# Odoo Studio (Odoo glossary)

Canonical: https://erpfly.com/glossary/odoo-studio/
Last updated: September 14, 2026

**Definition:** Odoo Studio is the no-code customization tool in Odoo Enterprise. It lets an admin add fields, change views, create models and apps, build automation rules, webhooks, approval rules and PDF report changes from the browser, and it stores that work as database records grouped under a module called studio_customization.

Also called: Studio, Odoo Studio app

Open any app in an Enterprise database, click the Toggle Studio icon, and the screen you were looking at becomes editable. Drag a field onto the form, rename a column in the list, add a filter. There's no deploy step: the change applies to every user of that database. That immediacy is why admins like it and why developers get nervous about it.

### What it can change

Per Odoo's own documentation, Studio covers fields and widgets, views, models, automation rules, webhooks, PDF reports, approval rules and security rules. When you create a new model or app, it offers optional features like chatter, pipeline stages, archiving and a company field, each of which adds the fields and views that usually go with it.

Automation rules deserve a special mention because one of their actions is Execute Code. That's Python, typed into a text field in the browser, with `env`, `record`, `records` and a few helper libraries available. It's the point where "no-code" stops being accurate.

### Where the work is stored

Studio doesn't write Python files or a folder you can open in an editor. Every change is a record in the database. A new field gets a technical name starting with `x_studio_`, and Odoo requires at least an `x_` prefix on any custom field. View changes are inherited views that use XPath against the standard view, just as a developer's would, only stored in the database rather than in a module.

All of it is attached to a module named `studio_customization`, which Odoo adds to the database the first time you customize something.

### Moving customizations to another database

Studio has its own Export button. It downloads a ZIP containing the `studio_customization` module, optionally with data or demo data from selected models, and the Import button on another database installs it.

Two conditions come with that, straight from the docs. The destination must run the same Odoo version and have the same apps and modules installed. Studio doesn't list those underlying modules as dependencies of the exported module, so checking that is on you before you click Install.

What you get is a module of exported records, not an Odoo addon with models and tests you'd want to maintain by hand. It's a transfer mechanism, not a way to turn Studio work into source code.

### Edition and hosting

Studio is Enterprise only. Community databases don't have it, so changes there happen in modules or through the technical menus in developer mode.

On Odoo Online it matters more. Odoo Online databases don't support custom modules, so Studio (with automation rules for logic) is the main customization tool you have there. Odoo's pricing plans also affect it: installing Studio on a Standard plan database triggers an upsell to the Custom plan, and maintenance of custom code in Execute Code actions isn't included in either plan.

On Odoo.sh and self-hosted Enterprise you can mix Studio with your own modules. Whether a given change belongs in Studio or in code is a judgment call, and we've written up [when Studio is enough and when you need a module](https://erpfly.com/blog/odoo-studio-vs-custom-module/). erpfly works on the module side of that line, so if you're adjusting standard Odoo apps with code rather than clicks, see [Odoo customization](https://erpfly.com/odoo-customization/).

See also: https://erpfly.com/glossary/odoo-addon/, https://erpfly.com/glossary/xpath-view-inheritance/, https://erpfly.com/glossary/record-rules/, https://erpfly.com/glossary/odoo-sh/

### Sources

- [Studio, Odoo 19 documentation](https://www.odoo.com/documentation/19.0/applications/studio.html)
- [Models, modules, and apps: export and import customizations, Odoo 19 documentation](https://www.odoo.com/documentation/19.0/applications/studio/models_modules_apps.html#export-and-import-customizations)
- [Fields and widgets, Odoo 19 documentation](https://www.odoo.com/documentation/19.0/applications/studio/fields.html)
- [Odoo editions: Community vs Enterprise](https://www.odoo.com/page/editions)