Multi-tenancy is an architecture where a single application instance serves multiple customers (tenants), each with isolated data and customization.
Why It Matters
Multi-tenancy dramatically reduces infrastructure costs for SaaS products by sharing resources while keeping each customer's data separate and secure.
When to Use This
- SaaS platforms serving multiple business customers
- White-label solutions for resellers
- Government systems serving multiple agencies
- Enterprise platforms serving subsidiaries
Examples
- Shopify serving thousands of stores from one codebase
- Slack teams each seeing only their own channels and data
- Multi-tenant e-commerce platform with isolated store data