Overview: Twenty is an open-source CRM designed as a modern, transparent alternative to proprietary systems like Salesforce. Built by a growing community of developers, it addresses the high costs and vendor lock-in associated with traditional CRMs. With a flexible data model, customizable views, and workflow automation, Twenty empowers teams to own their customer data without vendor dependency. It’s ideal for startups, SMBs, and engineering teams seeking full control over their CRM infrastructure while benefiting from collaborative development and extensibility.
Powered by a monorepo architecture using TypeScript, NestJS, React, PostgreSQL, and Redis, Twenty provides a unified platform for sales, marketing, and customer success teams. Its modular design supports future plugin ecosystems, making it a long-term foundation for CRM innovation rather than a closed black box.
What You Get
- Customizable objects and fields - Define custom data models with user-defined objects and fields to match your business processes, not the CRM’s predefined structure.
- Multiple view types (kanban, table, filters, grouping) - Visualize data in kanban boards, tables, or grouped layouts with dynamic filtering and sorting tailored to user workflows.
- Role-based permissions - Create custom roles with granular access controls for teams, ensuring data privacy and compliance without vendor restrictions.
- Workflow automation with triggers and actions - Automate repetitive tasks like updating records, sending notifications, or assigning leads based on defined triggers and actions.
- Integrated emails, calendar events, and file management - Seamlessly connect CRM data with email threads, calendar appointments, and document uploads without external integrations.
Common Use Cases
- Building a sales pipeline for SaaS startups - Teams track leads, opportunities, and customer onboarding with custom objects that mirror their funnel stages, avoiding expensive CRM licensing fees.
- Creating a customer success platform for mid-market companies - Support teams use customizable views and permissions to manage 500+ client accounts with tailored workflows for renewals and feedback collection.
- Problem: Vendor lock-in in legacy CRMs → Solution: Self-hosted, open-source CRM - Companies tired of price hikes and limited export options migrate to Twenty to retain full ownership of their customer data and infrastructure.
- DevOps teams managing internal tools at scale - Engineering teams deploy Twenty via Docker Compose to unify sales and support data across departments while maintaining control over hosting, backups, and integrations.
Under The Hood
The Twenty project is a modular, extensible platform designed for building and integrating CRM applications with a focus on developer experience and rapid deployment. It leverages a monorepo structure to manage diverse components while enabling plugin-like extensions through community apps.
Architecture
This system adopts a layered architecture with well-defined modules for frontend, backend, and shared utilities, promoting clear separation of concerns.
- The codebase is organized into distinct packages such as server, frontend, and SDKs with clear boundaries between them
- A plugin architecture allows community apps to be integrated as independent units with their own configurations and dependencies
- Component interactions are managed through standardized interfaces and shared libraries, ensuring loose coupling between system parts
- Core system components are structured to support scalable growth and maintainable code organization
Tech Stack
Built primarily with TypeScript and React, the project utilizes modern web development practices and a rich ecosystem of tools.
- The tech stack is centered around TypeScript, React, and a monorepo setup that supports multiple application packages
- Key libraries include React, Recoil, Framer Motion, Emotion, Radix UI, and Zod for type safety and utility functions
- Build and development tools such as Vite, Nx, and Webpack are used alongside TypeScript and ESLint for code quality
- Testing is supported through Jest, Vitest, Storybook, and linting tools that ensure consistency and reliability
Code Quality
Code quality is maintained through strong type safety, modular design, and a commitment to testing across key components.
- Comprehensive test coverage is present for core utilities and configuration tools, supporting a test-driven development approach
- Error handling is consistently implemented using try/catch blocks and structured error messaging for better debugging
- The codebase benefits from TypeScript’s type safety and linting practices that enforce consistent style and reduce runtime errors
- While modular architecture is well-established, some areas could benefit from improved documentation and code clarity
What Makes It Unique
This project stands out as a platform that empowers developers to build CRM integrations with extensibility and ease of use at its core.
- It introduces a CLI tool for rapid app scaffolding, enabling developers to quickly create and deploy serverless functions that interact with CRM data
- The platform integrates community-built apps in a way that allows for deep customization and workflow automation without sacrificing developer experience
- Its unique combination of a modular backend, extensible frontend, and standardized integration patterns sets it apart from generic CRM tools
- The emphasis on developer-first design and extensibility makes it a compelling solution for building CRM-centric applications at scale