Links that don't rot
A ticket links a page, a page is dropped into chat, the AI reads all three. In a four-tool stack these are URLs across products that break on every rename and reorganisation.
An honest comparison
Tenon vs. the stack you're probably running now.
Most teams don't choose a four-tool stack; they accumulate one. Here is what you'd gain and what you'd give up by consolidating on Tenon, cloud or self-hosted, including the things Tenon doesn't do, because you'd find out anyway.
| Capability | Tenon | Jira + Notion + Slack + AI add-on | Other self-hosted all-in-ones | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Projects & tickets | ✓ | ✓ | ~ | Kanban, timeline, hill charts, analytics |
| Docs with backlinks | ✓ | ✓ | ~ | Notion-style editor + infinite canvas |
| Real-time chat | ✓ | ✓ | ~ | Channels, DMs, reactions, read receipts |
| Polls & decision records | ✓ | ~ | ✕ | Inline in chat, searchable |
| Async standups with AI digest | ✓ | ~ | ✕ | pg_cron + your AI provider |
| AI assistant that reads your work | ✓ | ~ | ~ | Same permissions as the user |
| Choose / self-host the AI model | ✓ | ✕ | ~ | Gemini or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint |
| Org-wide portfolio insights | ✓ | ~ | ✕ | Health table, heatmap, exec summary |
| One data model across all four | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ | Ticket ↔ page ↔ message ↔ AI |
| Hosted cloud option | ✓ | ✓ | ~ | Tenon Cloud, EU or US region |
| Self-hosted option | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ | Same code; static bundle + Supabase |
| Multi-tenant on one deployment | ✓ | ✕ | ~ | RLS on every table; host for departments or clients |
| SAML / OIDC SSO | ✓ | ~ | ~ | Per workspace; Enterprise edition |
| REST API & signed webhooks | ✓ | ✓ | ~ | HMAC-SHA256, retries, delivery log |
| Video & voice calls | ✕ | ✓ | ~ | Not today; keep your calling tool |
| External shared channels | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | Public page links instead |
| Mobile apps | ~ | ✓ | ~ | Responsive web app; native apps on roadmap |
✓ included ~ partial or via add-on/plugin ✕ not available. "Other self-hosted all-in-ones" summarises the category (e.g. platforms combining tracker, docs and chat); individual products vary. Product names belong to their owners.
What you gain
The four things consolidation actually buys you.
One search, one permission model
Global search finds tickets, pages and messages together, and the same row-level rules govern all of them. No "they can see the doc but not the ticket" surprises.
An AI that isn't blind
Bolt-on AI in a single tool sees a single tool. Brain sees the project, its pages and its conversations, and runs on a provider you chose.
One security review
One vendor, one deployment, one DPA, and it's hosted by you. Four questionnaires become one, mostly pre-answered by the fact that the data never left.
What you give up
Where Tenon says no (for now).
A consolidated tool is a series of trade-offs. These are ours.
- No voice or video calls. Keep Meet, Zoom or Teams for calls; put the notes in Tenon.
- No external shared channels. Share pages publicly instead, or invite external people as members of a separate organization.
- No thousand-app marketplace. There's a REST API and webhooks; the integration you want may be one you write.
- If you self-host, you run it. Backups and upgrades are yours. Tenon Cloud removes that, but then the data lives with us, in the region you pick.
Versus other self-hosted all-in-ones
Where Tenon is different.
- Multi-tenant on purpose. Many self-hosted tools assume one company per install. Tenon assumes many organizations per install; it's the same architecture that runs Tenon Cloud.
- Bring-your-own AI. Not just "AI features", but AI features on Gemini, OpenAI-compatible cloud, or a model in your own rack.
- Boring infrastructure. Static files + Supabase. No custom daemons, message brokers or bespoke databases to learn.
- Leadership views built in. Portfolio health, resource heatmap and executive summary, not a plugin.
See it with your own data.
The Community edition is free and takes an afternoon to deploy. Import a few pages, create a project, and judge for yourself.