GTM Ranked

HubSpot vs Twenty

Updated based on independent user evidence
Verdict

Independent users prefer Twenty (54/100 from 25 rated comments) over HubSpot (37/100 from 36 rated comments). Twenty is best for Small teams that want a free or low-cost self-hosted CRM without per-seat fees; HubSpot is best for Teams that want marketing and sales on one database.

HubSpot logoHubSpotTwenty logoTwenty
Sentiment
Score37/10054/100
Rank in category#5#2
Rated comments3625
Best forTeams that want marketing and sales on one database; Companies relying on many third-party integrations; Growing SMBs with someone who can own CRM setupSmall teams that want a free or low-cost self-hosted CRM without per-seat fees; Technical teams that want to customize their CRM through an API or with AI coding tools; Teams leaving HubSpot or Salesforce mainly to cut cost
Skip it ifVery small teams that only need a simple sales pipeline; Budget-sensitive teams that will need Pro or Enterprise features; Companies with heavy custom-object modelsTeams that need deep built-in workflow automation; Teams without anyone to host and maintain a self-hosted app; Buyers who need built-in reporting charts or formal security compliance
Starting price£7/seat/mo$9/user/mo
Pricing (vendor-stated)The pricing page served to us was localized in GBP (US pricing may differ): free plan for up to 2 users; Starter £7/seat/mo billed annually (shown as a limited-time 65% discount, up to 10 users); Professional £81/seat/mo; Enterprise £155/seat/mo, all billed annually with a monthly option. Paid plans include monthly HubSpot Credits for AI features.Self-hosting the open-source core is free. Cloud plans: Pro $9/user/mo and Organization $19/user/mo on yearly billing (yearly saves 25%); Enterprise from $50k/year through sales. 30-day free trial, no credit card.

Independent users see HubSpot as the broadest all-rounder for small and mid-sized companies: sales and marketing data in one place, integrations with nearly everything, and easier to learn than Salesforce. The recurring complaint is cost. Repeated price rises, features locked behind Professional or Enterprise seats and a bill that jumps as teams grow are pushing long-time customers to ask what comes next, and several say it has become bloated and needs a dedicated owner to stay clean. About one in five remaining mentions were pitches for rival CRMs (Attio most often), HubSpot partners and add-on tools, even after the corpus filter removed well over a hundred promoter comments.

Users like

  • Brings marketing and sales data together, and users who left or compared rate its marketing automation (such as nurture campaigns) above lighter sales CRMs like Pipedrive[1][2][3][4][5][6]
  • Integrates with almost everything; a 15-year user calls it about as good as it gets for integrations, and another says the Claude integration made the data far easier to work with[1][2][3]
  • More intuitive and easier to customize than Salesforce, and the free tier is usable for basic tracking or learning a CRM[1][2][3]
  • List price is negotiable: users report a 35% discount on a two-year commit for 50+ seats and other large discounts by pushing back[1][2]

Users complain about

  • Expensive and getting more so: long-time customers cite repeated price increases, and several moved to tools costing about half as much[1][2][3][4][5][6]
  • Key features sit behind higher tiers and seat types, so the bill can jump sharply (one user says it triples) when a team needs Pro seats, Operations Hub or Enterprise-only scoring[1][2][3][4]
  • Complex and increasingly bloated; small teams report abandoning it because it is too much to configure, and it gets messy without a dedicated owner[1][2][3][4][5][6]
  • Renewal and exit friction: a user says HubSpot quietly buried its own 'don't block the exit' pledge, and another says reps make you think you have no choice at renewal[1][2]

Independent users mostly like Twenty as a free, self-hostable open-source CRM: they cite no per-seat fees, low hosting costs and how easily it can be customized through its API or with AI coding tools, and several moved to it from HubSpot or Salesforce to save money. The main trade-offs are thin built-in workflow automation (users bolt on n8n), fewer features than mature CRMs, and self-hosting that one user found cost more and broke more often than a SaaS CRM. Several comments in the discussion come from consultants and hosting services selling Twenty setups, and one user complains about the people advertising it.

Users like

  • Free to self-host on a cheap server, and users can add as many people as they like without per-seat charges[1][2][3][4]
  • Easy to customize and extend: users point to a strong API and to customizing it with Claude or other AI tools[1][2][3][4][5]
  • Clean and minimal for basic contact management, with search and filtering one user found strong on a list of 8,000+ contacts[1][2][3]
  • Users who tried several CRMs rate it among the few that tick most boxes, and some run their own business on it[1][2][3]

Users complain about

  • Built-in workflow automation is limited or clunky; users connect a separate n8n server for things like follow-up sequences[1][2][3]
  • Self-hosting is not free in practice: one user's AWS hosting cost more than a SaaS CRM, and maintenance and breakages killed the project[1]
  • Fewer features than mature CRMs; users mention no charts and say it is still early[1][2][3]
  • One user calls it a terrible system with no security compliance certifications[1]

Frequently asked questions

Independent users prefer Twenty (54/100 from 25 rated comments) over HubSpot (37/100 from 36 rated comments). Twenty is best for Small teams that want a free or low-cost self-hosted CRM without per-seat fees; HubSpot is best for Teams that want marketing and sales on one database.