Software Outsourcing Alternatives: StepTo vs 23 Providers
StepTo is a 15-20 engineer software team in Belgrade. Buyers usually weigh it against talent marketplaces, global engineering firms and other Serbian suppliers, so here are 23 of them, one sourced row each.
Reviewed by Igor Gazivoda, Founder & CEO of StepTo · Published · Updated
How Does StepTo Compare With Other Outsourcing Providers?
StepTo is a software company in Belgrade, Serbia, with a 15-20 person in-house engineering team that has worked together since 2014, building dedicated teams at $25-85/hr. It is smaller than every provider below, and that is the comparison: a team on Central European Time, a public rate card, and a company small enough that each engagement is a visible share of it.
The providers fall into three groups. Marketplaces sell individual developers you manage. Large engineering firms sell programmes across many countries. Serbian and regional firms hire from the same talent market as StepTo but run hundreds or thousands of people. Ten of them have a full comparison page; the table further down covers all 23.
Which Providers Have a Full Comparison?
Talent marketplaces and networks
You hire individuals and manage them yourself. Fast for one seat; the work of turning several into a team stays with you.
- StepTo vs ToptalA screened freelance network billed per person, against a salaried Belgrade team with a public rate card.
- StepTo vs UpworkAn open marketplace where you do the vetting, against the same engineers year after year.
- StepTo vs Lemon.ioHand-matched freelancers for one seat at a time, against a team composed once and priced once.
- StepTo vs ProxifyPer-developer staffing with published euro rates, against a managed team.
Large engineering and nearshore firms
Thousands of engineers, several countries, formal procurement. Right for programmes; heavy for a single product team.
- StepTo vs EPAMA NYSE-listed firm reporting about 62,850 people, against 15-20 engineers for scale-ups, with SEC filings linked.
- StepTo vs Software MindA Kraków vendor with CEE and LATAM offices and triple ISO certification, against a Belgrade team and published prices.
- StepTo vs BairesDevLatin American engineers on US hours, against a CET team: which fits depends on where your own team sits.
Firms with engineering in Serbia
The same regional talent market as StepTo, organised very differently. Buyers looking for team augmentation in Eastern Europe usually meet these three names.
- StepTo vs HTEC GroupFounded in Belgrade in 2008, now 2,500 people across software, hardware and design, against a software-only team.
- StepTo vs Levi9An Amsterdam-headquartered firm with hubs in Serbia, Ukraine and Romania, against a company run from Belgrade.
- StepTo vs Vega ITA Novi Sad company stating 900+ people and ten locations, against 15-20 engineers in Belgrade.
How Do All 23 Providers Compare at a Glance?
Each row gives the provider's model, where it is based, and one fact it publishes about itself, linked to the page it comes from (read on 25 September 2026, except HTEC, Intens and PanonIT, read on 8 October 2026). Figures are the providers' own and change; check them before relying on them.
| Provider | Model | Base | One published fact | Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| StepTo | Dedicated teams and staff augmentation | Belgrade, Serbia (CET) | 15-20 engineers; $25-85/hr by seniority (rate card) | This page |
| Toptal | Exclusive network of freelance developers, designers and other experts | Fully remote; Toptal LLC formed in 2010 | Accepts fewer than 3% of its 200,000+ yearly applicants; clients pay a $79 monthly subscription (toptal.com) | StepTo vs Toptal |
| Upwork | Open work marketplace; clients and talent agree scope and price directly | Palo Alto, California; Nasdaq-listed | $4.0 billion of gross services volume in 2025, with customers in over 180 countries (Upwork 10-K for 2025 (SEC)) | StepTo vs Upwork |
| Lemon.io | Platform matching vetted freelance developers; you contract with the developer | Founded 2015; no address published | 1,500+ vetted developers across 40+ countries on four continents (lemon.io) | StepTo vs Lemon.io |
| Proxify | Staff augmentation: vetted remote developers who join your team | Stockholm, Sweden; founded 2018 | €5,000-€8,000 a month per full-time developer, per its FAQ in January 2026 (proxify.io FAQ (archived)) | StepTo vs Proxify |
| BairesDev | Staff augmentation, dedicated teams and outsourcing from Latin America | Founded in Buenos Aires, 2009 | Offers access to 4,000+ timezone-aligned engineers (bairesdev.com) | StepTo vs BairesDev |
| EPAM Systems | Digital engineering, cloud and AI services plus consulting | Newtown, Pennsylvania; NYSE-listed | Total headcount of approximately 62,850 on 30 June 2026 (EPAM Q2 2026 results (SEC)) | StepTo vs EPAM |
| Software Mind | Consultancy, software development and dedicated teams | Kraków, Poland; founded 1999 | States 1,600+ experts and 350+ clients; holds ISO 9001, 14001 and 27001 (softwaremind.com) | StepTo vs Software Mind |
| HTEC Group | Product engineering across software, hardware, embedded and design | Founded in Belgrade, 2008; HQ Palo Alto, London and Belgrade | A team of 2,500 and 20 development and business centres (htec.com) | StepTo vs HTEC Group |
| Levi9 | Technology partner for digital products and platforms, incl. Team as a Service | Amsterdam, Netherlands; founded 2005 | 1,200+ people; delivery centres in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kyiv, Lviv and Iasi (levi9.com) | StepTo vs Levi9 |
| Vega IT | Product development and system integration; dedicated teams by default | Novi Sad, Serbia | States 900+ in-house people and 200+ clients (vegaitglobal.com) | StepTo vs Vega IT |
