Odoo comes in two editions, and the difference between them is one of the most misunderstood things in the ERP market. It matters for a plain reason: one edition is free of licence fees and the other is a paid subscription, so confusing them can cost you money.
This is a short, factual account of what separates the two. We have left out prices, app counts and version numbers on purpose. They change, and Odoo's own website is the place to check them.
What Community is
Odoo Community is open source. Anyone may download it, install it on their own server and use it without paying Odoo a licence fee. It is real software, not a trial and not a demo: it covers the core of sales, purchasing, inventory, invoicing, point of sale and more. Free of licence fees does not mean free to run, though. Somebody still has to host it, secure it, back it up and move it to a newer version when the time comes, and that work is yours or your partner's.
What Enterprise adds
Odoo Enterprise is a paid subscription, priced per user. It is built on top of Community rather than beside it, so everything in Community is there, and the subscription adds to it:
- Further apps and features, among them the full accounting application and Studio, the tool for adjusting screens and fields without writing code
- Support from Odoo itself
- Upgrades from one version to the next
- The option of Odoo's own hosting, Odoo Online or Odoo.sh, in place of running a server yourself
The question that actually decides it
Owners tend to ask which edition is better. The useful question is narrower: which apps does my business need, and are they in Community? Write the list first. If the business needs full accounting inside the same system as sales and stock, that points to Enterprise. If it needs a small number of core apps, has somebody technical to look after a server, and is content without official support, Community can be a sound choice. Neither edition is the wrong one in general. Either can be the wrong one for you.
Decide on the list of apps you need, not on the name of the edition.
Community at an Enterprise price
Here is the risk worth knowing about. Because Community costs nothing to obtain, a reseller can install it, describe it as Enterprise, and charge a licence fee that never reaches Odoo. The screens look similar enough that a first-time buyer would not notice. The buyer finds out later: when a feature they were promised is not there, when official support turns out not to exist, or when an upgrade is needed and nobody is entitled to one.
None of this makes Community suspect. Selling Community honestly, as Community, with a fair fee for installation and support, is legitimate work. The problem is only the mislabelling.
How to check what you were sold
An Enterprise subscription is an agreement between your company and Odoo, even when a partner arranged it. So it leaves a trail you can ask to see:
- The subscription details from Odoo, issued in your company's name rather than the reseller's
- The number of users and the period the subscription covers
- Confirmation that the database you work in is the one registered against that subscription
A partner who sold you the genuine thing will produce these without fuss. If the answer is vague, or the paperwork carries somebody else's name, ask again in writing. You can also contact Odoo directly and ask whether your company holds a subscription.
Whichever edition you end up with, you should be able to say which one it is, and to show the paper that proves it.