We get asked on almost every implementation: “do we build the website with Odoo or separately?”. There is no answer that is right for everyone. We have built clients' websites on Odoo Website, and we have built our own (eclipseando.com, pernocta.eu, clentic.com) outside Odoo, on purpose. The decision is not made by the budget or the designer's taste; it is made by six questions that take ten minutes to answer. Here they are, with the answer that usually comes out of each.
Key idea: Odoo Website wins when the website is a shop window for the ERP: the same catalogue, the same stock, the same order, the same customer. It loses when the core of the website is something the ERP does not know how to do: a computation, thousands of generated pages, a product that is not a product.
What Odoo Website is, in two sentences
It is the Odoo module that publishes pages and, with eCommerce, a shop, using the same products, pricelists, stock, customers and orders as the rest of the ERP. A website order is a normal sales order; a registered customer sees their real orders and invoices in their portal. That, which sounds obvious, is what no external platform gives you without a connector in between.
The six questions
1. Is what you sell an ERP product?
If you sell items with a reference, price, stock and variants, yes. There Odoo Website is the default choice: the product page is the product, the cart is the order, and there is nothing to sync because there are not two systems. If what you sell is a custom-configured service, a subscription with its own logic, or a computed result (like a page per municipality with the time of an eclipse), the ERP has no object for that and the website would have to invent it. In that case it is almost always better to build it separately and connect it to Odoo only for invoicing.
2. How many pages does the site have and who writes them?
Dozens or hundreds of pages written by people: Odoo Website, no hesitation. The block editor is enough for marketing to publish without touching code. Thousands of pages generated from data, each with its own URL and computed content: that is a static site generator, not a content manager. eclipseando.com has 8,132 municipality pages and is regenerated in full in minutes; doing that inside Odoo is possible, but it is swimming against the current.
3. Where is your Odoo hosted?
This question decides more than it seems. On Odoo Online you cannot install custom modules: the website will be what Odoo Website does out of the box plus what Studio allows. If your design needs a custom template or an integration that does not exist, you either move to Odoo.sh or your own server, or build the website separately. On Odoo.sh and on-premise there is no such limit, and a website on Odoo with a custom module for the theme and integrations is a very solid option.
4. In how many languages, and how demanding?
Odoo Website translates pages and products and serves each language under its URL prefix; for two or three languages with human-translated content it works well. Where it gets complicated is when each language needs different pages (not the same ones translated), or when there are seven languages with hundreds of pages each and you want tests that check no version is missing. That we do outside, with one route per language and automatic checks in the build. It is what pernocta.eu has, in nine languages.
5. Who manufactures and who ships?
If you ship from your own warehouse with ordinary carriers, Odoo Website plus a carrier connector solves the whole thing: the web order creates the delivery, the delivery generates the label and tracking goes back to the customer. If an external supplier ships, with its own API or none, or you sell on demand with a manufacturer that prints on payment, those integrations can be done as an Odoo module, but sometimes they are simpler as a small API next to your own website. We tell it in detail in the eclipseando.com case.
6. Who will maintain the website a year from now?
If the answer is “the same person who runs Odoo”, a website on Odoo Website is one more screen of a system they already know, with the same backups and the same version upgrade. If the answer is “a marketing agency that does not touch the ERP”, a separate website, with its own repository and deployment, will give them more freedom and you fewer scares: nobody edits a production ERP template to change a banner.
The summary in a table
| If your case is… | Usual recommendation |
|---|---|
| Normal catalogue, own stock, ordinary carriers, Odoo.sh or on-premise | Odoo Website + eCommerce + carrier connector. |
| The same, but on Odoo Online with a custom design | Odoo Website if the design fits in Studio; otherwise a separate website connected to the ERP. |
| Thousands of computed pages, a product that is not a product | Separate website (static generator + small API); Odoo only for invoicing. |
| Corporate website without a shop, run by marketing | Either; decide by who maintains it. |
| You already have a working website and are now implementing Odoo | Do not throw it away: connect it to Odoo by API and decide in a year. |
What should not decide it
Three things we hear that are not arguments. “Odoo Website is ugly”: the design is set by whoever builds it; with a custom theme module you get whatever you want. “A separate website is faster”: a static site is, but a WordPress with thirty plugins is not, and a well-hosted Odoo Website loads perfectly well for a shop. And “that way we do not depend on Odoo”: if the catalogue, stock and orders are in Odoo, you already depend on it; a separate website only adds a connector to maintain. Real independence only exists when the core of the business is not the ERP, and then yes, the website goes outside.
Frequently asked questions
Can you start with Odoo Website and move the site out later?
Yes, and it is the route we recommend when in doubt: products, customers and orders already live in Odoo, so a later external website only needs to read them by API. What you lose is the content of pages edited in Odoo, which has to be migrated; that is why it is best not to pile up hundreds of pages before deciding.
Is Odoo Website good for SEO?
Yes: titles, descriptions, clean URLs, sitemap, prefixed languages and product structured data come out of the box. What decides rankings is the content and the hosting speed, not the CMS. Where a static generator wins is with thousands of pages generated from data.
And if I have Shopify and am implementing Odoo?
Do not change both at once. Connect Shopify to Odoo with a connector so stock and orders live in the ERP, stabilise the implementation, and decide on the website after a few months with data. We explain it in Odoo or Shopify for operations and stock.
Useful links inside FlexigoTech
Website on Odoo or separate? Answer us the six questions
Tell us what you sell, where your Odoo is hosted, in how many languages and who will maintain it. We will send back a recommendation with its reasons, not a blind quote. Email comercial@flexigobe.com or call +34 616 809 504.