Why Odoo Feels Slow in Large Enterprises (and How to Fix It)

Over the years, in my journey as an Odoo implementer and developer, I’ve worked with several companies—some of them mid-sized, others very large—that made a bold and strategic decision to adopt Odoo as their ERP system.

And yet, in many of those implementations, the same complaint eventually emerges:
"Odoo is just too slow."

This recurring frustration has little to do with Odoo itself and much more to do with how it's implemented and maintained. In nearly every case, a deeper technical review reveals a few common culprits.

1. Poor Development Practices
Custom modules and extensions are often built without regard for scalability or performance. Common issues include:

• Redundant or copy-pasted code across modules

• Inefficient use of the ORM, especially writing in a way that triggers unnecessary queries

• Calling .search() or .browse() inside for loops, resulting in N+1 query problems

• Ignoring the power of batch operations or failing to use read_group, sudo(), or prefetching properly

These are more than just bad habits—they are performance killers, especially when the database grows into the millions of records.

2. DevOps Negligence
Performance issues aren’t just about code. They also stem from weak infrastructure and maintenance strategies:

• No proper database partitioning or sharding

• Lack of scheduled VACUUM or ANALYZE jobs, which can make PostgreSQL queries slower over time

• Poor logging and monitoring, meaning slow queries go undetected until it's too late

• Inadequate scaling of workers or improper tuning of the Odoo configuration parameters (e.g., limit_memory_soft, workers, etc.)

Odoo needs a robust DevOps backbone, especially in production environments with heavy concurrent users.

Practical Tips to Optimize Odoo at Scale
If you’re running Odoo with large datasets or anticipating future growth, consider the following:

• Avoid excessive computed fields, or make them store=True with proper indexing

• Move heavy operations to scheduled jobs (e.g., cron) instead of doing them in the UI

• Profile your code regularly using tools like auto_profile or Odoo's built-in logs

• Use PostgreSQL EXPLAIN to analyze slow queries and add missing indexes

• Segment large models (e.g., splitting account.move or stock.move by year)

• Review third-party modules—they’re often the source of silent inefficiencies

Final Thought
Odoo is not inherently slow.

But like any powerful tool, it requires discipline, expertise, and long-term thinking to scale well in complex business environments. If you invest in quality development, proactive DevOps, and performance monitoring from day one, Odoo can absolutely meet the demands of a modern enterprise.