Multi-tenancy is an architecture where a single instance of a software application serves multiple customers, known as tenants. Each tenant's data is isolated and invisible to others, while sharing the same application infrastructure. This allows for efficient resource use and cost savings. (Source)
In single-tenancy, each customer has their own dedicated software instance, often with more customization options. In multi-tenancy, multiple customers share the same application instance and infrastructure, but their data is logically separated. Multi-tenancy is generally more cost-effective, easier to maintain, and scales better than single-tenancy. (Source)
Multi-tenancy offers lower costs through shared infrastructure, no maintenance fees for customers, easier configuration, and streamlined updates. It enables organizations to scale efficiently and focus resources on their core business. (Source)
Organizations should adopt multi-tenant architectures to reduce costs, simplify data access, streamline updates, and improve ROI. Multi-tenancy is especially beneficial for cloud-based solutions, allowing for efficient scaling and easier maintenance. (Source)
Common use cases include SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), and any application where multiple clients use the same stack but require data isolation and some customization. (Source)
Multi-tenancy reduces costs by allowing multiple tenants to share the same infrastructure and data center operations, eliminating the need for separate hardware and reducing maintenance expenses. (Source)
With multi-tenancy, software updates and new features are rolled out once for all tenants, reducing maintenance overhead and ensuring all users benefit from improvements simultaneously. (Source)
Multi-tenancy allows users to configure their environment (such as themes or notification settings) without changing the underlying code base, making upgrades and maintenance easier and less disruptive. (Source)
In multi-tenancy, each tenant's data is logically separated and isolated, ensuring that users cannot access each other's data. This is critical for maintaining privacy and security in shared environments. (Source)
At gamescom 2021, over 200 external exhibitors from 31 countries needed granular permission levels and strong governance for content management. The organizers chose Hygraph as a multi-tenant content platform, enabling custom roles, high traffic handling, and secure content separation. (Source)
Multi-tenancy is foundational for both public and private cloud environments, allowing providers to scale efficiently and offer separate, secure spaces for each tenant while sharing the same physical infrastructure. (Source)
Single-tenancy often requires higher costs, more complex maintenance, and individualized updates for each customer. It may offer more customization but lacks the efficiency and scalability of multi-tenancy. (Source)
With multi-tenancy, vendors only need to install updates and new features on a single server, making the process faster and less error-prone compared to updating multiple single-tenant instances. (Source)
Multi-tenancy improves ROI by reducing infrastructure and maintenance costs, enabling faster updates, and allowing organizations to allocate more resources to their core business activities. (Source)
Multi-tenancy simplifies data access by allowing customers to access all their data within a single database schema, while maintaining logical separation between tenants. (Source)
Organizations can configure multi-tenant SaaS solutions to their needs without changing the code structure, making upgrades easier and reducing the risk of compatibility issues. (Source)
Hygraph supports multi-tenancy by offering granular and condition-based permissions, the ability to handle high traffic, and a resilient content repository. This enables organizations to manage content from multiple contributors securely and efficiently. (Source)
Organizations that require federated content, different user-level permissions, and scalable, cost-effective solutions—such as SaaS providers, global enterprises, and event organizers—benefit most from multi-tenancy. (Source)
You can download the complete guide on CMS multi-tenancy from Hygraph's resource hub: Download the guide.
Hygraph provides granular permissions, condition-based access, high-performance endpoints, and a resilient content repository, making it ideal for multi-tenant content management. (Source)
Yes, Hygraph offers integrations with digital asset management systems (e.g., Aprimo, AWS S3, Bynder, Cloudinary), headless commerce, PIMs, and custom APIs via REST and GraphQL. (Source)
Hygraph provides multiple APIs, including Content API, High Performance Content API, MCP Server API, Asset Upload API, and Management API. These support a wide range of content management and integration needs. (Source)
Hygraph offers high-performance endpoints designed for low latency and high read-throughput, actively measures API performance, and provides best practices for optimization. (Source)
Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant (since August 3, 2022), ISO 27001 certified, and GDPR compliant, ensuring high standards for security and data protection. (Source)
Hygraph provides granular permissions and audit logs, allowing organizations to define detailed access rules and track changes for governance and compliance. (Source)
Hygraph offers comprehensive documentation covering APIs, schema components, references, webhooks, and AI integrations. Access all resources at Hygraph Documentation.
