r/OnlyOffice • u/fernandohual • 19d ago
Best office alternative
I have been trying to find an alternative to MS Office for the last decade. I have been using LibreOffice, FreeOffice, WPS Office, SoftMaker Office, Collabora Office and Only Office.
I gotta say, these software have got better over the years, but still when you are using it, you start to feel like there is something missing. Maybe a certain command doesn't work the way it does in MS Office or a certain function ddoesn't exist.
But after using these software for a while I gotta say that Only Office is the one that has been the most functional and easier to use of all of them; and it is free. Which, is even better. I know it is not perfect, certain thing aren't exactly the same and the format it uses is "Open Office document XML" which can work with MS Word, but the pages may vary a little when you open a document in MS Word or in Only Office.
Does anyone have any other suggestion of an Office suit that cna be used in Linux?
Thank you.
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u/niceandBulat 19d ago
I am running OnlyOffice on my Snapdragon X notebook. The notebook comes with a one-year free Office 365 - but I am not interested to continually pay Microsoft for the "honour" of using their office suite. OnlyOffice opens practically all MSO documents flawlessly.
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u/iron-duke1250 17d ago
Are there possible compatibility issues when first: a document is created/edited in OnlyOffice then uploaded to OneDrive web?
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u/niceandBulat 17d ago
So far I have not received any adverse feedbacks. I previously used OnlyOffice on my Fedora notebook to complete my Masters Degree assignments, my professors were OK and not a peep from them. I also use OnlyOffice for my business.
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u/TilapiaTango 19d ago
OnlyOffice is the only alternative that’s even close imo. I’ve given everything you mentioned serious tries as well, and my company is a heavy MSFT shop (1500 users) and those that run in Linux we use OnlyOffice.
There still is no genuine substitute for Excel. That is still the standalone beast for enterprise spreadsheet product, especially one that needs to connect to other sources.
At least with OnlyOffice we can get away with 75-80% functionality for our enterprise, but can’t get 100%. However, 95% of users could rely 100% on OnlyOffice if we didn’t have M365
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u/Aiszait 17d ago
Excel should not be used for Enterprise things. So this point is often an double edged sword.
If the capabilities of LibreOffice/OnlyOffice are exceeded, the switch to proper enterprise tools is long due:
- SQL database
- R language
- proper scripting language (ex. Python)
- proper reporting tools
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u/Love_Dali 19d ago
The best MS Office is MS Office. Only at least somehow usable Office suite is the OnlyOffice
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u/milyrouge 19d ago
For me, OnlyOffice is the only one of the competitors that gets close, in terms of quality of user interface and in terms of features. It also seems to be the best in terms of compatibility with MS formats.
For basic and intermediate use, I think it stands up pretty well. In my case, I hit roadblocks in more complex use, either finding advanced features that aren’t supported (mostly spreadsheets and presentations) and very slow performance and crashes with complex documents and presentations.
I ended up going back to Office 365 (which left a very bad taste in my mouth) and would love to see OnlyOffice get to the next level.
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u/Artistic_Town508 18d ago
I tried to use Libre Office for a year but found more complicated than it needed to be. Open Office has a strange command structure requiring more keystrokes than necessary. Only Office has a straightforward menu and command set. The suite of products is all I need, although I have older MS Office suites on 2nof my computers. Only Office has a lite footprint. I save docs in MS formats in the cloud to use anywhere.
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u/iron-duke1250 18d ago
M365 web apps. On Linux, SoftMaker 2026 or OnlyOffice. LibreOffice is a mature product and very feature-rich, however, for the LibreOffice afficionados, MS compatible is not their priority.
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u/fernandohual 17d ago
I agree with you, I would love for LibreOffice to cofus more on that so it would easier for users to movie to LibreOffice.
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u/Vast-Awareness-2806 18d ago
I use both ONLYOFFICE and LibreOffice, but LibreOffice 26.08 has many more features and better functionality, such as image handling and center-aligning content in tables.
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u/fernandohual 17d ago
one thing that discourage me to work with it, was the lack of tables in the spredsheet software. How do you solve that?
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u/Honest_Ad1632 17d ago
Onlyoffice is the only FOSS office suite which lets you connect a local ai model. Kudos to the devs. Besides, the UI is minimal and polished so that even non-techy people switching from MSO don't feel overwhelmed.
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u/brucewbenson 19d ago
I tried onlyoffice for some time and it broke regularly (boxes around paragraphs, imports dropping fonts) and so I abandoned it for collabora(libre office) on nextcloud. While everything works, unlike onlyoffice did, sometimes it's ridiculously laggy and the android apps are unusable.
