# Access Manager compared with the alternatives

*Checked on 2026-10-15. Prices are the Odoo Apps Store's prices in euros on
that day (visitors outside the euro area see them converted); features are
as each vendor's own public page describes them. If something here is out of
date, write to support@bambooforge.dev and we will correct it.*

## At a glance

|  | BambooForge Access Manager | OCA base_user_role (free) | Odoo itself | Terabits Simplify / Advance Access Management |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | EUR 229, once per Odoo series | Free (LGPL-3); its history and company add-ons are AGPL-3 | Part of Odoo; Studio is an Enterprise module (OEEL-1) | Simplify EUR 393.71, once per series, with the Advanced Web Domain Widget it needs; Advance EUR 568.61, which includes both |
| Odoo series | 16.0, 17.0, 18.0, 19.0, 20.0 | 16.0 to 19.0 | Built in; Studio in Enterprise 16.0 to 20.0 | Simplify 12.0 to 20.0; Advance 13.0 to 20.0 |
| Roles and bulk changes | Roles (named bundles of groups) applied with Add or Replace after a per-user preview of the groups gained and lost; copy one user's access to another; add or remove groups in bulk | Roles built from groups, which add up; a change to a role updates all its users at once; "Create role from user"; roles per company with `base_user_role_company` | Groups; 19.0 adds Privileges (`res.groups.privilege`) | Not described |
| Finding why a user is refused | Explain access: user, model, operation and an optional record give a verdict in words, naming the access lines and rules that grant or exclude it | Not described | Each group's form lists its access rights | Not described |
| History of access changes | A change log of who changed whose groups; append-only | With `base_user_role_history`: a line for each role added, updated or removed on a user, and who did it | 20.0 logs each group change in the user's chatter and the server log | Not described |
| Segregation of duties, end dates | Pairs of groups one person must not hold, blocking or warning; grants that end on a set date | Roles bounded by dates | Not described | Not described |
| Hiding parts of the screen | Menus, fields, buttons, tabs, blocks, the chatter, Action and Print entries, per role, group or user; read-only fields; "See it as a user" | Not described | With Studio (Enterprise), a field is shown to or hidden from chosen groups | Menus and sub-menus; fields invisible, read-only or required; buttons, tabs and chatter; filters, groups and views. Advance adds conditional field, button and tab rules, and limits on the search panel, custom filters and group-by |
| Switching off actions on a model | No create, edit, delete, duplicate, export or import, or the whole model read-only | Not described | Create, read, write and delete per group, with record rules beside them (16.0 to 19.0); on 20.0 one `ir.access` model, where a line can carry a domain and a line with no group is a restriction | Create, read, update, delete, archive, duplicate and export per model; domain access rights; import and export hidden; read-only users. Advance adds "Soft Restrict" and global rules |
| Left out, as each page says | "A user who knows the model name can still reach the record over RPC with whatever their groups allow"; of the switches, only export, import and duplicate are refused on the server. The superuser is never restricted | Groups cannot be set by hand on a user who has roles; deleting a role deletes its history lines | Not listed | Simplify: several items are marked Advance-only |

An audit trail of changes to your records is a separate BambooForge app,
Audit Pro, and is not compared on this page.

## Choose which, and when

- **Choose OCA's base_user_role** if you run 16.0 to 19.0 and want a free
  role layer (LGPL-3, Production/Stable) in which each user's groups follow
  their roles exactly, with add-ons for a role history and roles per
  company. It has no build for 20.0 today.
- **Choose Odoo's own access rights** if groups, access lines and record
  rules cover what you need (on 20.0, one `ir.access` model with the
  domain on the line itself), and the chatter and server-log entry that 20.0
  writes for each group change is all the history you need. On Enterprise,
  Studio also shows or hides a field per group.
- **Choose Terabits Simplify Access Management** if you want screen and
  model restrictions with switches for read-only users, developer mode and
  login, rules per company, restrictions its page says also apply to
  "Script/XMLRPC", and a series as old as 12.0.
- **Choose Terabits Advance Access Management** if you also need
  conditional field, button and tab rules, "Soft Restrict", limits on the
  search panel, custom filters and group-by, and rules for portal users as
  well as internal ones. Its price includes Simplify.
- **Choose ours** if you are on any of Odoo 16.0 to 20.0 and want roles,
  copies and bulk changes previewed before anything is written, a verdict in
  words on why a user is refused, segregation-of-duties rules, grants that
  end on a date, and screen restrictions per role, group or user, with
  nothing to install beyond `base` - and you accept that, apart from
  export, import and duplicate, those restrictions shape the screen, while
  the user's groups decide what a call over RPC may do.

## Sources

Read on 2026-10-15.

- Our manual: https://docs.bambooforge.dev/bambooforge_access_manager/
- OCA server-backend: https://github.com/OCA/server-backend (branches 16.0 to
  20.0; the role modules are not on 20.0 yet) and the READMEs at
  https://github.com/OCA/server-backend/blob/19.0/base_user_role/README.rst,
  https://github.com/OCA/server-backend/blob/19.0/base_user_role_history/README.rst
  and
  https://github.com/OCA/server-backend/blob/19.0/base_user_role_company/README.rst
- Odoo's source code: https://github.com/odoo/odoo (branches 16.0 to 20.0)
- Odoo's documentation:
  https://www.odoo.com/documentation/19.0/applications/general/users/access_rights.html
  and https://www.odoo.com/documentation/20.0/applications/studio/fields.html
- Odoo 20 release notes: https://www.odoo.com/odoo-20-release-notes
- Terabits Technolab:
  https://apps.odoo.com/apps/modules/20.0/simplify_access_management and
  https://apps.odoo.com/apps/modules/20.0/advance_access_management