If you’re evaluating ERP systems for your business, you’ve likely come across Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Odoo.
Dynamics 365 is Microsoft’s enterprise suite. It’s built for organisations that rely on structured processes and global standardisation.
Odoo takes a different approach: it’s an open-source ERP designed for flexibility, fast rollout, and modular growth across departments.
Here’s how the two compare once you look past feature lists and see how they work for different types of organisations.
The short answer: Odoo or Microsoft Dynamics 365?
The bottom line is that it depends on how much you want to spend, how your organisation operates, and how much flexibility or standardisation you need.
In summary, this is the Odoo vs Microsoft Dynamics 356 leaderboard:
Feature | Odoo | Dynamics 365 |
Lower & transparent cost, with all apps included *TCO: £2,475 / 2,866€ per month | Higher cost, with multi-module add-ons *TCO: £7,925.00 / 8,880€ per month | |
Open-source with flexible deployment & control, strong community | Vendor lock-in, proprietary managed cloud and restricted support | |
Strong for rapid growth and easy implementation | Strong for enterprise scale | |
Total freedom & open-source code |
Restricted & low-code | |
Open, adaptable to all LLMs & business use cases | Proprietary and constrained to Copilot | |
~100 fiscal localisation packages, more flexible and adaptable for fast adjustments | Built-in global compliance & standardised control |
*Comparison based on equal setup (users, plans, hosting, features); implementation, customisation, and maintenance costs excluded.
Win
Loss
Tie
The long answer: Odoo vs Microsoft Dynamics 365 feature breakdown
Comparing ERPs can be tricky when they are built on two fundamentally different philosophies.
Odoo prioritises openness, flexibility, and scalability.
Dynamics 365 focuses on depth, enterprise integration, and global standardisation.
Without a solid side-by-side comparison, you won't know how to judge what the best choice is for you, so we broke down where each system stands out.
Pricing
Odoo and Microsoft Dynamics 365 operate under different pricing models.
To have an accurate comparison, we benchmarked both against the same number of users, licence plans, hosting type, and features.
FYI: The comparison is made on baseline software costs and doesn’t include any costs associated with implementation, customisation, integration, maintenance, etc.
Users: 50
Licence type: Odoo Enterprise Custom Plan (annual subscription). This is an all-inclusive, per-user fee that provides access to every Odoo application, costing £25.96 / 29.90€ per user/month.
Hosting: Odoo.sh (PaaS). This is the required paid cloud hosting platform for advanced enterprise functions like multi-company operations, external API use, and installing custom or third-party applications, costing £1,180 / 1,371€ per month.
Features: All 70+ Odoo apps are included, covering Finance, Inventory, Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management (SCM), CRM, HR, Payroll, Website, eCommerce, Project Management, and Field Service.
Extras: The licence includes Odoo Studio for no-code customisation, multi-company management, and external API access.
Total monthly cost (estimated): £2,475 / 2,866€
Users: 50
Licence type: Base + Attach Model, includes D365 Business Central Premium (Base) and required application licences for HR, Sales Enterprise, and Project Operations (Attach), plus D365 Marketing (Tenant Licence).
Base licence price (BC Premium): £76.90 / 98.30€ per user/month.
Total Attach/Tenant cost (HR, Sales, Project, Marketing): £4,080 / 6,166€ per month (for all 50 users, before Business Central Base).
Hosting: Microsoft Azure (SaaS). Hosting, platform maintenance, security, and updates are all included within the subscription price.
Features: Includes the core ERP functions of Business Central Premium (covering Finance, SCM, Inventory, and Manufacturing), supplemented by dedicated applications for Human Resources, Sales Enterprise, Project Operations, and Marketing.
Extras: Core integration with Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Teams) and the initial capabilities of the Power Platform (Power BI and Power Apps) are included.
Total monthly cost (estimated): £7,925.00 / 8,880€
In a nutshell
Dynamics 365 offers strong enterprise features, but they’re split across multiple paid modules. You would need to purchase additional modules for HR, Sales, Projects, etc., on top of the Business Central license. This quickly drives up the total cost.
Odoo offers a single licence that includes the entire business suite. This includes over 70+ integrated apps that cover all basic ERP processes down to specific workflows. It costs 4x less than Dynamics 365 while staying transparent, accessible, and easy to implement.
