Editor Sebastiaan Smits ·
Published November 4, 2026 · Updated November 4, 2026
LibreOffice is free from The Document Foundation, so people leave it for support, collaboration or a Microsoft-native file format, not for price. Most look first at ONLYOFFICE, SoftMaker Office or Collabora, then at Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Teams that stay open source often keep its engine through Collabora.
Short answer: The closest replacements for LibreOffice in our office suites ranking are ONLYOFFICE, SoftMaker Office and Collabora Online. Choose ONLYOFFICE if you want free desktop editors plus a hosted or self-hosted collaboration layer. These 12 options are lifted from the Best Office Suites in 2026 list. The write-ups look at one question, how each one differs from LibreOffice, and admit where LibreOffice is still ahead.
Vendors can pay for more visibility on this website, for example a higher place in a ranking or more room on a page. Commercial relationships can also affect which products we feature and how prominently. Every vendor link is marked the same, whatever the arrangement behind it. The first three alternatives go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow in their ranked order. How it works: placement disclosure · editorial process.
The Document Foundation says it does not provide technical support for LibreOffice; users get help from mailing lists and Ask LibreOffice. For schools and large organizations it recommends enterprise versions from ecosystem partners, which carry service level agreements. A company that wants one accountable vendor must buy that from a partner.
The download page offers installers for Windows (x86-64 and ARM64), macOS and Linux, and the install guide points enterprise and government users to a separate deployment page. Base needs Java. Rolling out and updating a few hundred desktops is work that a hosted suite does centrally.
LibreOffice's Technology page says the cloud, mobile and Chrome OS products based on its engine are released by other organizations under different brand names. The desktop suite itself is the product on its download page. Real-time co-editing therefore means choosing a second product.
Listed from best to weakest fit for people moving off LibreOffice. The rightmost column shows where we rank each one out of 13.
| # | Alternative | Headquarters | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  ONLYOFFICE | Latvia | you want free desktop editors plus a hosted or self-hosted collaboration layer | #1 |
| 2 |  SoftMaker Office | Germany | you want a desktop suite whose native formats are Microsoft's and accept paying per computer | #6 |
| 3 |  Collabora Online | United Kingdom | you want the LibreOffice engine with a vendor SLA, in the browser or on the desktop | #8 |
| 4 |  Microsoft 365 | United States | your partners and clients send Office files and you want the originating applications | #5 |
| 5 |  Google Workspace | United States | you want browser-first editing with mail and meetings under one per-user bill | #4 |
| 6 |  Nextcloud Office | Germany | you want collaborative editing inside a file platform you host yourself | #7 |
| 7 |  Zoho Workplace | India | you also need business mail and chat, and want an office suite bundled with them | #3 |
| 8 |  WPS Office | Singapore | you want a free desktop and mobile suite with a Microsoft-style interface | #10 |
| 9 |  Proton Docs | Switzerland | privacy of the document content matters more than a full desktop suite | #9 |
| 10 |  Apache OpenOffice | United States | you want a second open-source desktop suite from a different foundation, at no licence cost | #12 |
| 11 |  Polaris Office | South Korea | you want a vendor that sells both perpetual and subscription licences, with a free web editor | #11 |
| 12 |  Google Docs | United States | your documents are mostly text that several people edit in a browser | #13 |
Startup is free with up to 3 admins, unlimited users and guests, 12 rooms and 2 GB of storage. Business is $20 per admin a month with 250 GB per admin. Desktop Editors are free, and Docs is on GitHub under AGPL-3.0. Ascensio System SIA, a Latvian company, owns it.
Switch from LibreOffice if you want free desktop editors plus a hosted or self-hosted collaboration layer.
A paid desktop suite for Windows, Mac and Linux that uses DOCX, XLSX and PPTX as its default formats. NX Universal costs EUR 49.90 a year or EUR 4.99 a month, VAT included, for five household computers or one company computer. Volume licences start at five computers for EUR 199.
Switch from LibreOffice if you want a desktop suite whose native formats are Microsoft's and accept paying per computer.
Collabora Online for Business is EUR 3 per user a month for up to 99 users, on premise, with long-term support and an SLA. Enterprise covers 100 or more users. The free CODE edition is for testing and home use, not production. A Collabora Office desktop app also exists.
Switch from LibreOffice if you want the LibreOffice engine with a vendor SLA, in the browser or on the desktop.
Microsoft's enterprise overview lists three plans, E3, E5 and F3. Each pairs Microsoft 365 Apps for PC and Mac (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) with online services for email, file storage, collaboration and meetings. E3 is described as the core plan and F3 as the plan for first-line workers.
Switch from LibreOffice if your partners and clients send Office files and you want the originating applications.
