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ERP · head to head

ADempiere vs DATEV

ADempiere logo

ADempiere

ERP

Community-run open source ERP forked from Compiere, with no vendor behind it

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
DATEV logo

DATEV

Accounting

German accounting, payroll and tax software built around the tax adviser rather than the business

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only ADempiere has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: ADempiere there is no company behind it, so there is no support contract to buy, no SLA, no escalation path and no roadmap commitment; if your implementation partner leaves the market you own the problem entirely.; DATEV dATEV does not publish transparent per-customer pricing the way a SaaS vendor does; your real cost is buried in your tax adviser's fee note, so comparing it against Lexware or sevdesk on price is genuinely hard.
  • They diverge on capability: ADempiere covers Application dictionary, DATEV covers Unternehmen online.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ADempiere and DATEV actually diverge.

Attributes where ADempiere and DATEV differ
AttributeADempiereDATEV
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, Windows, macOS, Linux, Self-hostedWindows, Web
CategoryERPAccounting

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in ADempiere

  • Application dictionary
  • Financial accounting
  • Order to cash and procure to pay
  • Inventory and warehouse
  • Manufacturing
  • Point of sale
  • Workflow engine
  • Java and PostgreSQL stack

Only in DATEV

  • Unternehmen online
  • Lohn und Gehalt
  • Rechnungswesen
  • Jahresabschluss
  • DATEV DMS
  • Meine Steuern
  • DATEV-Schnittstelle

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

ADempiere

  • A manufacturer in Latin America with an existing ADempiere consulting partner that needs localised tax and accounting behaviour a global vendor will not buildnot DATEV
  • A company that wants to modify ERP screens and document workflows without a vendor change request, using the application dictionary rather than codenot DATEV
  • An organisation with a hard requirement to keep financial data on its own servers under its own control with no cloud dependencynot DATEV
  • A systems integrator building a vertical ERP product on a permissive base it can fork and ship without paying a licence feenot DATEV

DATEV

  • A German GmbH that wants its Steuerberater to keep doing the books but wants receipts to stop travelling in a shoeboxnot ADempiere
  • A payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to German statutory deadlines without an external bureaunot ADempiere
  • An SME preparing an e-Bilanz and audit-ready GoBD document archivenot ADempiere
  • A tax firm standardising dozens of client engagements on one chart of accounts and one document workflownot ADempiere

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

ADempiere

  • There is no company behind it, so there is no support contract to buy, no SLA, no escalation path and no roadmap commitment; if your implementation partner leaves the market you own the problem entirely.
  • The official website adempiere.net does not resolve, which strands most of the historic documentation and tutorials that search engines still point at and makes onboarding a new developer considerably harder.
  • The last conventional stable release, 3.9.4, is from January 2023, so despite ongoing GitHub activity a buyer evaluating on release cadence sees a project moving slowly.
  • iDempiere, a later fork of the same codebase, absorbed much of the developer community, so ADempiere competes for contributors with its own descendant and is the smaller of the two ecosystems.
  • The interface and the Java Swing heritage feel dated, and staff coming from a modern cloud ERP will need training and will complain; expect resistance from finance and warehouse users during rollout.

DATEV

  • DATEV does not publish transparent per-customer pricing the way a SaaS vendor does; your real cost is buried in your tax adviser's fee note, so comparing it against Lexware or sevdesk on price is genuinely hard.
  • The board has decided to wind down the Austria-specific portfolio: existing products remain usable to 31 December 2028, are free of charge during 2029, and cannot be used after 31 December 2029, so any Austrian entity on DATEV has a forced migration dated in advance.
  • It is built for German statutory practice, so a group with subsidiaries outside the DACH region will run DATEV for Germany and something else everywhere else, with a consolidation step in between.
  • Large parts of the suite are still Windows desktop software installed on a workstation or terminal server, which means IT overhead most companies no longer budget for when they think they are buying cloud accounting.
  • The lock-in is social as well as technical: because your adviser holds the installation and the history, changing accounting software usually forces you to change or retrain your adviser, which is a far bigger decision than a software migration.

