Twenty CRM

What Is Twenty CRM?

The CRM market has been dominated by two extremes for over a decade: Salesforce's labyrinthine enterprise platform and HubSpot's freemium-to-locked-in growth machine. Both are US companies. Both store your data on US infrastructure. Both become difficult to leave once your data model is locked into their schemas.

Twenty emerged from Paris in 2023 with a different thesis: a CRM built like a modern productivity tool rather than legacy enterprise software. Backed by Y Combinator and $5.5 million in seed funding, the company's 33-person team has built something genuinely unusual — an open-source CRM with a UI that looks closer to Notion than to a CRM from 2008.

The product runs on a GPL licence, which means the full codebase is auditable, forkable, and self-deployable. Teams can run Twenty on their own servers at zero licence cost, or pay $9–$19 per user per month for managed cloud hosting. The data model doesn't impose fixed CRM templates: if your business tracks equipment, projects, or custom entities instead of traditional contacts-companies-deals hierarchies, Twenty can be configured to match.

The target user is specific — developer-led teams of roughly 8–50 people who have outgrown spreadsheets, distrust US data handling, and want a CRM that behaves like software built in this decade. Twenty is not attempting to compete with Salesforce on enterprise breadth. It's competing on simplicity, ownership, and the absence of per-seat inflation.

Key Features

Flexible Data Model

Most CRMs force you to map your business processes into their predefined objects: contacts, companies, opportunities, tickets. Twenty treats these as starting points, not constraints. Any team can create custom objects — whether that's properties, investors, manufacturing orders, or research subjects — and define the fields, relationships, and views that match the actual workflow. Kanban, table, and list views are available per object, with filters, grouping, and sorting that work across custom fields. This is the feature that separates Twenty most clearly from HubSpot's rigid free CRM tier.

REST and GraphQL APIs

Every plan includes API access with no feature gating. The REST API handles standard CRUD operations. The GraphQL API enables complex queries, filtering, and nested relationship traversal. For teams building internal tools, embedding CRM data in custom applications, or syncing with other systems via code, this is production-ready infrastructure. Combined with webhook support for event-driven automation, Twenty functions as a headless CRM platform as well as a standalone interface.

Email and Calendar Integration

Twenty connects natively with Gmail and Outlook for two-way email sync. Emails thread against records automatically, and the activity timeline aggregates notes, tasks, calls, and email history into a single chronological view. Google Calendar sync keeps meeting records linked to contacts and companies. These integrations work across self-hosted and cloud plans — there's no premium tier lock-in for basic CRM functionality that competitors treat as upsells.

No-Code Automation

Zapier integration extends Twenty's reach to hundreds of external tools. Teams can trigger automations from CRM events — a deal changing stage, a contact being created, a custom field being updated — without writing code. For teams that need custom logic, the API enables webhook-driven workflows that connect to any system. The automation capabilities are limited compared to mature platforms like HubSpot or Pipedrive, but they cover the essentials for teams not running complex multi-stage sequences.

Open-Source Self-Hosting

Twenty's self-hosted version runs on Docker and deploys to Railway, AWS, or any container-compatible infrastructure. The official documentation covers deployment step by step. When self-hosted, the platform generates no telemetry — data stays entirely within the operator's infrastructure. European managed hosting providers offer Twenty as a GDPR-compliant managed service, combining the self-hosting data guarantees with managed infrastructure operations.

Pricing

Twenty's pricing model is one of its strongest competitive arguments. The self-hosted version is free with no user limits and no feature restrictions — only infrastructure costs apply. For teams unwilling to manage servers, the cloud plans start at $9 per user per month for the base tier, which includes all core features, email integration, webhooks, and API access.

The $19 per user per month Pro tier adds SSO via SAML or OIDC, priority support, and advanced permission controls. For organisations requiring enterprise-grade identity management, this tier delivers features that HubSpot charges multiples more for on equivalent plans.

A 14-day trial is available on cloud plans. There is no freemium cloud tier — the free option is exclusively self-hosted. Teams evaluating Twenty must choose between spinning up a self-hosted instance (low cost, requires technical setup) or committing to a paid cloud trial.

