1. Mailing Lists
  2. Contributors
  3. Re: Odoo -- Community v Enterprise Questions

Contributors mailing list archives

contributors@odoo-community.org

Browse archives

Re: Odoo -- Community v Enterprise Questions

Re: Odoo -- Community v Enterprise Questions

Avatar

Re: Odoo -- Community v Enterprise Questions

by
dev
- 08/02/2023 03:45:54

Hi all, I'm new to this list, but I've been self-hosting Odoo for about a year now (first Community V15 and recently Enterprise V16).

As some have noted, Odoo have changed their fees and made things cheaper for V16.  It used to be that you had to pay for each app in a very confusing manner.
I checked it about a year ago and noped back out. I'm not into confusing pricing structures or closed source apps.

However, for V16 they have simplified the payment structure. It's now around $160 per year for each enterprise user, and that gives you access to all apps.
It's now "source available": Once you buy a subscription, you can enter the code on this page to download the Enterprise source code as a zip file:

https://www.odoo.com/page/download

Not quite open source, but you don't need to be an Odoo partner. I don't know if that's a recent change.
For my use case, I only need one user - I'm essentially using it as a fancy POS app, and staff can use that as Portal users, so they don't need paid accounts. I planned to use it for accounting, but now I just export to excel once a month and send those to our accountant (more on that below).

In terms of usage, installing the Enterprise version from source using Docker is complicated and poorly documented. But doable and in my opinion if you only need a couple of users it's worth the money compared to trying to get feature parity using the OCA modules. As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, the OCA repos are a lot to take in, and there's scarcely any READMEs or docs telling you what the modules do. I made a huge mess out of trying to add OCA modules to V15 Community and (aside from the complicated install), having all the features automatically available through Enterprise is worth a few hundred dollars a year.

That's the positive side.
On the negative side, I have not had a good experience with Odoo support. I cannot post anything on the official forum because they have crazy karma requirements to even comment. I have no idea how to get karma, and wasted an entire afternoon trying to figure it out. So I can't get any help that way. Given that there are years worth of threads of people with the same complaint, and hardly any activity on the forum, it kinda feels like they don't want people to use it. I've never come across a forum this locked down before, especially not for an app that I pay for. I've moderated forums before and there is no way they need to do this for spam control, that excuse makes no sense.

Next, I tried emailing support. I asked them about how to add more users to the subscription. It took about two weeks to get a reply, and they just said once I add more users, Odoo will update my subscription automatically.
(so BTW, yes, Odoo Enterprise does phone home. I found the chron job, it's about once a week and logs the number of users and their type (internal, portal, and whether they logged in recently). I don't think it logs any other data. I'm not happy about any kind of data logging from my business, and again, they are not upfront about it. But it's also not data I mind being logged, so I decided to be ok with it).

I replied and asked, "What if I add ten new users on the last month of my yearly subscription, would you charge me a full year for all ten users?".
They never responded and closed the ticket - and sent me a survey asking if I was happy with the experience. So I guess the answer to my question was a "yes" but they didn't want to say it. Which I'm also not happy about. Payment terms should always be clear. When I feel that a business is trying to hide their payment terms it always gives me a bad feeling about them (maybe I'm being unfair here though, I guess the ticket could have been closed in error).  

Besides that, one of the main reasons I forked out for Enterprise was that the docs clearly state the Enterprise Accounting module supports fiscal localization for my country (Vietnam). It does not.
There is a "Fiscal Localization" package for Vietnam. However, it's not complete and doesn't add much that's useful, from what I can see. In fact, it confused the hell out of both me and my accountant, and we lost probably two weeks of work trying to figure this out (trying to work it out, then trying to contact Odoo support and Odoo Vietnam partners etc.).
Odoo support confirmed that it's a work in progress because, quote: "The Vietnamese accounting system is complicated".
So unless your country uses IFRS, I wouldn't expect to be able to use Odoo Enterprise Accounting.

To sum up: my review is mixed. The Enterprise package is worth it, but only if you only need one or two users. And Odoo support are not gonna help you with anything, they'll just take your money and run. Maybe I would have a different experience if I had a hundred users.

Final note: there will be bugs. Both Enterprise and Community editions. Don't use Odoo unless you're willing to be the IT person for your company, or have such a person. If you don't want to take that on, work with an Odoo partner or use the hosted version.

Have a great day everyone,
Lewy

On 31-Jan-23 11:22, Charles Gucker wrote:
Let me respond inline.

On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 8:59 PM Landis Arnold
<notifications@odoo-community.org> wrote:

> Hi,

> You can run Enterprise or Community.  If you like to "roll your own" then go with Community.  You can run as many databases and business you like.

   Understood, thank you for the response.    I will need to figure
out the intricacies associated with "running as many databases and
business[es] as [I would] like".   But with Enterprise, I can't do the
above without the additional fees associated with the user/licenses,
but I am curious about specific databases making use of the enterprise
modules/apps versus others only making use of the community edition.
Again, it will take some tinking to figure out those thresholds.


> RE enterprise, they have updated some subscription rates so you might find it more affordable.  I believe you will pay per "database and user" for Enterprise.  If you run One Database and have a small number of users and can afford the $40 or so per month license, then running Enterprise will allow you to install what you want rather than figuring out how to do what you want without the Enterprise package.

     I'm not worried about the $40 or so per month license, as long as
the modules/apps provide $40 worth of value to me.   I'm just not yet
sure of the value, again tinkering.


> Generally there are many/many Community additions to odoo.  The additions work on Community or Enterprise levels.  You can also purchase additions "apps" (Ie modules with Costs) and run them on Community or Enterprise.  https://apps.odoo.com  should be the link.

     Yes, I am aware.   It is a bit overwhelming when looking at all
of them for the first time.   I hope to be able to contribute back to
the community as I am in the benefiting stage of the interactions.
Give me a bit of time and I'll be happy to return the gesture.


> If you want to just use "OCA" apps, then you can look at:

> https://odoo-community.org/shop?&search=project status

> though best, I feel is to look at Github:

> https://https://github.com/OCA/

Yes, I've looked through the above.  Again, quite overwhelming for
those without institutional knowledge that I will only gain by using
the platform.


> It is important to know that most "repositories" on Github for OCA contain several "modules" within them, whereas the Odoo Apps and the Odoo-community.org link above are generally showing "modules only" (generally).

> It takes some time but you can work through it.

 No doubt.   I'm sure I will figure out the differences between
modules and apps in due course.


> I would be happy to help give you a tour.  I am more of a "user" than a "programmer" but if I can do builds well, my goal is to use Odoo Community plus OCA apps.  I have purchased a few and there are some good ones, but the rigorous build control of OCA is better, in my opinion, than many of the commercial addons.

> People put in a whole lot of work here and they do it because they want/and need their systems to work well and the way they need them to work.

I would really appreciate a tour.   I can be found on LinkedIN, so
please reach out and we can talk there.  From what I have been able to
find, I can see the amount of work and positive vibes that have been
put out by the community and as I said above, I would really like to
be able to contribute back, when I am in a position to do so.   It's
amazing how far the community has been able to come and can only
imagine what others have developed.   I hope to be able to count
myself as one of the people who has been able to get the system into a
place that works for all of my use cases.   It's an incredible
platform for a wide range of use cases.

Charles

_______________________________________________
Mailing-List: https://odoo-community.org/groups/contributors-15
Post to: mailto:contributors@odoo-community.org
Unsubscribe: https://odoo-community.org/groups?unsubscribe

Reference