Glossary
A software architecture where a single instance of an application serves multiple customers (“tenants”), with each tenant's data logically isolated even though they share the same underlying infrastructure.
Why It Matters
The alternative — a separate deployment per customer — means every bug fix, feature, and infrastructure upgrade has to be repeated across every customer's isolated instance. Multi-tenancy lets one platform serve many customers from one continuously improving codebase, which is what makes most modern SaaS businesses operationally viable at all.
This is part of our Digital Platforms capability — the architecture that lets one platform serve every user type a business has, instead of a separate codebase per department.
See the full Digital Platforms capabilityIs multi-tenant data less secure than separate databases per customer?
Not inherently — a well-implemented multi-tenant system enforces data isolation at the application and database level just as strictly as physical separation would. The isolation is logical rather than physical, not weaker.
Do all customers get the exact same features in a multi-tenant system?
Not necessarily — multi-tenant platforms commonly support per-tenant configuration and feature flags, so tenants can have different feature sets while still running on shared infrastructure.