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An ATS whose feed is entirely buyer-guide content, with no releases in sight.
Comparison · CRM
Twenty vs Phorest
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Twenty and Phorest — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Twenty vs Phorest: at a glance
What is Twenty?
Twenty is building a marketplace: outside developers can now claim and submit their own apps.
Releases ship under two tags, twenty/ and sdk/, and the same change frequently appears twice. The substance in this window is the application platform. sdk 2.23.0 lets a non-admin developer claim an unclaimed published npm app from the Developer tab via GitHub OAuth against npm provenance and submit it for marketplace review, serves SDK core and metadata modules from content-addressed URLs so browsers can cache them indefinitely, and adds KANBAN_WIDGET and CALENDAR_WIDGET view types. v2.25.0 adds an application:install command that installs an app across provisioned workspaces and skips those that already have it. The rest is upkeep — a ClickHouse insert-timeout cap for pageview events, a billing exemption for logic-function executions, and a fix for campaign view column positions that had been failing workspace activation.
What is Phorest?
Phorest is shipping the front-desk fixes its salon customers voted for, one friction point at a time.
Phorest's changelog reads as a queue of user-requested fixes being worked through in order, with entries explicitly crediting Canny votes and customer feedback. The last three months cover diary search, client transaction history, waitlist ordering, must-acknowledge client notes, and phone-number formatting. Two of the three most recent items land in Phorest Go, the mobile app, rather than desktop.
Twenty vs Phorest: editorial side-by-side
Twenty
6.3CRM
Twenty is building a marketplace: outside developers can now claim and submit their own apps.
◆ Current state
Releases ship under two tags, twenty/ and sdk/, and the same change frequently appears twice. The substance in this window is the application platform. sdk 2.23.0 lets a non-admin developer claim an unclaimed published npm app from the Developer tab via GitHub OAuth against npm provenance and submit it for marketplace review, serves SDK core and metadata modules from content-addressed URLs so browsers can cache them indefinitely, and adds KANBAN_WIDGET and CALENDAR_WIDGET view types. v2.25.0 adds an application:install command that installs an app across provisioned workspaces and skips those that already have it. The rest is upkeep — a ClickHouse insert-timeout cap for pageview events, a billing exemption for logic-function executions, and a fix for campaign view column positions that had been failing workspace activation.
◆ Where it's heading
Twenty is assembling the machinery a marketplace needs before the marketplace itself: verified app authorship, a review submission path, fleet-wide install and upgrade commands, per-app billing exemptions, and versioned SDK delivery. CRM features are nearly absent from this window — the work is platform work. Release-note quality varies from a full engineering writeup to a truncated commit subject, so the tags are a poor guide to what actually changed in any given version.
◆ Prediction
The pieces implied but missing are the marketplace's public face — listing, discovery and install from inside the product — plus GA for the app-registration flow these commands and billing rules exist to support. Timing isn't inferable from these notes.
Phorest
5.0CRM
Phorest is shipping the front-desk fixes its salon customers voted for, one friction point at a time.
◆ Current state
Phorest's changelog reads as a queue of user-requested fixes being worked through in order, with entries explicitly crediting Canny votes and customer feedback. The last three months cover diary search, client transaction history, waitlist ordering, must-acknowledge client notes, and phone-number formatting. Two of the three most recent items land in Phorest Go, the mobile app, rather than desktop.
◆ Where it's heading
Two threads run through this batch. The first is the client card becoming the single place a receptionist works from — full sales history, merge from the profile, notes that surface at booking rather than sitting unread. The second is Phorest Go closing the gap with desktop: sales transactions and voice-dictated notes both arrive on mobile after existing on the desktop product. Nothing here changes what Phorest is; the work is removing the screen-hopping that a busy salon front desk cannot afford.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued mobile parity work in Phorest Go, since that is where the most recent items cluster. The entries do not indicate any move beyond the front-desk workflow into new product territory.
Alternatives to Twenty and Phorest
Other CRM products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Twenty or Phorest.
Vcita
A small-business CRM whose feed captured its marketing pages instead of its releases
Hooked CRM
A call-center CRM shipping weekly, mostly sharpening search, routing and agent visibility
Wealthbox
Wealthbox is reframing the advisor CRM around agents, with AI Notetaker as the beachhead.
Skylead
Skylead's feed is outreach-keyword content with the product nowhere in sight.
Outplay
Outplay's last visible work was catching up to the table stakes of outbound sales.
See all Twenty alternatives → · See all Phorest alternatives →
Recent activity from Twenty and Phorest
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoPhorestSales Transactions in the client card on Phorest Go
- 1d agoPhorestFind a client on the diary
- 2d agoTwentyFix campaign view column sync breaking workspace activation
- 3d agoTwentyNew application:install command installs apps across workspaces
- 3d agoTwentysdk/v2.25.0: feat(server): add application:install command (#23430)
- 5d agoTwentyOutside developers can claim npm apps and submit them for review ⚡
- 7d agoTwentyLogic function executions become free for exempt apps
- 7d agoTwentyCap pageview insert wait to cut metadata API tail latency
- 7d agoPhorestVoice Note to Client/Appointment Note
- 1mo agoPhorest📱 Phone Numbers Now Display in Local Format
- 1mo agoPhorestPop-up client notes at booking
- 1mo agoPhorestClient Card: See all past transactions in one place
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Twenty and Phorest?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Twenty is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Twenty better than Phorest?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Twenty is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other CRM products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Twenty?
Top Twenty alternatives in CRM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Twenty alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/twenty for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Phorest?
Top Phorest alternatives in CRM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Phorest alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/phorest for the full list with editorial commentary on each.