At $9–$19 per seat, Twenty is aggressively priced relative to its competitors. HubSpot's Sales Hub Starter runs $20 per user; Salesforce's Starter Suite runs $25 per user. Neither offers the data ownership or open-source inspection that Twenty provides at any price tier.

EU Compliance & Privacy

Twenty's compliance posture reflects its open-source architecture. The GPL licence allows any organisation to audit the complete codebase — there are no proprietary black boxes handling data. When self-hosted, all data processing occurs on the operator's chosen infrastructure, with no external data flows to Twenty's servers.

The cloud service uses EU-compatible infrastructure. Several European managed hosting providers deploy Twenty on ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certified infrastructure specifically to serve GDPR-conscious customers. The company itself is a French SAS entity, subject to EU jurisdiction by default.

The lack of a formal GDPR compliance certification at the company level is worth noting. Twenty does not publish a Trust Center, DPA template, or certification list equivalent to mature SaaS competitors. For teams with formal compliance requirements — finance, healthcare, public sector — the self-hosted route with a certified European infrastructure partner is the more defensible architecture.

Who It's Best For

Developer-led SMBs who want a configurable CRM without Salesforce's implementation complexity or HubSpot's per-seat pricing escalation. The custom objects and GraphQL API are primary attractions.

Teams with GDPR data sovereignty requirements who can operate self-hosted infrastructure. No other CRM in this price range offers full-codebase auditability and zero vendor telemetry.

EU-native startups evaluating their first CRM. At $9 per user or free self-hosted, the cost barrier to professional CRM tooling essentially disappears.

Engineering teams building products that need CRM data embedded in custom applications. The REST and GraphQL APIs make Twenty a viable headless CRM backend.

Twenty is not the right choice for field sales teams who need a mobile app, organisations requiring native marketing automation, or enterprises needing territory management and revenue forecasting built in.

The Verdict

Twenty CRM delivers what it promises: a modern, open-source CRM that prioritises data ownership and interface clarity over feature volume. The flexible data model and comprehensive API access are genuine differentiators at this price point. The gaps — no mobile app, limited native integrations, a 2023 codebase still accumulating enterprise features — are real and should factor into any evaluation.

For EU-based teams that value data sovereignty and want a CRM that grows with their actual data model rather than around it, Twenty is the most compelling open-source option available. The $9/user cloud tier offers professional CRM at a price that makes Salesforce's per-seat economics look difficult to justify.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Twenty CRM GDPR compliant?

When self-hosted, all data resides on the operator's chosen infrastructure with no external flows to Twenty's servers. Managed EU deployments are available from European hosting providers certified to ISO 27001 and SOC 2. The self-hosted model provides the strongest GDPR posture, as operators maintain complete control over data location and processing.

Can I self-host Twenty CRM for free?

Yes. The self-hosted version is completely free with no user limits or feature restrictions. Deployment requires Docker and a compatible server. The official documentation at docs.twenty.com covers deployment to Railway, AWS, and standard VPS environments step by step.

How does Twenty CRM compare to HubSpot?

HubSpot's free CRM is more polished and includes more built-in integrations and native marketing tools. Twenty's advantages are a fully custom data model, open-source code, and competitive paid pricing — $9/user versus HubSpot Sales Hub Starter at $20/user. Teams who need rigid template-free customisation and EU data ownership will find Twenty more capable; teams who need marketing automation and a mobile app should look at HubSpot.

Does Twenty CRM have a mobile app?

No. As of 2026, Twenty does not offer a dedicated iOS or Android application. The web interface is responsive but not optimised for mobile field use. This is a meaningful gap for sales teams who need CRM access away from a desk.

What integrations does Twenty CRM support?

Twenty integrates natively with Gmail, Outlook, and Google Calendar. Zapier connects it to hundreds of additional tools. The REST and GraphQL APIs support custom integrations with any platform. Native integrations are limited compared to mature CRMs — the API-first approach expects teams to build connections where native connectors don't yet exist.