Odoo comes in two editions. Community is free and open-source. Enterprise is a paid subscription that adds applications, features and services. Choosing the right one early saves money and avoids a disruptive switch later.
The key differences
| Area | Community | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | No licence fee | Per-user subscription |
| Accounting | Invoicing and basic accounting | Full accounting with advanced reports and localisations |
| Additional apps | Core business apps | Extra apps such as Studio, advanced HR, helpdesk, field service and more |
| Hosting | Self-hosted | Odoo Online, Odoo.sh or self-hosted |
| Upgrades | Community tools or partner-led | Official upgrade service included |
Choose Community if…
- Your needs centre on sales, purchasing, inventory and invoicing.
- You have a partner (like us) to host, customise and maintain it.
- Budget is the main constraint and you are comfortable with self-hosting.
Choose Enterprise if…
- You need full accounting, advanced localisations or specific Enterprise apps.
- You want official upgrades and managed hosting options like Odoo.sh.
- You expect to grow quickly and want the broadest feature set.
The hidden factor: total cost of ownership
Licence cost is only part of the picture. Features missing from Community sometimes have to be custom-built or bought as third-party apps, and those need maintaining at every upgrade. A good partner will compare the three-to-five-year cost of both options for your scope, not just the first-year licence.
Exact features and prices are set by Odoo S.A. and change between versions, so always confirm current details. We can do this comparison for you, free.