Pricing, plan by plan

ADempiere

Free
  • Community editionFree
    • GPL v2 licensed, no licence fee
    • Full ERP, CRM, supply chain and POS modules
    • Self-hosted on your own infrastructure

DATEV

On request
  • DATEV Unternehmen online$undefined/month
    • Receipt and bank data exchange with your tax adviser
    • Cash book and master data modules
    • Ordered and usually rebilled through the adviser
  • DATEV Mittelstand$undefined/month
    • In-house financial accounting and invoicing
    • Payroll modules licensed separately
    • Per-workplace licensing
  • Lohn und Gehalt$undefined/month
    • German payroll runs and statutory electronic filings
    • Priced by number of payslips
    • Typically operated by the adviser on the client's behalf

Which should you pick?

Choose ADempiere if

  • You need application dictionary.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, Self-hosted.
  • You also want financial accounting.
ADempiere review

Choose DATEV if

  • You need unternehmen online.
  • You work on Windows, Web.
  • You also want lohn und gehalt.
DATEV review

Questions people ask

Is ADempiere or DATEV better?
Neither clearly leads. ADempiere starts at Free and DATEV at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ADempiere or DATEV?
ADempiere has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for ADempiere and On request for DATEV.
Does ADempiere or DATEV run on more platforms?
ADempiere runs on Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, Self-hosted. DATEV runs on Windows, Web.
Can I use ADempiere for free?
Yes. ADempiere has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. DATEV starts at On request.
What is ADempiere best used for?
ADempiere is most often used for a manufacturer in latin america with an existing adempiere consulting partner that needs localised tax and accounting behaviour a global vendor will not build, a company that wants to modify erp screens and document workflows without a vendor change request, using the application dictionary rather than code, an organisation with a hard requirement to keep financial data on its own servers under its own control with no cloud dependency, a systems integrator building a vertical erp product on a permissive base it can fork and ship without paying a licence fee. Of those, a manufacturer in latin america with an existing adempiere consulting partner that needs localised tax and accounting behaviour a global vendor will not build and a company that wants to modify erp screens and document workflows without a vendor change request, using the application dictionary rather than code are not what DATEV is typically brought in for.
What can ADempiere do that DATEV cannot?
ADempiere covers Application dictionary, Financial accounting, Order to cash and procure to pay, Inventory and warehouse. DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Lohn und Gehalt, Rechnungswesen, Jahresabschluss.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

ADempiere: Should I choose ADempiere or iDempiere?

Look at iDempiere first. It is a later fork of the same codebase with a more active community and a modular OSGi architecture. Choose ADempiere if a specific partner or localisation you need only exists there.

DATEV: Can I buy DATEV directly without a tax adviser?

In practice, no for most of the range. Membership of the cooperative is restricted to the tax and legal professions, and companies get access through their adviser or as a client of one.

ADempiere: Is ADempiere free?

The software is GPL licensed with no licence fee. The cost is implementation, customisation and permanent in-house maintenance, which for a real deployment is substantial.

DATEV: Is DATEV usable outside Germany?

It operates in Austria, Italy, Spain, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary, but the depth is German. The Austrian product line is being discontinued with a hard end date of 31 December 2029.

ADempiere: Is the project still alive?

Development continues on GitHub with commits into 2026, but the official website is down and the last stable release is from January 2023. Treat it as maintained rather than actively advancing.

DATEV: What is the DATEV-Schnittstelle everyone mentions?

It is the standard export format German invoicing and ERP tools produce so bookkeeping data can be handed to a DATEV-based adviser. Supporting it is effectively a requirement to sell accounting-adjacent software in Germany.

ADempiere: What is the application dictionary?

It is the metadata layer inherited from Compiere that stores the definition of every window, field and validation rule as data, so you can change the application without touching source code.

DATEV: Does DATEV handle e-invoicing under the German B2B mandate?

Yes, the accounting and invoicing modules were extended for the XRechnung and ZUGFeRD formats that the German B2B e-invoicing rules require.

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