multitenant

A tenant is a customer environment within an application, usually belonging to one organization. Its employees work in the same environment with their own accounts and permissions. In multitenant software, several organizations use the same application without being able to view each other's data.

How does multitenant software work?

Suppose you offer a scheduling application to installation companies. Each company manages its own technicians, customers and appointments. All use the same software, but a planner at company A sees only company A's schedule. For every action, the application determines which tenant the user belongs to and which data they may access.

Tenants can be separated in several ways. Data can sit in a shared databaseGlossary · In briefdatabaseA database is a structured collection of data that software can store, retrieve and modify. A database management system controls access to that data.Read more, with each record identifying its tenant. Another option is a separate database schema or database for each tenant. Multitenant does not automatically mean all customer data lives in the same tables.

How does it differ from singletenant?

With singletenantGlossary · In briefsingletenantIn singletenant software, each customer uses a separate application environment that is not shared with other customers.Read more, each customer gets a separately running application. Configuration and update timing can be chosen per customer. Those separate installations also need to be managed and maintained.

Multitenant customers share the application, so an improvement can become available to several customers at once. The software must account for differences between organizations, such as permissions, subscriptions or branding. These are usually stored as settings for each tenant.