics | Analytics |
| Velocity score | 0.0 | 6.3 |
| Sparks · 30d | 0 | 0 |
| Top themes | metrics, prometheus, parquet, multi-tenancy | field-data-collection, gis, esri-migration, offline-reliability |
| Last editorial update | 2h ago | 1d ago |
| Website | Visit → | — |
What is Cortex?
Cortex is betting on Parquet block storage and graduating years of experimental features.
Cortex publishes its release notes as release candidates, and the two majors visible here tell a consistent story. 1.20 introduced Parquet-based block storage, Prometheus Remote Write 2.0, a resource-based limiter for ingesters and store-gateways, and regex tenant resolution, all experimental. 1.21 then made Parquet a Store Gateway query mode, graduated the Ruler API, Alertmanager API and sharding, tenant federation, FIFO/Redis cache and memcached service discovery out of experimental, and enabled the bucket index by default. The 1.21.1 candidate is almost entirely security hardening.
What is Fulcrum?
Fulcrum is consolidating its whole mapping stack on Esri, and retiring Google Maps to finish it.
Fulcrum ships weekly web release notes alongside separate iOS and Android builds, and nearly all of the recent work is mapping. The ArcGIS SDK moved to 300.0.0 on mobile and the map engine picked up current ArcGIS and deck.gl versions on web, while a run of fixes addressed offline layer styling, basemap loading and attachment downloads on poor connections. On-device machine learning inference dropped ONNX for a new format, with labels now read from an uploaded labels.txt file.
Cortex vs Fulcrum: editorial side-by-side
Cortex
0.0ANALYTICS
Cortex is betting on Parquet block storage and graduating years of experimental features.
◆ Current state
Cortex publishes its release notes as release candidates, and the two majors visible here tell a consistent story. 1.20 introduced Parquet-based block storage, Prometheus Remote Write 2.0, a resource-based limiter for ingesters and store-gateways, and regex tenant resolution, all experimental. 1.21 then made Parquet a Store Gateway query mode, graduated the Ruler API, Alertmanager API and sharding, tenant federation, FIFO/Redis cache and memcached service discovery out of experimental, and enabled the bucket index by default. The 1.21.1 candidate is almost entirely security hardening.
◆ Where it's heading
Two arcs run in parallel. The storage arc is moving Cortex off pure TSDB blocks toward Parquet, first as a converter and format, then as a queryable Store Gateway mode — the same columnar direction the rest of the observability market has taken for long-retention data. The maturity arc is a deliberate clearing of the experimental backlog, with six subsystems graduating in one release and their flags renamed to drop the experimental prefix. Layered on both is a distinct hardening push: the latest candidate bounds gossip connections, caps decompressed request bodies, adds HMAC stream authentication and validates tenant IDs against the authenticated caller.
◆ Prediction
Expect Parquet to keep progressing from experimental toward default, following the path the bucket index just completed. The security work in 1.21.1 reads like a systematic pass over untrusted input paths rather than a response to a single report, so more of the same in the ingestion and gossip layers is likely.
Fulcrum
6.3ANALYTICS
Fulcrum is consolidating its whole mapping stack on Esri, and retiring Google Maps to finish it.
◆ Current state
Fulcrum ships weekly web release notes alongside separate iOS and Android builds, and nearly all of the recent work is mapping. The ArcGIS SDK moved to 300.0.0 on mobile and the map engine picked up current ArcGIS and deck.gl versions on web, while a run of fixes addressed offline layer styling, basemap loading and attachment downloads on poor connections. On-device machine learning inference dropped ONNX for a new format, with labels now read from an uploaded labels.txt file.
◆ Where it's heading
The mapping stack is converging on Esri across every client, and the announced September 1 retirement of the legacy Google Maps engine makes that explicit. Esri Maps has absorbed Google's satellite, hybrid and street basemaps, and the GIS capabilities Fulcrum keeps investing in — snapping, ArcGIS Feature Service connectivity, offline basemaps, GPS tracks, the redesigned location editor — only exist on that engine. Everything else in the feed is stabilization on the same surface, which is what a team does when it is preparing to move every remaining customer onto one path.
◆ Prediction
Expect migration reminders and switching guidance for organizations still defaulting to Google Maps as September 1 approaches, and MMPK layers to leave Early Access once the engine consolidation is complete.
Alternatives to Cortex and Fulcrum
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Cortex or Fulcrum.
NetObserv
NetObserv is layering TLS visibility and health alerting on top of its eBPF flow pipeline.
Apache Storm
Storm 3.0 finishes removing the Clojure it was built in, and moves to a Java 21 baseline.
Apache StreamPark
Five release candidates in two years, none of them stable, and none since October 2025.
Apache HertzBeat
A monitoring project whose public release feed skips the release that mattered.
Axiom
Axiom is rebuilding observability so an AI agent, not a human, can be the first user.
See all Cortex alternatives → · See all Fulcrum alternatives →
Recent activity from Cortex and Fulcrum
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2d agoFulcrumSSO notification wording and an ArcGIS map engine update
- 4d agoFulcrumAndroid: ArcGIS location and signature field fixes
- 4d agoFulcrumiOS: basemap loading and location button fixes
- 5d agoFulcrumiOS drops ONNX for on-device inference; ArcGIS SDK 300
- 5d agoFulcrumiOS: offline ArcGIS layers keep custom symbols
- 9d agoFulcrumReplace a map layer file without recreating the layer
- 2mo agoCortex1.21.1 candidate hardens gossip, ingestion and status pages
- 3mo agoCortex1.21.0-rc.1 fixes memberlist, tenant federation and a memory leak
- 4mo agoCortexParquet becomes a Store Gateway mode as six features graduate ⚡
- 9mo agoCortex1.20.0-rc.1 fixes metric name validation and a compactor race
- 9mo agoCortexCortex 1.20 introduces Parquet storage and Remote Write 2.0 ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Cortex and Fulcrum?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Fulcrum is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Cortex better than Fulcrum?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Fulcrum is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Cortex?
Top Cortex alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Cortex alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/cortex-metrics for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Fulcrum?
Top Fulcrum alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Fulcrum alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/fulcrum for the full list with editorial commentary on each.