Free tierLGPL-3.0 for Community, Enterprise is proprietaryPythonSelf hostable

Odoo

The open source business suite for accounting, sales, stock and more

Alternative toSAPNetSuiteQuickBooks

Odoo is a set of business apps (accounting, invoicing, CRM, sales, inventory, manufacturing, point of sale, website) that share one database, in the role SAP, NetSuite or QuickBooks play for many companies. The Community edition is LGPL-3.0 and free to self host, while the Enterprise edition and the Odoo Online cloud are proprietary and sold per user.

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Best for when

you run a small business on a pile of disconnected tools and spreadsheets
you want accounting, stock and sales on one database you control
you have a developer, or a partner, who can customise Python modules

Watch out for

the full accounting app, Studio and many local tax modules are Enterprise only, so Community may not cover your legal needs
major version upgrades on a self hosted Community instance are hard and often need paid help
an ERP touches every part of a company, so a rushed rollout fails for organisational reasons, not technical ones

One system instead of five subscriptions

A small company often ends up with an accounting tool, a CRM, a stock spreadsheet and an online shop that do not talk to each other. Odoo covers all of these as modules on one PostgreSQL database, so a sales order can reserve stock, create an invoice and post the accounting entry without anyone copying numbers between tools.

Compared with QuickBooks it does far more than bookkeeping, and compared with SAP or NetSuite it is much cheaper to start and much easier to try: install the Community edition, enable the two or three apps you need, and add more later. It is written in Python, and the module system means a developer can extend it without forking the core.

Community versus Enterprise, and what switching costs

The line between the editions matters. Community gives you invoicing, CRM, sales, inventory, manufacturing and the website builder. Several things companies expect sit only in the proprietary Enterprise edition: the full accounting app with bank synchronisation and reports, Studio for building screens without code, the official mobile apps, and many country specific e-invoicing and tax modules. Check your country's localisation before you plan around Community.

The real cost of an ERP is the migration and the people, not the license. Moving charts of accounts, open invoices and stock levels from another system takes careful work, and many companies pay an Odoo partner for it. Self hosting also means you own major version upgrades, which are notoriously hard on Community because Odoo's own upgrade service is aimed at Enterprise customers.

Last checked: 2026-10-25.md