Using an Odoo SaaS trial database
This can be the simplest way to get started. No need to actually install anything for now, just go to https://www.odoo.com/ and create a free trial database. The Odoo Cloud software as a service (SaaS) is based on the enterprise edition (EE), with additional, exclusive, intermediate version releases. Other than the trial, at the time of writing it also offers a free plan: databases with only one application installed are free to use. The SaaS service runs vanilla Odoo enterprise and custom modules are not allowed. For cases where customizations are needed, the Odoo.sh service can be used, providing a full-featured development platform to customize and host solutions based on Odoo enterprise. See https://www.odoo.sh/ for more information.
In previous Odoo versions, the menu structure of the web client was significantly different between the CE and EE. In Odoo 12, the menus in both editions follow a similar structure.
To create a new database on the Odoo Cloud SaaS, you will probably be asked to select a starting application. No specific application is required to follow this chapter, but if you're unsure on what to pick, customer relationship management (CRM) would be fine.
Also worthy of note is that the EE, on the Odoo SaaS, has the Odoo Studio application builder available. We won't be using it, since it is not available for the CE, which is used as a reference in this book. Odoo Studio provides a user-friendly user interface for the developer features introduced in this chapter, along with a few extra features, such as the ability to export the customizations made in a convenient module package. But the main capabilities are similar to what we can get by using the basic developer mode.