191 lines
8.7 KiB
Markdown
191 lines
8.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Trying Twenty: How does an Open Source CRM work?"
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date: 2025-08-03T06:10:10+02:00
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lastmod: 2025-11-17T12:10:10+02:00
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draft: false
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image: "uploads/twenty.png"
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categories: [ 'English' ]
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tags: [ 'crm', 'twenty', 'salesforce', 'django', 'self-hosting' ]
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---
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I spend my day working with Salesforce, a very, very feature-rich CRM that you pay big money to use.
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Salesforce is the opposite of OpenSource and the many features are expensive. Salesforce business model is based on this
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and on the lock-in effect.
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If your company invested in implementing Salesforce, they'll likely pay a lot to keep it.
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So what does an alternative look like? Let's have a look at [Twenty](https://twenty.com), an OpenSource CRM that
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recently reached the magic 1.0 version.
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# Getting started
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There are two options of getting started: Register at [app.twenty.com](https://app.twenty.com) and start right away on
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the devs instance or self-host Twenty on your own server.
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I did the ladder, so let's discuss how that. The basic steps I took were
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* point twenty.hyteck.de to a server
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* Install traefik on the server (I cheated, traefik was already installed)
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* Deploy [this docker-compose.yml](docker-compose.yml) with [this env file](env)
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Then visit the domain and set up the first user.
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# Features
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Twenty offers an initial datamodel that you should be familiar from other CRMs. the standards objects are
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* **Persons** A individual person. You can attach notes, E-Mails, etc..
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* **Companies** The same for organizations. Organization websites must be unique
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* **Opportunities** The classic opportunity with customizable stages
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* **Notes** They can be attached to any of the objects above
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* **Tasks** Items to work on
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* **Workflows** Automations similar to Salesforce flows. E.g. you can create a task every time an Opportunity is
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created.
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The basic datamodel can be extended in the GUI. Here is how my "Company" model looks like
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You can add any of the following fields to an object.
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### Workflows
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Workflows are Twenty's way of allowing users to build automations. You can start a Workflow when a Record is created,
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updated or deleted. In addition, they can be started manually, on a schedule and via Webhook (yeah!).
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You can then add nodes that trigger actions. Available right now are
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* **Creating, updating or deleting a record**
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* **Searching records**
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* **Sending E-Mails** This is the only option to trigger e-mails so far
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* **Code** Serverless Javascript functions
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* **Form** The form will pop up on the user's screen when the workflow is launched from a manual trigger. For other
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types of triggers, it will be displayed in the Workflow run record page.
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* **HTTP request** Although possible via Code, this is a handy shortcut to trigger HTTP requests
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What is currently completely missing are Foreach-loops
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and [conditions](https://github.com/twentyhq/core-team-issues/issues/1265). I can not say "If Opportunity stage is
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updated to X do Y else, do Z".
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Without this, Workflows are really limited in their power.
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What already seems quite mature though is the code option. It allows to put in arbitrary code and output a result.
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I did not try a lot, but I assume most basic Javascript works. I successfully built an http request that send data to a
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server.
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If what you're doing is straightforward enough to not use loops and conditions or if you are okay with doing all of them
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in the Code node, you can do basically anything.
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## API
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Twenty offers an extensive API that allows you to basically do everything. It's well documented and easy to use.
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Here is an example of me, syncing Rescue Organizations from [notfellchen.org](https://notfellchen.org) to Twenty.
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```python
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import requests
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from fellchensammlung.models import RescueOrganization
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def sync_rescue_org_to_twenty(rescue_org: RescueOrganization, base_url, token: str):
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if rescue_org.twenty_id:
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update = True
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else:
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update = False
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payload = {
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"eMails": {
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"primaryEmail": rescue_org.email,
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"additionalEmails": None
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},
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"domainName": {
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"primaryLinkLabel": rescue_org.website,
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"primaryLinkUrl": rescue_org.website,
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"additionalLinks": []
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},
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"name": rescue_org.name,
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}
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if rescue_org.location:
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payload["address"] = {
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"addressStreet1": f"{rescue_org.location.street} {rescue_org.location.housenumber}",
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"addressCity": rescue_org.location.city,
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"addressPostcode": rescue_org.location.postcode,
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"addressCountry": rescue_org.location.countrycode,
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"addressLat": rescue_org.location.latitude,
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"addressLng": rescue_org.location.longitude,
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}
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headers = {
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"Content-Type": "application/json",
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"Authorization": f"Bearer {token}"
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}
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if update:
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url = f"{base_url}/rest/companies/{rescue_org.twenty_id}"
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response = requests.patch(url, json=payload, headers=headers)
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assert response.status_code == 200
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else:
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url = f"{base_url}/rest/companies"
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response = requests.post(url, json=payload, headers=headers)
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assert response.status_code == 201
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rescue_org.twenty_id = response.json()["data"]["createCompany"]["id"]
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rescue_org.save()
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```
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#
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# The Company, Business Model and Paid Features
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The company behind Twenty is called "Twenty.com PBC" and mostly seems to consist of former AirBnB employees in Paris.
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The company is probably backed by Venture Capital.
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The current business model is to charge for using the company's instance of Twenty. It starts at 9\$/user/month without
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enterprise features. SSO and support will cost you 19\$/user/month.
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Selfhosting is free but SSO is locked behind an enterprise badge with seemingly no way to pay for activating it.
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I suspect that in the future more features will become "Enterprise only" even when self-hosting. All contributors must
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agree
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to [a Contributor License Agreement (CLA)](https://github.com/twentyhq/twenty/blob/main/.github/CLA.md), therefore I
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believe they could change the License in the future, including switching away from Open Source.
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# AI Usage
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The repo contains a `.cursor` directory and `CLAUDE.md` so I assume the devs make (heavy?) use of LLM generated code.
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The ethical and legal problems with this are for you to decide. I don't know what effect this has on code quality, for
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now I'd say things are sometimes buggy (failed upgrades) and UX could be better tested (looking at the e-mail
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integration) - if this is due to AI slop I don't know.
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# Conclusion
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Twenty is a really promising start of building a good CRM. The ease of customizing the datamodel,
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using the API and a solid beginning to Flows allows users to get a lot of value from it already.
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Flows need some more work to become as powerful as they should be and the E-Mail integration needs to get better.
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Stating the obvious: This is not something that could ever replace Salesforce. However, there are many organizations
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that would benefit a lot from a CRM like Twenty, they simply don't need, can't handle or don't want to pay for all the
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features other CRMs like Salesforce offer.
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If Twenty continues to focus on small to medium companies and the right mix of standard features vs. custom development
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options I see a path where it becomes a solid choice for these companies. On the other hand there are the usual problems
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of VC-backed OSS development, and we shall see how it goes for them. Unless there is a strong userbase that credibly
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threatens a hard fork, enshittification could start soon.
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# Addendum: Important Features
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Here is a short list of features I missed and their place on the roadmap if they have one
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* **Compose & Send E-Mails**
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Planned [Q4 2025](https://github.com/orgs/twentyhq/projects/1?pane=issue&itemId=106097937&issue=twentyhq%7Ccore-team-issues%7C811)
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* **Foreach loops in Workflows
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** [Q3 2025](https://github.com/orgs/twentyhq/projects/1/views/33?pane=issue&itemId=93150024&issue=twentyhq%7Ccore-team-issues%7C21)
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* **Conditions in Flows
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** [Q4 2025](https://github.com/orgs/twentyhq/projects/1/views/33?pane=issue&itemId=121287765&issue=twentyhq%7Ccore-team-issues%7C1265)
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