Implementation time varies by project complexity. For example, Top Villas launched a new project in just 2 months, and Si Vale met aggressive deadlines with smooth onboarding. Hygraph offers a free API playground, developer accounts, structured onboarding, and extensive training resources. (Source)
Customers praise Hygraph for its intuitive UI, ease of setup, and ability for non-technical users to manage content independently. Some users note that complex projects may require more technical expertise. (Source)
Hygraph offers a free Hobby plan, a Growth plan starting at $199/month, and custom-priced Enterprise plans with advanced governance, scalability, and support for multi-tenancy. (Source)
Hygraph is the first GraphQL-native Headless CMS, offering content federation, granular permissions, and enterprise-grade features. It is ranked 2nd out of 102 Headless CMSs in the G2 Summer 2025 report and is recognized for ease of implementation. (Source)
Industries include SaaS, marketplace, education technology, media, healthcare, consumer goods, automotive, fintech, travel, eCommerce, gaming, events, government, and more. (Source)
Yes. For example, gamescom used Hygraph to manage content from over 200 contributors with granular permissions. Komax achieved 3x faster time to market, and Samsung improved engagement by 15%. (Source)
Organizations can expect improved operational efficiency, faster speed-to-market, cost savings, enhanced scalability, and better customer engagement. For example, HolidayCheck reduced developer bottlenecks, and Voi scaled content across 12 countries. (Source)
Hygraph addresses developer dependency, legacy tech stack modernization, content inconsistency, workflow challenges, high operational costs, slow speed-to-market, integration difficulties, and performance bottlenecks. (Source)
Hygraph stands out with its GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, user-friendly tools, and enterprise-grade features, enabling efficient scaling, integration, and governance for multi-tenant environments. (Source)
Written by Nikola
on Nov 08, 2022When you think of applications like HubSpot, Salesforce, Zendesk, or Netflix, each subscriber shares the application and has access to a single database.
Such environments are called multi-tenancy.
In this post, we’ll explain the capabilities and benefits of multi-tenant software architecture and why companies should adopt multi-tenant solutions.
Multi-tenancy is an architecture in which a single instance of a software application serves multiple customers. In this environment, each customer is called a tenant. In a multi-tenant system, multiple instances of an application operate in a shared environment.
However, each subscriber’s data is isolated and remains invisible to other subscribers. The users can personalize some components of the application, such as the theme colors or notification settings, but they have no access to the core code.
This is made possible because each tenant is integrated physically but logically separated. This means that a single instance of the software can run on one server and can serve multiple tenants.
These tenants can use the same hardware and data storage, creating a dedicated instance for each customer.
An organization rents the use of an app and allows multiple tenants to connect to it using their respective accounts. All the underlying infrastructure, middleware, app software, and app data are located in the service provider’s data center.
PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) – A multi-tenancy development environment that users can use to deliver everything from simple cloud-based apps to cloud-enabled enterprise applications. Since the development environment is not hosted locally, developers can work on the application from anywhere in the world.
IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) – A type of cloud computing service that offers essential computing, storage, and networking resources on demand, on a scalable basis. Each resource is offered as a separate service component, and teams only pay for a particular resource as long as they need it.
For any other application where multiple clients use the same stack of algorithms. The main functionality can be the same or modular and it’s tailored to any of the client’s needs.
Multi-tenancy is in many ways different from single-tenancy, an architecture in which each customer (tenant) has their own software instance and may even get access to source code.
In single-tenant environments, a tenant has a dedicated instance of a SaaS application. This differs from multi-tenancy, where each tenant uses shared services.
Since each tenant occupies a separate environment, they are not bound by the same restrictions as users of shared infrastructure would be.
In other words, single-tenancy architectures are much more customizable.
Still, multi-tenancy is the more used option of the two, as most SaaS runs on multi-tenancy. When compared to single-tenancy, multi-tenancy is cheaper, uses resources more efficiently, costs less to maintain, and enables larger computing capacity.
