Multi-Tenancy

HiveForge supports both shared multi-tenancy and hard isolation models.

Tenancy Models

Multi-Tenant (Default)

Single database with Row-Level Security (RLS) to isolate tenant data.

Pros:

Cost-effective
Easy to manage
Simple deployments
Cross-tenant analytics possible

Cons:

Shared resources
Risk of data leakage (mitigated by RLS)
Noisy neighbor issues

Use When:

Standard SaaS application
Cost is a concern
You trust RLS implementation
Tenants have similar usage patterns

Hard Isolation

Dedicated database per tenant.

Pros:

Complete data isolation
Independent scaling
Regulatory compliance
No noisy neighbor issues

Cons:

Higher costs
Complex management
More deployment overhead

Use When:

Enterprise customers
Regulatory requirements (HIPAA, SOC 2)
High-value tenants
Custom tenant configurations needed

Implementation

Multi-Tenant with RLS

All tenant data in one database, isolated by RLS policies:

-- Example RLS policy
CREATE POLICY "Tenant isolation"
  ON projects FOR ALL
  USING (
    organization_id IN (
      SELECT organization_id
      FROM organization_members
      WHERE user_id = auth.uid()
    )
  );

Every query automatically filtered by user's organizations.

Hard Isolation

Each tenant gets dedicated Supabase instance:

// Get tenant-specific database connection
function getTenantDB(organizationId: string) {
  const org = await getOrganization(organizationId)
 
  if (org.isolated_db_url) {
    // Use dedicated database
    return createClient(org.isolated_db_url, org.isolated_db_key)
  }
 
  // Use shared database
  return createClient(sharedDbUrl, sharedDbKey)
}

Configuration

Set in .env:

# Multi-tenant mode
HARD_ISOLATION_ENABLED=false
 
# Hard isolation mode
HARD_ISOLATION_ENABLED=true

Platform admins can enable per-tenant:

await updateOrganization(orgId, {
  hard_isolation: true,
  isolated_db_url: 'https://tenant-db.supabase.co',
  isolated_db_key: 'tenant-anon-key'
})

Best Practices

Always use RLS: Even in multi-tenant mode
Test isolation: Verify tenants can't access each other's data
Monitor costs: Hard isolation is expensive
Plan migrations: Moving between models is complex
Document choice: Be clear about your tenancy model

Next Steps

Frontend Architecture Security Model