Multisite - single database w/ hub site option

keihkhl · September 23, 2025, 4:50am

I have tested Frappe/ERPNext for some time, but eventually switched to Odoo, mainly because of the lack of multisite w/ single database functionality.

With ERPNext v15, I remember it was

Multi-tenants on single URL
Multi-URL with multi-database

My use case is

One database w/ N possible entry URLs w/ different theme/logo/language…

For CMS and LMS, I run that structure with Drupal’s Domain module and Moodle’s IOMAD. There are hiccups, but I fix issues one by one, because I would rather sacrifice dev hours than managing N sites with N login. The central hub control with multiple URL/theme dramatically saves my management hours. I just need to login to one site and can see what’s happening in all websites.

My use case of ERP is similar to my use case of Drupal and Moodle. With ERP, I want to run different services for each URL w/ different themes and different top-level-domains. I remember Go1 CMS somewhat tried, but it does not serve what’s needed.

Despite the cost of Odoo’s Enterprise version, since the functionality is essential, I gave up working on Frappe/ERPNext. But with Odoo Enterprise, the price linearly goes up as I have more users.

Having said that, I wonder if there is any pipeline for this function in the upcoming v16 or beyond.

Your ecosystem, in particular Frappe Drive and Raven, is evolving that is very close to be ready to replace Microsoft Teams. For some people, what is now offered must be already enough. But, I need that particular functionality to actually run the ERP on ERPNext.

I even hired a dev once for this extension, but what I got was barely logo replacements, which was no better than Nginx’s location-based file swap.

asieftejani · September 23, 2025, 6:26am

Try this docker setup for multi-site, multi-bench setups (all with 1 maria DB)

github.com/frappe/frappe_docker

docs/single-server-example.md

main

### Single Server Example

In this use case we have a single server with a static IP attached to it. It can be used in scenarios where one powerful VM has multiple benches and applications or one entry level VM with single site. For single bench, single site setup follow only up to the point where first bench and first site is added. If you choose this setup you can only scale vertically. If you need to scale horizontally you'll need to backup the sites and restore them on to cluster setup.

We will setup the following:

- Install docker and docker compose v2 on linux server.
- Install traefik service for internal load balancer and letsencrypt.
- Install MariaDB with containers.
- Setup project called `erpnext-one` and create sites `one.example.com` and `two.example.com` in the project.
- Setup project called `erpnext-two` and create sites `three.example.com` and `four.example.com` in the project.

Explanation:

Single instance of **Traefik** will be installed and act as internal loadbalancer for multiple benches and sites hosted on the server. It can also load balance other applications along with frappe benches, e.g. wordpress, metabase, etc. We only expose the ports `80` and `443` once with this instance of traefik. Traefik will also take care of letsencrypt automation for all sites installed on the server. _Why choose Traefik over Nginx Proxy Manager?_ Traefik doesn't need additional DB service and can store certificates in a json file in a volume.

Single instance of **MariaDB** will be installed and act as database service for all the benches/projects installed on the server.

Each instance of ERPNext project (bench) will have its own redis, socketio, gunicorn, nginx, workers and scheduler. It will connect to internal MariaDB by connecting to MariaDB network. It will expose sites to public through Traefik by connecting to Traefik network.

This file has been truncated. show original

keihkhl · September 23, 2025, 6:42am

@asieftejani hey thank you for the interesting case example.

So, it sounds like I run 4 docker containers with a single database.
May or may not work, depending on the use case.

For one, it will certainly consume more system resources than one docker container with proper multisite app.

For two, I am not sure how the database differentiates different docker containers.

There might be overlap in configuration. For example, the login url for OIDC may also be cumbersome. I remember adding two Microsoft login via OIDC already was a challenge. I had to manually change the endpoint URL directly on DB table. Frappe automatically creates the URLs, so it was unavoidable. Then, with N number of websites, I am not sure each website’s specific OIDC can be called without additional differentiaters.

I am no dev for Frappe framework, but given that single server w/ N docker container example, I think one can make an app for N multisite, K(!=N) multi-tenant, J (!=N, K) multi URL w/ varying themes.