OSX Server: should I use Open Directory?
For a small company, it's not even clear you would set up network users to start with. The costs associated with setting up and running that might be more than it would cost to support a handful of Macs.

Without knowing a few items such as exactly how many accounts, how many Macs, how different the Mac users are (are you setting up a lab with 15 identical machines or is each belonging to a user that has software needs different than all the rest.) Also, your decisions on how much users should support themselves (or can even support themselves) would go into the decision on how best to manage IT time and dollars to support the users.

There often is no best answer other than starting with something that has a chance of working and then iterating as you learn what is really needed in your specific shop.

That being said, if you make Local Network Users they can log into client machines and use the services (file sharing, backup, etc..) from the server but not log directly into the server. Local Users get all the benefits of network users and also get a home directory stored on the server and can log in there as well.

I'd start with two resources for planning your deployment:


Take Control of OS X Server by Charles Edge (to be published by Tidbits - currently available as pre-release chapters online)
Apple Pro Training on OS X Server Essentials by Arek Dreyer and Ben Greisler


The former is easier to get started and organized more in terms of functional tasks and the latter is an exhaustive reference and covers about all the mechanics of how the software operates and is configured.