5–18 seconds to respond
Hi everyone,
I run a company that recently implemented an ERP system through a local ERP vendor/implementer.
When the system was initially presented to us, my understanding was that their ERP was developed largely in-house. However, after we started going live and experienced serious performance issues, I discovered that the system is actually built on Odoo 14 with a significant number of custom-developed modules.
The biggest problem right now is performance.
Many normal operations take around 5–18 seconds to respond, sometimes longer. The vendor acknowledges the problem and says they are working on optimization, but so far the system still feels very slow for everyday ERP use.
What concerns me even more is the technology behind it.
Odoo 14 was released in 2020 and, as I understand it, is already outside Odoo's standard support window, while Odoo 20 has now been released.
When I asked the implementer about this, they explained that many of the modules are developed and maintained by their own team, so according to them this should not be a major issue.
This actually makes me more concerned rather than less.
My questions to people who have experience with Odoo or ERP implementations are:
- Is it reasonable in 2026 for a new ERP implementation to still be based on Odoo 14?
- If many modules are heavily customized by the implementer, how can a customer independently verify the security, code quality, stability, and maintainability of those modules?
- Could running on an old Odoo version itself contribute significantly to slow response times, or is 5–10 second response time more likely caused by poor customization, database queries, server configuration, infrastructure, or implementation architecture?
- What kind of performance benchmarks should I ask the vendor to provide? For example, API response time, database query time, server processing time, browser/network timing, concurrent-user testing, etc.
- Should I ask for an independent code review / security audit / performance audit by another Odoo specialist?
- What documentation should I require from the implementer regarding the source code, custom modules, dependencies, security updates, database structure, and future upgrade path?
- Finally, if the ERP is heavily customized on Odoo 14, how difficult or expensive could it become to eventually migrate to Odoo 18, 19, or 20?
I am not trying to blame the implementer. I simply want to understand whether this is a normal situation or whether there are some serious technical red flags that I should address before our company becomes too dependent on the system.
Any advice from Odoo developers, ERP consultants, system architects, or companies that have gone through a similar situation would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
WilsonW