Business Starter is EUR 6.80 per user a month with 30 GB pooled storage per user, Standard EUR 13.60 with 2 TB, Plus EUR 21.10 with 5 TB, all excluding tax. The page shows a 14-day trial and 16 percent off for a one-year commitment. Docs imports Word files and edits offline.
Switch from LibreOffice if you want browser-first editing with mail and meetings under one per-user bill.
Nextcloud Enterprise starts at 100 users: Standard at EUR 71.29 per user a year, Premium EUR 104.99, Ultimate EUR 204.75. Its table lists Nextcloud Office, powered by Euro-Office, and Collabora Online as options, some at extra cost. Nextcloud says all of its code is open source.
Switch from LibreOffice if you want collaborative editing inside a file platform you host yourself.
A free Mail plan covers up to 5 users with 5 GB of mail storage each. Workplace Standard adds 30 GB of mail per user and file storage from 100 GB per team, with 10 GB more shared for each user beyond 10. The Standard column lists Writer among its included products.
Switch from LibreOffice if you also need business mail and chat, and want an office suite bundled with them.
The pricing page shows a Free column for one user with 1 GB of cloud storage and AI tools marked limited, and a second column with 20 GB. The page states the suite is 100 percent compatible with Microsoft file formats and has apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.
Switch from LibreOffice if you want a free desktop and mobile suite with a Microsoft-style interface.
Proton Free gives 5 GB with an online document and spreadsheet editor, end-to-end encrypted. Drive Plus is $4.99 a month for 200 GB and Proton Unlimited $12.99 a month for 500 GB plus VPN. Docs offers track changes, threaded comments and sharing with people who have no Proton account.
Switch from LibreOffice if privacy of the document content matters more than a full desktop suite.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.17 was announced on October 14, 2026, after 4.1.16 in November 2025. It calls itself a free and open productivity suite storing data in an open standard format. LibreOffice's comparison page says it has no OOXML export and no Windows 64-bit build.
Switch from LibreOffice if you want a second open-source desktop suite from a different foundation, at no licence cost.
The home page lists Subscription, Perpetual License and Business Subscription plans, plus a Web Office marked for free use. Downloads are offered for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS. A separate AI hub on the same page offers chat with several third-party models.
Switch from LibreOffice if you want a vendor that sells both perpetual and subscription licences, with a free web editor.
Google Docs is one editor among Sheets, Slides, Forms and Vids, not a desktop suite. Its product page describes importing Word documents and PDFs and working offline, and its help article describes File, Download with a choice of file type. Business use sits on Workspace plans.
Switch from LibreOffice if your documents are mostly text that several people edit in a browser.
Stay with LibreOffice if a license fee is the problem you are solving. It is free of charge, donations are optional, and the home page says there is no forced AI. It also fits you when documents stay on local disks, when Linux desktops are in use, or when you want OpenDocument as a native format and have a partner for support.
LibreOffice's comparison page confirms it exports .docx, .xlsx and .pptx, and it keeps OpenDocument (ODT, ODS, ODP) as its native family. Convert your ten ugliest real documents both ways and open them in the new product. Fix layout differences before you move a whole department.
LibreOffice ships Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base and Math. Most replacements are built around documents, sheets and slides. List who uses Base databases, Draw diagrams or Math formulas, and ask each vendor in writing which of them it replaces. Keep LibreOffice installed for those users until it does.
It exports Microsoft OOXML files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) and its native OpenDocument formats ODT, ODS, ODP and ODG. The comparison page confirms OOXML export, and the 26.8 release adds Markdown import and export. Open the results in the new product before you decommission anything.
Nothing: the project says it is made available free of charge and that donations are purely optional. The Document Foundation sells no per-seat licence. Your costs are deployment, training and any support contract with a certified partner.
No, there is no subscription to cancel, because the software is free and you install it yourself. Support is different: if you bought a service level agreement from an ecosystem partner, that contract has its own term and notice rules. Read it before you drop the software.
Not The Document Foundation, which states it does not provide technical support itself. Certified developers, consultants and trainers from its ecosystem do, and the foundation lists them on its professional support page. Community help is on mailing lists and Ask LibreOffice.
Yes, Collabora Online and Collabora Office are built on LibreOffice technology, and Collabora Productivity says it is the single largest contributor of commits to the LibreOffice codebase. Collabora Online for Business is EUR 3 per user a month for up to 99 users.
Yes, ONLYOFFICE has a free Startup cloud plan and free desktop editors, and Apache OpenOffice is free. Proton Free and the WPS free tier are limited by storage. Check each tool's file compatibility with your own documents before you commit.
Each number and claim about LibreOffice and its competitors was taken from the vendors' own websites on November 4, 2026; expect them to drift as those sites are edited.
Sebastiaan Smits, Founder, wrote, edited and fact-checked this page.
Founder of The Interregnum and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page here; research and drafting are AI-assisted. Last reviewed November 4, 2026.
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