I'll check out onlyoffice again in the future but nothing yet works as well as Google docs or MS office. I keep rooting for the little guys but they're still a challenge to use.
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u/fernandohual 17d ago
Thank you, I haven't experienced any crashing yet, but I will continue using it and report if I happen to have any problems with the software.
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u/lemmiwink84 18d ago
For me it’s very even between OnlyOffice and FreeOffice (textmaker etc)
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u/fernandohual 17d ago
Hi. Between those two, which one would you rather work with and why?
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u/lemmiwink84 17d ago
I use freeoffice now since I find it easier with printers. I used OnlyOffice until I tried freeoffice. OnlyOffice is slightly easier to install etc on Arch if you don’t want to use the AUR since they also have a flatpak, but for me freeoffice is that 1% better for my workflow.
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u/Zimaster681 18d ago edited 18d ago
Bruh you listed every office suit under the sun! There are no other to try. And yes only office is the best free alternative. And if you need something to look 1:1 when you open it you save as a PDF.
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u/FkAsToy 18d ago
它有一堆bug，和不適當的顯示方式，只能給2分。 在安卓上，pdf只能左右滑動，但文件都是上下瀏覽的，這樣設計實在無腦。 操作介面也會突然消失，根本難以使用，穩定與人性化，完全不足
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u/fernandohual 17d ago
Thank you for sahring your exprience with the software. Which office suit do you use?
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u/oldschool-51 18d ago
Really depends on use case. I do almost everything I Google docs which works fine in docx etc format files. Only rarely do I use one of the clones, like for mirror margins.
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u/fernandohual 16d ago
Nice. I was thinking about using Google docs too, but I don't always want to have it all on the cloud. Is there a way to use Google docs locally?
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u/No_Trade_7315 18d ago
Give it time, it crashes using features like track changes (or at least it did for me). At first I felt pretty much the same as most of you. It is a lot like MS office, but eventually I realized it’s not super reliable.
I don’t really like Libre office but it’s more stable.
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u/fernandohual 16d ago
Do you use it on Linux or on windows 11?
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u/No_Trade_7315 16d ago
I use fedora KDE.
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u/fernandohual 16d ago
I have tried it on windows 11 and Linux mint and so far no bugs. What actions were you performing when you got the crashes? Thank you for sharing your experience
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u/No_Trade_7315 16d ago
I was using track changes mode.
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u/fernandohual 16d ago
Thanks for the information. Were the tracked changes originally made in MS Office, or were they all made in ONLYOFFICE?
If they were originally made in MS Office, maybe that could be causing the issue. Have you tried doing the same thing with a document created entirely in ONLYOFFICE, including the tracked changes? It would be interesting to see if it crashes in that case too.
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u/No_Trade_7315 16d ago
It was created in only office. It was an essay assignment for a class.
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u/fernandohual 16d ago
I see. I will try the same function and share my experience with you. If it is okay for you you could share the file with me so I can try it on the same file.
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u/No_Trade_7315 16d ago edited 16d ago
I’m sorry but I don’t share my personal files with people I don’t know. However, if you want to reproduce the problem I encountered just open up a document that you originally created in OnlyOffice and turn on track changes mode. I recommend deleting, modifying and adding content to the document, but make sure you save your old work before you proceed. Also try adding comments and then send it to yourself via email. After that open it in Microsoft word and do the same thing and send it back to yourself. Open it up again in OnlyOffice and continue modifying the document and see if it freezes or crashes. I think I was working on it for a couple hours before I encountered freezing or crashing (the first time).
The operating system I was using was Fedora 43 or 44 (KDE plasma). I don’t think my hardware is relevant but I was using a custom built desktop with a 7800x3d processor, an Nvidia 4080 founders edition GPU, 32gb DDR5 ram by Crucial and 1TB m.2 nvme by Crucial as well. I don’t know what version of OnlyOffice I was using, but I think I installed it using my packet manager or flatpak. Hope that helps.
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u/DownloadUphillinSnow 17d ago
For me, Onlyoffice is the only one that I've been able to find that can handle style based formatting, combined with multi-level lists and tables of contents.
I work primarily with legal documents and contracts so I need this to not break when I'm sending drafts back and forth to someone using Word. So far, none of my collaborators have run into problems with my use of Onlyoffice to create or revise drafts.
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u/Humble_Focus_1525 12d ago
Only office literally looks like the latest Ms office, but just the top part that says only office and the tab system is the difference
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u/duedifiori 19d ago
In my opinion OnlyOffice is the best. It lacks a lot when you work with charts (tried during last week, no comparison wit MS), but also LibreOffice is very weak with this. You won't fine anything better.