Introduction
Search online for “Why Odoo is bad” and you will find no shortage of frustrated comments:
- “Odoo is slow and buggy”
- “Odoo is a nightmare to customize”
- “Odoo almost killed our operations”
- “Worst ERP decision we ever made”
At first glance, it sounds like Odoo itself is the problem.
Yet, after reviewing and rescuing dozens of Odoo projects, one thing becomes clear: most failed Odoo projects do not fail because of Odoo. They fail because of how Odoo is implemented, customized, and governed over time.
This article takes a deliberately honest look at why Odoo projects fail, why users end up hating the system, and how these costly mistakes can be avoided.
“Odoo is bad” is rarely the real problem
When projects collapse, blame usually goes to:
- the software
- performance issues
- missing features
But these are almost always symptoms, not root causes.
In the vast majority of failed projects, the real problems are:
- poor architectural decisions
- uncontrolled customization
- weak integration design
- lack of long-term ownership
Odoo is flexible. That flexibility is both its strength and its biggest risk.
The silent killer: no clear ownership
One of the most common failure patterns is the absence of clear ownership.
When no one truly owns:
- business requirements
- data models
- integrations
- technical decisions
the project slowly drifts.
Custom modules pile up. Integrations become fragile. Nobody fully understands the system anymore. When something breaks, responsibility is unclear, and fixes become risky and expensive.
Successful Odoo projects always have clear functional ownership and strong technical accountability.
Over-customization that starts “just this once”
Almost every failed project started with good intentions.
It usually sounds like this:
- “It’s just one extra field”
- “It’s just one specific workflow”
- “This exception is mandatory for our business”
Taken individually, these requests seem reasonable. Accumulated over time, they lead to:
- blocked or painful upgrades
- fragile codebases
- performance degradation
- exploding maintenance costs
This is where some partners make a critical mistake. Instead of challenging requirements, they implement everything directly inside Odoo, because it feels faster in the short term.
Short-term comfort almost always creates long-term pain.
Poor integration architecture breaks everything else
Many disappointed users complain that “Odoo doesn’t integrate well”. In reality, Odoo integrations are often poorly designed.
Typical mistakes include:
- no clear data ownership between systems
- synchronous calls everywhere
- business logic duplicated across tools
- no monitoring or error recovery
Because Odoo usually sits at the center of the ecosystem, weak integrations quickly destabilize the entire operation.
A solid API-first architecture avoids this. It allows Odoo to remain stable while complexity lives in dedicated services around it. We cover this approach in detail in a dedicated article about our API-driven architecture.
Data migration: the fastest way to lose user trust
Data migration is often rushed, underestimated, or delegated too late.
The result is predictable:
- unreliable reports
- incorrect stock levels
- broken accounting history
- users losing trust in the system
Once users stop trusting the data, the ERP is effectively dead, even if it works technically.
A system with clean code and bad data is still a failed project.
When fixing is more expensive than restarting
At Dasolo, we regularly take over Odoo projects started by other partners.
In some cases, trying to fix existing mistakes would cost more than restarting the project from scratch with the right foundations.
This is often hard to accept for clients, but it is also the most honest recommendation we can make.
Strong foundations from the start are worth more than years of patching bad decisions.
Yes, the client also has a role to play
Not all failures are caused by partners or technical decisions.
End clients also play a critical role:
- being available for workshops
- documenting real business processes
- validating decisions instead of postponing them
- assigning internal ownership
An ERP cannot succeed if it is treated as a black box delegated entirely to an external provider.
Successful projects are collaborations, not handovers.
How to avoid costly Odoo mistakes
Avoiding failure is not about more tools or more customization. It is about discipline.
Successful projects consistently rely on:
- clear scope and priorities
- controlled customization
- strong API-based integration architecture
- realistic upgrade strategies
- continuous governance after go-live
These principles dramatically reduce long-term risk.
How we approach Odoo projects at Dasolo
At Dasolo, we design Odoo projects as long-term systems, not quick implementations.
Our approach focuses on:
- strong technical foundations
- clean API-driven architectures
- clear separation between ERP logic and custom services
- systems that remain understandable years later
This approach is also what allows us to deliver stable, scalable projects, as shown in our case studies
Conclusion
Odoo projects rarely fail because of Odoo.
They fail because of early structural mistakes, short-term decisions, and lack of long-term ownership. When those mistakes accumulate, users understandably conclude that “Odoo is bad”.
With the right architecture, governance, and discipline from day one, Odoo can remain reliable, scalable, and maintainable for many years.
And when it is not, restarting with strong foundations is often the smartest move.