| Andela | Global talent network, now built around AI engineer cohorts | Founded in Lagos, 2014; fully remote since 2020 | Talent in 135+ countries (andela.com) | In this table |
| Arc | Remote hiring platform for freelance and full-time developers | Distributed team; no headquarters published | Publishes fees: $15-$110+ per hour for freelancers, 20% of annual salary for full-time hires (arc.dev) | In this table |
| Turing | AI training data and evaluations for frontier labs, plus enterprise agentic AI | San Francisco | Now describes itself around AI data and agentic systems rather than developer hiring (turing.com) | In this table |
| Endava | Technology services, billed mainly on time and materials | London; NYSE-listed | Headcount of 11,225 on 31 March 2026 (Endava Q3 FY2026 results (SEC)) | In this table |
| Symphony | AI-native engineering company | Founded 2007; hubs in Southeast Europe and LatAm | 800+ engineers, designers and strategists across four continents (symphony.is) | In this table |
| Quantox | Software house, systems integrator and IT services partner | Founded in Čačak; main office in Belgrade | More than 500 experts working from 13 development centres in 7 countries (quantox.com) | In this table |
| Devtech | Digital innovation services and cloud marketplace enablement | Offices in San Francisco, Toronto, Novi Sad, Belgrade, London and Amsterdam | A track record since 2012 and a presence in five countries (devtechgroup.com) | In this table |
| Ingsoftware | Custom software development and team augmentation | Niš, Serbia; since 2009 | 150+ professionals, with addresses in Delaware, Germany and Sydney (ing.dev) | In this table |
| Rare Crew | Full-cycle custom software development | Bratislava, Slovakia (EU legal address) | ISO/IEC 27001 certified (rarecrew.com) | In this table |
| Netfork | A community of small development companies | Novi Sad, Serbia | Describes a global community of over 1,500 handpicked software experts (netfork.io) | In this table |
| TNation | Nearshoring with dedicated staff employed by TNation | Belgrade, Serbia | Employs staff across six Balkan and Eastern European countries and runs its own IT Academy (tnation.eu) | In this table |
| Intens | Software development, QA, DevOps, managed services and data science and AI | Novi Sad, Serbia | States 70+ engineers and lists ISO 9001:2015 certification, per its own site on 8 October 2026 (intens.rs) | In this table |
| PanonIT | Custom software development, plus a QA staff augmentation service | Novi Sad, Serbia; founded 2007 per Clutch | Lists 50-249 employees and 2 reviews on Clutch, as read on 8 October 2026 (Clutch profile) | In this table |
Which Type of Outsourcing Provider Fits Your Situation?
The right alternative depends on what you are buying, not on which name is biggest. Match your situation to the type, then open the full comparison for the providers in it.
| If you need | Look at | Examples on this page |
|---|---|---|
| One or two developers quickly, managed by you | Talent marketplace or network | Toptal, Upwork, Lemon.io, Proxify |
| A programme across several countries, with formal procurement | Large engineering or nearshore firm | EPAM, Software Mind, Endava |
| Software and hardware or embedded work together | Product engineering firm | HTEC Group |
| Engineers on US hours | Latin American provider | BairesDev |
| A managed team of a few engineers on CET, with a public rate card | A small Belgrade software team | StepTo: staff augmentation from $4,500 per developer per month, dedicated teams from $13,500 per month for three engineers |
What should you ask any outsourcing provider before signing?
- Who employs the engineers, and who manages them day to day?
- What is the minimum term, and how much notice do you need to scale down?
- Can you test the fit first, and what happens if the engineer is not right?
- Are rates published, and what is not included in them?
- How many hours of your working day will the team share?
StepTo's answers are on its staff augmentation, dedicated team and software development outsourcing pages; ask every provider on your shortlist the same five questions and compare the written answers.
How Should You Use These Comparisons?
StepTo wrote these comparisons from each company's own published statements, and StepTo is an interested party. Every full comparison names the buyer the other provider suits better: a thirty-person team next quarter, hardware and software together, or developers on US West Coast hours are all things StepTo cannot offer. Treat the pages as a starting point for your own diligence and verify current figures with each provider. To score shortlisted providers on the same criteria, use the vendor evaluation scorecard.
For the Serbian market specifically, see software development companies in Serbia and the staff augmentation providers in Eastern Europe overview. For pricing, the rate card and the software outsourcing cost analysis set out what a team costs.
Related insights from the StepTo blog
- Outstaffing vs. Outsourcing vs. Staff Augmentation: What Actually Separates the Three Models
Outstaffing, outsourcing and staff augmentation get used as if they mean the same thing. They don't. The difference is who manages the work, and it changes your contract, your risk, and your invoice.
- Your Outsourcing Vendor Uses AI Now. Should You Still Be Paying Per Developer-Hour?
If your outsourcing contract prices developer-hours, AI has quietly changed what you're buying without changing what you pay. How to tell if you're overpaying.
- The Multiplier Nobody Quotes: Why Outsourcing Can Cost 60% More Than the Rate You Agreed
A €28 hour and a €50 hour are not competing on price. They are competing on how much of the real cost each one hides. Here is the model that makes them comparable, with the arithmetic worked through.
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