Hosting & technical support
Odoo operates on an open-source model with a freely available Community Edition and a paid Enterprise version.
Businesses can work in Odoo online, Odoo.sh, self-host on their own servers, or work with external providers to host on-premise. This flexibility provides maximum control but demands technical oversight, especially around updates, backups, and security.
Support is available through a global partner network and Odoo’s own Enterprise service, as well as a vast online community of users.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a fully proprietary cloud-first solution that runs on Microsoft Azure.
All infrastructure, security, and compliance aspects are managed by Microsoft, which gives users reliability and regulatory assurance out of the box.
Support is formalised and globally consistent through Microsoft’s partner ecosystem, but users are locked into the vendor’s infrastructure and roadmap.
In a nutshell
Odoo gives you deployment flexibility and control, which is ideal if you have technical capability or want to avoid vendor lock-in.
Dynamics 365 gives you reliability, compliance, and hands-off maintenance, which is better suited for organisations that would rather outsource infrastructure and depend on a vendor-managed environment.
Business scalability
Odoo is designed for SMEs that need to adapt to rapid growth.
Its modular approach allows businesses to start small and rely on software that expands with them. For instance, they can add Sales, Inventory, and Accounting at first and gradually add more apps like Manufacturing or HR.
Vertically, Odoo can scale to support large user bases of up to 10K users.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is built for enterprises and multinational corporations.
Its modules (e.g. Finance & Supply Chain) are designed to handle complex, high-volume operations.
With Azure as its foundation, Dynamics 365 delivers enterprise-level scalability and global reach.
In a nutshell
Odoo works best for SMEs between 20 and 5,000 employees that are quickly scaling and need to easily add functions as they go, to stay flexible in how they operate.
Dynamics 365 is ideal for corporations that manage complex processes across countries or divisions and need a ready-made platform that can handle it all from day one.
Customisation & flexibility
Odoo’s open-source foundation gives companies total freedom to shape the system to their needs.
Developers can edit the source code, create custom modules, or build new features from scratch.
For simpler cases, Odoo Studio allows drag-and-drop changes without technical knowledge.
Dynamics 365 uses Microsoft’s Power Platform for customisation, a low-code environment that lets teams automate workflows or design small apps without changing the core system.
This approach keeps everything stable during updates but makes deep customisation more restrictive.
In a nutshell
Odoo gives full customisation freedom for tailoring the system to unique business processes. This flexibility is powerful but requires careful planning to keep upgrades manageable.
Dynamics 365 offers system integrity but restricted flexibility. It’s best for enterprises that want control without getting into custom development. This, however, makes system adaptation for specific business use cases and unique processes difficult.
AI
Odoo’s AI capabilities are still developing but improving quickly with every release, with Odoo 19 releasing a fully integrated AI app.
Odoo is open-source, and it lets the user adapt various LLM models to their specific AI use case. It can also be integrated with thousands of AI apps developed by the Odoo community.
This gives businesses total flexibility in implementing AI in their ERP.
Microsoft’s core AI capabilities are mature and tightly integrated with Copilot, Microsoft’s native AI.
However, this all runs on the proprietary Azure AI infrastructure. This network locks users into committing to Microsoft's specific AI models and licensing, which takes away flexibility when adapting AI in ERP to specific business needs.
In a nutshell
Dynamics 365 includes native AI with Copilot, but Microsoft’s proprietary approach limits how much you can customise it for your business.
Odoo also offers growing AI capabilities. Being open-source, it lets businesses use any AI model and adapt workflows freely, avoiding vendor lock-in.
Global compliance & multi-entity management
Odoo supports multi-company structures within one database.
It offers ~100 fiscal localisation packages out of the box, which include tax rules and legal compliance. When needed, official Oddo Partners can also create API connectors to regional accounting software to extend standard coverage.
Dynamics 365 includes built-in support for multi-entity operations, currencies, and tax frameworks across major markets.
Microsoft maintains official localisations and compliance standards globally, backed by Azure’s enterprise-level certifications (ISO, SOC, GDPR, and more).
In a nutshell
Odoo works well for regional or multi-company structures that need flexibility and faster adjustments to country-specific tax and reporting changes.
Dynamics 365 provides built-in global compliance and standardised control, which is essential for multinational corporations that prioritise centralisation over flexibility.
Let’s discuss if Odoo is the right ERP for your business
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