So far I have been hosting a few hobby projects on my home server for fun and am really happy with how well everything is working. Running nextcloud, jellyfin, home assistant, a few personal websites, immich and some others each in a separate docker container behind an nginx reverse Proxy, some of them accessible from outside via domain (luckily I managed to get a static IP for free from my ISP), some only internally.
Now in a few months I am maybe going to take over a small bar with a partner and have been looking into ERP/PoS/Inventory management systems and found Odoo which looks really cool. Managed to set it up very quickly via Docker and played around with it. Self-hosting seems to be completely free (unless you need some enterprise apps which I have not yet seen any need for) and open source, while using their service Odoo Online starts at 19.90€/user/month.
However, I am a little unsure about hosting important business infrastructure on a regular, self-maintained home server. I’m thinking in particular about availability, data security, DDoS-protection, back-up plan, OS-updates, etc. Would using a VPS or dedicated server be a better option and solve some of these concerns? Or would you recommend using a managed hosting provider like Odoo Online?
Also wondering if using Odoo in general is overkill for a small bar/kiosk, and if I should look for simpler options, so I’m happy to hear some experiences :)
Source: Odoo admin and consultant I’d 100% go with a VPS. You can check out cloudpepper for a nice hosting platform, it’s a management layer over your own VPS that just simplifies a lot of things ( addon management, installation, etc) If you ever plan to grow even the slightest, you’ll find Odoo online restrictive as no third-party modules can be installed. No custom Python code either. If you are serious about ERP, talk to a local partner. Try to find one that has experience with your activity sector and don’t get fooled by the partner level (learning, ready, silver, gold). These are based on # of entreprise licences sold by that partner (and also # of certified employees, but that’s secondary). A smaller partner with retail experience will be better for you.
Feel free to DM me questions you have, I’m happy to share my experience!