Twenty vs HubSpot CRM
Both are alternatives to Salesforce. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as HubSpot CRM vs Twenty — same comparison, one verdict.
Twenty
The modern one — built to feel like software from this decade.
Twenty is an open-source CRM built with the design sensibility of a modern product: keyboard-first navigation, a clean data model, custom objects, and an interface that does not feel like enterprise software from 2012. Around 54k stars, which is the most of any CRM here by a wide margin and reflects genuine developer enthusiasm. The licence is mostly AGPL-3.0, with specific files marked `@license Enterprise` under a commercial licence — so it is AGPL-with-carve-outs. It is the youngest option, and the caveat is exactly that: excellent trajectory, short track record.
HubSpot CRM
Free for unlimited users — the honest hosted answer for small teams.
HubSpot's core CRM is free for unlimited users with unlimited contacts, and for a small sales team that is frequently the right answer rather than a compromise. Contacts, deals, pipeline, email tracking and meeting scheduling all work without payment. Listed here because refusing to name it would be dishonest: a five-person company choosing between a $105,000 Salesforce contract and self-hosting a server very often wants neither. The catch is the upgrade path — Marketing and Sales Hub pricing escalates steeply, and the free CRM is designed to make those adjacent products feel necessary.
Side by side
| Twenty | HubSpot CRM | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 86 | 30 |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Local-first | Yes | No |
| License | AGPL-3.0, with `@license Enterprise` file carve-outs | Proprietary (hosted service; free core tier) |
| Pricing | Free and self-hostable. Twenty Cloud is a paid hosted option. | Core CRM free for unlimited users. Sales, Marketing and Service Hubs are paid and escalate steeply. |
Twenty edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
Twenty
Strengths
- +By far the best interface of any open CRM
- +Custom objects and fields without touching code
- +Enormous community momentum for a young project
- +Keyboard-first workflow that salespeople genuinely like
Trade-offs
- −Youngest here — shortest production track record
- −Enterprise-marked files are carved out of the AGPL
- −Feature set still thinner than EspoCRM's
- −Fewer integrations than any established option
HubSpot CRM
Strengths
- +Genuinely free for unlimited users on the core CRM
- +Nothing to host, patch or back up
- +Excellent onboarding — a small team is productive in an afternoon
- +Large integration marketplace
Trade-offs
- −Proprietary and hosted; your customer data lives with the vendor
- −The free tier is a funnel — adjacent Hubs escalate sharply in price
- −Export is possible but the surrounding automation does not travel
- −No self-host option at any price
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Facts verified 2026-08-03. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.