OutSystems: OS11, ODC or both?
Choosing between OutSystems 11 and the OutSystems Developer Cloud, without a rushed migration.
A few years ago the question seemed simple: when do you migrate from OutSystems 11 to the OutSystems Developer Cloud? A deadline loomed over the market and “being ODC Ready in time” was the watchword.
That picture no longer holds. OutSystems keeps developing OS11, ODC and OS11 are growing towards each other, and the pressure to rebuild everything has largely eased. The question is no longer whether you should migrate, but which platform fits which application. And increasingly: how to let both run side by side.
That is exactly where we think along with you. Not from a standard “migrate everything” recommendation, but from what your applications actually need.
OS11 or ODC: the choice is no longer black and white
If your organisation runs on OutSystems 11, that usually holds everything: your data, your applications, your ongoing development. If that meets your needs, there’s no reason to invest in a rebuild or migration. What’s more, OS11 is still genuinely being developed, not just patched. Think of better code-quality checks, improved monitoring and new connections to AI models via APIs.
Starting something new? Then ODC is usually the logical starting point. Not because OS11 is “old”, but because in ODC you immediately tap into the latest capabilities, AI-assisted development in particular.
In short: OS11 and ODC are not consecutive steps you need to move through as fast as possible. They’re two platforms, each with its own strengths:
Choose OS11 if…
- your current OS11 landscape meets your needs and ongoing development is running smoothly;
- you want to keep both your development environment and production fully in-house;
- your applications rely heavily on process automation with BPT;
- the functionality you need is still under development in ODC.
Choose ODC if…
- you’re starting something new and want to use the latest capabilities right away;
- you want to develop with Mentor or deploy AI agents;
- you want cloud-native scalability without building it yourself;
- you’re looking for simplified management and faster, more secure deployments.
And often the answer is: both. Thanks to the Unified Platform, OS11 and ODC don’t have to be an either-or choice.
What ODC adds
ODC is cloud-native: purpose-built to run and scale in the cloud. OutSystems has already done the heavy lifting of a cloud-native foundation (containers, Kubernetes, auto-scaling) for you, so your team gets the scale and availability of cloud-native without having to build the complexity behind it.
The biggest difference in practice comes down to AI. In ODC you develop with Mentor, the OutSystems AI assistant, and deploy AI agents within your applications. At this level, those capabilities exist only in ODC. If you want to get seriously started with AI-assisted development, that’s the strongest argument for doing new work in ODC.
On top of that, ODC offers simplified management and faster, more secure deployments, with CI/CD processes largely handled behind the scenes.
The Unified Platform: OS11 and ODC together
OutSystems is working towards a single, cohesive platform in which it no longer matters whether an application runs in OS11 or in ODC. This is called the Unified Platform (also known as “platform unification”).
The first steps are already here and in use at customers. For example, from ODC you can securely call your OS11 data, and exchange logic between both environments via APIs. In concrete terms that means, for instance: an AI agent running in ODC works with data and processes from an existing OS11 application. The two talk to each other.
The licensing model has been adapted for this too. It’s often possible to share Application Objects across both platforms. A user who appears in both platforms counts as one. So you don’t need a separate licence to run OS11 and ODC side by side.
The upshot: the need to rebuild existing OS11 applications into ODC largely disappears. You build new value in ODC and let it work together with what you already have, instead of migrating everything first.
When OS11 remains the right choice (for now)
Not every scenario fits into ODC yet. Three situations in which OS11 remains the logical choice:
Everything fully in-house
ODC is cloud-first. There’s now a hybrid variant in which you host everything above your development environment yourself, with your data in your own environment. But the development environment itself, including your code, still sits in the OutSystems cloud. If you want both dev and production fully in-house, at the moment that’s only possible with OS11.
Cost of process automation
Business Process Technology (BPT) exists in ODC as well, but there it works via events. You pay for those events; for BPT in OS11 you don’t. For process-intensive applications, that’s a real cost difference to weigh up.
Functionality still under development
ODC is a growing platform. New functionality is added continuously, but not everything you’re used to in OS11 is there yet in the same mature form.
How do you choose per application?
We help you make the trade-off per application. The factors that matter in practice:
- Management and data: do you need to host everything yourself, or is cloud (or hybrid) hosting with your data in-house enough?
- AI: do you want to develop with Mentor or deploy AI agents? Then that points towards ODC.
- Cost: what about process automation (BPT versus events) and how your applications are used?
- Latency and location: where do your environments run, and how much traffic goes back and forth between applications?
- Existing OS11 applications: first take an honest look at how good what you already have is. Improve it, leave it as is, or only rebuild it later? Prioritise based on importance and cost.
Our approach: the 4D model
A platform choice isn’t something you make on gut feeling. We tackle the question with the 4D model: from getting a clear picture of what’s happening in your landscape, to building and moving along as OutSystems keeps developing. Four phases, discover, design, develop and drive, applied here to OS11 and ODC.
Discover
We map your application landscape: which OS11 applications are running, how healthy they are, what’s business-critical and where things get stuck. We also take hosting, licences and process automation into account — those factors in particular will determine the platform choice later on.
Design
For each application we determine the right platform: OS11, ODC or a combination via the Unified Platform. We weigh in-house control, AI ambitions, cost and latency against each other, and set out what you leave as is, what you improve and what you only rebuild later.
Develop
We build. New work mostly in ODC, with Mentor and, where it adds value, AI agents. We improve existing OS11 applications where it pays off. Via APIs we let both environments work together, so you don’t need a big-bang migration.
Drive
OutSystems keeps developing, so we stay involved. We track what changes in ODC and OS11 and check whether your choices still hold. That way your landscape grows along, instead of getting stuck again a few years down the line.
Ready to sharpen the choice?
Migrating for the sake of migrating is no longer necessary. What is smart: deliberately choosing which platform fits which application, and letting OS11 and ODC work together intelligently.
We know both platforms inside out and put them to work every day at our customers. Start the conversation with us and we’ll look at your application landscape together.
Daan de Groof
