Self-hosted Odoo or ERPNext on a VPS your business controls.

Step 1: Order the VPS and install Docker

Pick Ubuntu 24.04 or Debian 13 during ordering; the server is online 30-60 seconds after payment. Add your SSH key through cloud-init, then install Docker with the script the Docker project publishes.

apt update && apt upgrade -y && apt install -y ufw restic
ufw allow OpenSSH && ufw allow 80,443/tcp && ufw enable
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
mkdir -p /srv/odoo/{config,addons,backups} && cd /srv/odoo

Step 2: The compose file: Odoo, Postgres and Caddy

The official image on Docker Hub reads its database settings from environment variables. Pin the major version you intend to run and change the password.

# /srv/odoo/compose.yaml
services:
  db:
    image: postgres:16
    environment: { POSTGRES_DB: postgres, POSTGRES_USER: odoo, POSTGRES_PASSWORD: change-me }
    volumes: [db:/var/lib/postgresql/data]
  odoo:
    image: odoo:18
    depends_on: [db]
    environment: { HOST: db, USER: odoo, PASSWORD: change-me }
    volumes: [odoo:/var/lib/odoo, ./config:/etc/odoo, ./addons:/mnt/extra-addons]
  caddy:
    image: caddy:2
    ports: ["80:80", "443:443"]
    volumes: [./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile, caddy:/data]
volumes: { db: {}, odoo: {}, caddy: {} }

Step 3: Workers, proxy mode and the Caddyfile

Odoo runs single-threaded until you set workers, and with workers on it moves websocket traffic to port 8072. Both go in config/odoo.conf; the Caddyfile routes accordingly and fetches a Let's Encrypt certificate on first start.

# /srv/odoo/config/odoo.conf
[options]
proxy_mode = True
workers = 3
max_cron_threads = 1
db_maxconn = 32
admin_passwd = change-me-too

# /srv/odoo/Caddyfile
erp.example.com {
  reverse_proxy /websocket odoo:8072
  reverse_proxy odoo:8069
}

docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f odoo

Point the A and AAAA records for erp.example.com at the VPS first. Then open the site and create the database. After that, add list_db = False to odoo.conf and restart, so the database manager is no longer public.

Step 4: ERPNext instead: the frappe_docker route

ERPNext ships its own compose setup in the frappe_docker repository. The single-server file brings up MariaDB, Redis, the web workers, the scheduler and a site in one go.

git clone https://github.com/frappe/frappe_docker && cd frappe_docker
docker compose -f pwd.yml up -d
docker compose -f pwd.yml logs -f create-site

When the create-site container finishes, the site answers on port 8080. Put Caddy in front exactly as above, pointing at that port, and change the default Administrator password before you add users.

Step 5: Backups you can restore

An ERP backup is two things: the database dump and the filestore with attachments. Dump nightly, push both off the server with restic, and restore once on a scratch VPS to prove it works.

# /etc/cron.daily/odoo-backup
#!/bin/sh
cd /srv/odoo
docker compose exec -T db pg_dump -U odoo -Fc odoo > backups/odoo-$(date +%F).dump
docker run --rm -v odoo_odoo:/src:ro -v /srv/odoo/backups:/dst alpine \
  tar czf /dst/filestore-$(date +%F).tgz -C /src .
restic -r sftp:backup@BACKUP_HOST:/odoo backup /srv/odoo/backups
find backups -mtime +7 -delete

Step 6: Upgrades, minor and major

Minor updates are a pull and a restart: docker compose pull && docker compose up -d. Major Odoo versions are a different job. Community has no push-button upgrade path; the usual route is the OpenUpgrade project, and it deserves a copy of the database on a second VPS before you touch production. The Odoo site lists supported versions.