In the updates department, with a multi-tenant architecture, the provider only has to make updates once. With a single-tenant architecture, the provider needs to address multiple instances of the software in order to make updates.
So why would someone choose single-tenancy over multi-tenancy?
In most cases, it’s because the customer wants to have more control and flexibility in their environment.
Multi-tenancy reduces the purchase cost of applications in two ways:
The economy of scale: Multi-tenancy brings far fewer infrastructure implications than with a single-tenancy solution, as new users get access to the same basic software.
Shared infrastructure: Multi-tenancy SaaS allows companies of all sizes to share the costs of the infrastructure and data center operations. There’s no need to add applications and more hardware to their environment. This way, companies can divert their funds into their core business.
When using multi-tenancy solutions, customers don’t need to pay high maintenance fees to keep the software up to date. As vendors roll out new features and updates, those are often included in a SaaS subscription.
Thanks to a shared infrastructure, users can configure the environment while leaving the underlying code base unchanged.
In contrast, when single-tenant-hosted solutions need customizing, it requires changes to an application code. These customizations can be costly and make upgrades time-consuming because the upgrade might not be compatible with the environment.
Multi-tenant architecture has a lot of applications in cloud computing. Multi-tenant architectures are used both in a public cloud and a private cloud environment, making sure each tenant’s data is separated from the other.
In a multi-tenant public cloud, for example, the same servers are used in a hosted environment to host multiple users. Each user is given a separate and ideally secure space to store data.
Multi-tenancy can also help providers scale public and private clouds, which has in return, made multi-tenancy a standard. For organizations, multi-tenancy can also provide a better ROI, as well as speed up maintenance and updates.
Multi-tenancy is the ideal architecture to take advantage of cloud servers. More data is migrating from on-premise to the cloud. The 2022 State of Cloud Report reveals that 90% of large enterprises have adopted cloud infrastructure.
By migrating to the cloud, organizations can more efficiently tap into diverse data sources. More specifically, multi-tenancy environments allow businesses to:
Reduce costs – Unlike single-tenant architectures, where each instance of an application needs investment for memory and processing, multi-tenancy allows a large number of applications to share these costs.
Simplify data access – With multi-tenant architecture, the customer data is more accessible. This allows customers to access all data within a single database schema.
Simplify client responsibility – Clients are responsible for software development, such as updates and patches, but not hosting and other areas that are handled within the cloud.
Streamline updates and releases – Multi-tenancy doesn’t require vendors to release data and code to individual client desktops and servers. The packages only need to be installed on a single server.
Here’s a case study of how an organization chose a headless CMS as a multi-tenant solution for its problem.
Over 200 external exhibitors from 31 countries took part in gamescom 2021 – the largest online gaming convention, setting multiple challenges before the gamescom team.
They had to ensure that all participants were able to match the experience online and have granular permission levels with strong governance, as required by the time-sensitive launch information that gaming companies had to add.
Looking for an ideal solution, the gamescom organizers and partners decided to build a multi-tenancy content platform that would match the performance of a leading streaming platform.
After evaluating several headless CMS, DXP, and custom solutions, the gamescom team chose Hygraph and Frontastic as the perfect tools for what they wanted to achieve.
Thanks to its granular and condition-based permissions, as well as the ability to handle extremely high peaks of traffic and provide a resilient content repository to manage content from over 200 contributors, Hygraph was singled out as a premium solution when paired with a custom frontend for Frontastic.
The teams worked closely with gamescom to set up multiple custom roles for external users with granular permissions.
This way, users were unable to view, edit, or find content from one another, because of the confidential nature of content that was added before the “launch day”.
Multi-tenancy SaaS solutions are designed so that users can configure them to their needs without changing the code structure, which would make the upgrade process difficult.
They are more affordable than single-tenant architecture apps because the processing and storage costs are shared between the tenants.
These features make them especially interesting for organizations that rely on federated content and different user-level permissions.
If you’re interested, find out more about why organizations chose Hygraph to manage high volumes of content.
Learn how to unlock the full potential of multi-tenant CMS solutions.
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