Open core
Odoo's core is open source; depending on the project, community, enterprise and Corelane modules combine. Open APIs, exportable data – and the freedom to leave.
Architecture & technology
One source of truth.
CRM, ERP, store and communication are not synchronised systems – they are one system. Odoo on PostgreSQL is the data truth. Everything else docks on.
Why Odoo
An open core, open APIs, full data sovereignty.
PostgreSQL
The entire company state lives in one proven relational database. Consistent, transactional, restorable – one backup contains the whole company, with no database licence on your own data. A proprietary database would be a second dependency beside the application, with its own licence, specialists and upgrade calendar: S/4HANA, for instance, runs on SAP HANA. Here the question does not arise – and neither does the bill.
Python
What this buys you is commercial, not technical: you can hire for it, a second provider can read your code, and your platform does not depend on a language that exists inside one vendor's product. ABAP and AL are professions you search for; Python is one you find. It is also the language the AI ecosystem is written in – model SDKs, orchestration, vector search and the tool protocols around them are Python first, so an ERP written in Python needs no bridge to any of it. As a gauge of reach, PYPL puts it at 47.5 % worldwide and 57.3 % in Germany, ahead of Java at 11.4 % (July 2026); that index counts tutorial searches, not installed base.
Modular by design
From accounting to the warehouse: modules share one data model instead of exchanging data over interfaces.
Sources, checked August 2026: PYPL index · Odoo Community licence. PYPL counts how often tutorials for a language are searched for, so read it as reach, not as installed base.
The extended stack
The core stays lean. Intelligence docks on.
AI, search and storage run beside the core – never inside it. They read context from the platform and write back through controlled interfaces with human approval.
C
Odoo + PostgreSQL
The data truth: master data, transactions, documents and communication in one transactional context.
LangGraph
Agent orchestrationAI agents work outside the core and hand results back for human approval – steered from the Corelane AI Cockpit.
Qdrant
Vector databaseSemantic search and retrieval-augmented generation over your own documents and knowledge.
Elasticsearch
Store searchFaceted, fast product search across catalogues with 100,000+ products.
S3 object storage
Documents & assetsImages, documents and generated assets – versioned and EU-hosted.
Proxmox
VirtualisationOperations on our own European infrastructure – full control over data, backups and recovery.
Redis
Sessions & cachingFast sessions and caching for a responsive platform under load.
The AI construction kit
This is how an AI co-worker is built.
Every Corelane agent is assembled from six proven building blocks. What varies is the task – the kit stays the same.
- 01
Model
The language model is configuration, not architecture: leading providers, European alternatives or local models – interchangeable per workflow.
- 02
Skills
Reusable abilities instead of one-off builds: extraction, matching, drafting – tested once, used by many agents.
- 03
MCP servers
Controlled tool access: agents reach platform, search and data only through defined MCP interfaces – never directly. Writes take the same road: through the Odoo ORM, so access rights, validations and the audit trail apply to an agent exactly as they do to a person.
- 04
Orchestration
LangGraph teams with review loops instead of a single prompt: scouts, writers and reviewers check each other.
- 05
Knowledge & context
Retrieval from your own sources, context preserved across runs – the agent knows the case, not just the question.
- 06
Approval & operations
Every effect passes through the cockpit: people approve, budgets meter, the audit trail records.
Not a chatbot experiment: this kit produces at STASTO in daily operations.
And the interface
The layer people actually see.
The AI argument above only works if the result can appear where the work happens. That is a frontend question, so it belongs here.
Why the check can sit on the invoice
Odoo's interface is built on Owl, its own web library – lean, written in TypeScript, borrowing its component model from React and its reactivity from Vue. What matters commercially is not the name but that its source ships with the product. Any component can be patched, any view replaced. The AI-draft ribbon on the order and the check panel beside the invoice PDF exist because of that. Without it, AI results end up in a separate portal – exactly what we argue against.
And the catch, before you ask
Owl is specific to Odoo. The pool of developers who already know it is smaller than for React or Vue – you are buying into one ecosystem. Two things soften it: it is TypeScript with concepts any competent frontend developer recognises, so the ramp-up is short, and it is open source, so nobody can take it away. But it is a trade-off, and we would rather name it than have you find it.
Security architecture
Layered from the outside in.
Public traffic never reaches the core directly: it is filtered at the edge, passes a hardened security layer and only then reaches the platform.
Internet
Public traffic
Edge protection
Filtering & WAF
Security layer
Firewall, reverse proxy and VPN for locations
Platform core
Not directly reachable from the internet
Odoo platformSearchAI servicesData & backups
The core stays private
Every external access passes filtering and security layers before it reaches a core system.
Own operation, full control
Business-critical systems run in our own cluster on European infrastructure – data, availability and evolution stay in one hand.
Backups by design
Automated backups up to offsite copies are part of the architecture, not an add-on.
Sovereignty & governance
Your data. Your platform.
01Data stays in Europe
The platform and its data run on European infrastructure under GDPR; external AI models are swappable add-on services – never the data store.
02AI with approval
Every AI action is logged and traceable. Decisions with business impact are made by people, not models.
03Exit-capable by design
Open formats, an open-source core and your data in one database – exportable at any time.
Communication counts too
Data sovereignty gets discussed for the ERP. Mail, calendar and contacts have usually been with a cloud provider for years – although that is where the company's entire correspondence sits. At Corelane the same principle applies to them as to the rest of the platform.
An open-source stack
Postfix, Dovecot and SOGo on standard protocols – IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV, CardDAV. Outlook, Thunderbird, iOS and Android connect as usual.
Administered where the people are
Mailboxes, aliases and delegations are maintained on the employee record in Odoo instead of a second admin console. Joining and leaving stay one process.
A security gateway in front
Spam and malware filtering runs on a specialised commercial service ahead of the mail servers. Operating the transport yourself does not mean operating the threat defence yourself.
No licence per workstation
Mail and calendar are part of the platform rather than a per-seat subscription, and the mailboxes stay exportable in open formats.
At STASTO this carries 205 active mailboxes across eight domains; 106 of them are tied directly to their Odoo user.
The next step