Odoo Community vs Enterprise is the first real decision in any Odoo project. Community is free and open source; Enterprise is a paid subscription that adds apps and features on top. This guide shows which apps are in each edition (checked against the Odoo 19 source code), how Enterprise pricing is structured, and how to decide which one your business needs.
The two editions in one minute
Odoo Community is the open-source edition, published on GitHub under the LGPL v3 license. You can download it, modify it and run it on as many users as you like without paying Odoo S.A. Your costs are hosting and any developer time.
Odoo Enterprise is Community plus a set of extra modules kept in a private repository. You pay Odoo S.A. a subscription per user. Enterprise is not a different program: it is the Community code with more apps installed on top, so you can move from Community to Enterprise later without starting over.
Is Odoo free?
Yes, Odoo Community is free to use for any number of users and companies, with no time limit. Odoo also has a free Enterprise plan, One App Free, which gives unlimited users access to a single app on Odoo Online. Everything beyond that, including every self-hosted Enterprise database, needs a paid plan.
Feature comparison: Community vs Enterprise
The table lists common business needs and whether the Odoo 19 Community code includes the app. "Enterprise only" means the module is not in the public Community repository.
| Area | Community | Enterprise adds |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting | Invoicing app: customer invoices, vendor bills, payments, taxes, fiscal positions, multi-currency, country localizations | Full Accounting app, bank reconciliation, financial reports (P&L, balance sheet), automatic bank synchronization |
| Sales and CRM | CRM pipeline, lead assignment, Sales, Email Marketing | Subscriptions, Marketing Automation, Appointments |
| Inventory | Inventory, Purchase, multi-warehouse, lots and serial numbers | Barcode app for scanning receipts, transfers and deliveries |
| Manufacturing | Bills of materials, manufacturing orders, work centers, Maintenance | Shop floor (work order tablet view), Quality, PLM |
| Services | Project, Timesheets | Helpdesk, Field Service, Planning |
| HR | Employees, Time Off, Attendances, Recruitment, Expenses | Payroll, Appraisals |
| Website and sales channels | Website builder, eCommerce, Point of Sale | IoT app and IoT Box integration for POS and shop-floor devices |
| Productivity | Discuss, Calendar, Contacts | Documents, Knowledge, Sign |
| Customization | Developer mode and custom modules in Python | Studio: no-code fields, views, menus and automations |
Two things stand out. First, Community accounting is real invoicing, but bookkeeping teams usually want the Enterprise reconciliation, reports and bank feeds. Second, many Community gaps can be filled with free OCA modules or your own code, while Studio, Helpdesk and Field Service are the features people most often pay for.
What Community does well
Community is not a trial version. It runs Sales, CRM, Purchase, Inventory, Invoicing, Website, eCommerce, Point of Sale, Project, Timesheets, Employees, Time Off, Recruitment, Expenses and Manufacturing with work centers. Plenty of small product and service businesses run on it for years. Read the best Odoo apps for small business for a starter set.
Odoo Enterprise pricing
Odoo sells Enterprise in three plans. Prices are per user per month, shown in your local currency and different by country, and yearly billing costs less than monthly. Check odoo.com/pricing for the current numbers where you are.
| Plan | What you get | Where it can run |
|---|---|---|
| One App Free | One app, unlimited users, free | Odoo Online only |
| Standard | All apps, paid per user | Odoo Online only |
| Custom | All apps plus Studio, multi-company and the external API, paid per user at a higher rate | Odoo Online, Odoo.sh or on-premise |
The Custom plan is the one that matters if you want your own modules or your own hosting. It is the only plan that allows Odoo.sh or on-premise, and Odoo.sh hosting is billed on top of the license. Odoo's subscription does not cover maintaining your custom code.
How to choose
Choose Community if
- Your processes fit the Community apps in the table above, which most small product and service businesses do.
- You have a developer, or a partner, to add OCA or custom modules where you need them.
- You want no per-user license cost as your team grows.
Choose Enterprise if
- Your accountant needs bank synchronization, reconciliation and financial reports inside Odoo.
- You need Helpdesk, Field Service, Planning, Payroll, Barcode or Quality.
- Non-developers will customize screens and automations with Studio.
- You use an IoT Box for POS or manufacturing hardware.
Not sure? Start on Community, set it up for your real processes, and list the gaps. If an Enterprise app closes a gap that would otherwise cost developer time every month, the license usually pays for itself.
Hosting either edition
Where you host affects which edition you can run. Odoo Online and Odoo.sh run Enterprise only, while a self-managed server or a managed host can run either. The how to host Odoo guide compares the options, and Easy Instance vs Odoo.sh covers the Git-based setups.
Easy Instance runs Odoo 17 to 20 in either edition, with GitHub deploys, daily backups and monitoring included and staging copies on demand, at $30 per worker a month and no per-user fees (pricing). Enterprise needs your own valid subscription from Odoo S.A. To compare the editions on your own data, start a 10-day free trial, no credit card needed.