Enterprise VS community edition: a comparison

Odoo software follows a freemium model, meaning you can set up a free version with limited features, called the Community Edition (CE).

The Enterprise Editions is packaged with more advanced features and modules. Some examples of premium features or modules include accounting, subscriptions, or the use of barcodes in the inventory module. Its UI is also slightly more polished than the CE.

The same core code…

Essentially, the two versions share a similar foundation. Enterprise extends the CE code maintained by Odoo. It serves as an additional layer meant to cater to the needs of enterprise users. When you are using EE, you are merely given access keys to a private repository which contains the private EE code.

With add-ons developed by Odoo (the company) or the Odoo community

If you can afford to wait until the slight delays in the releases, modules developed by the Odoo Community Association can fill in the gaps of EC. In a way, the Odoo community is Odoo’s main competitor and pushes it to always strive for better quality in the modules it develops. In fact, feedback from the community continues to play a large role in determining the product’s future developments, staying true Odoo’s open-source beginnings.

Main factors to consider

Support

Enterprise gives you access to unlimited support. 24/7 support can be a big plus and take some pressure of your shoulders. There are instances where an unexpected issue can occur in your Odoo database - like a traceback error for instance. It can reassure you, you should know that support teams at Odoo can restore a backup of your database - an exact copy of your database that is at most 24 hours old. On the Community Edition (CE), you’ll have to handle these back ups on your own, via a CRON on your own server.

Upgrades

Upgrading an ERP is for, obvious reasons, not as straightforward as upgrading a phone app. Especially if you have made some customizations to your database. However, for many different reasons, it is desirable to upgrade at some point - security being an important incentive.

Odoo supports the two previous “major” releases (those ending “.0”, also called stable releases) of its software. As I’m writing this article, the latest major release available is 18.0. Meaning 16.0 and 17.0 are still actively maintained, and 15.0 is not. If you’re on 15.0, it is advised that you upgrade.

This process can be scary, but again being on EE enables you to test your workflows on the new target version and thereby helps you ensure that your operations will not be impacted by the upgrade.

Hosting

Odoo Enterprise can be deployed on all available platforms: Saas, Odoo.sh (Odoo’s cloud platform), and on-premise. Community, on the other hand, is strictly limited to deployment on-premise.

Pricing

EE costs are on a per user per month basis. Hence, if you are planning to have many users on Odoo, your total costs can increase rather quickly, even if the cost per user remains quite low compared to the competition.

If you go for the CE, you won’t pay per user but other costs might come up like the cloud hosting fees and salaries for a Dev Ops Engineer. This is essential to ensure that your instance runs smoothly in production. Especially if you don’t have access to Odoo support through the EE license.

Money

Companies with limited budgets will usually opt for CE, as it will let them save on costs related to user-license costs. However, this should be balanced with the fact that switching to Odoo will probably bring down you software costs significantly, as Odoo aims to offer an all-in-one solution for various types of businesses.

All in all, it really comes down to whether or not you have technical user in-house on your team to ensure a safe deployment of you Odoo EC instance. If not, then consider EE, as it still provides an interesting value-for-money ratio.

Can I start with community and make the switch to Enterprise later?

Yes, this is technically possible. Enterprise gives you access to a private repository with the premium features.

If you have made extensive customizations to your Community database, the transition may be challenging. Much of your custom code will need to be reviewed and potentially removed, since many features come built-in with Enterprise Edition.

You'll need an integrator to help with the transition, which requires new analysis and data migration. Keep in mind that switching costs can be substantial. If you anticipate needing Enterprise features soon, it's often more efficient to start with Enterprise Edition—this can save you considerable trouble later.