The best Office & Productivity Suites
Every option ranked — open-source, self-hostable, and commercial — by our transparent Sovereignty Score, with honest trade-offs so you choose what fits you, not us.
Full document suites for creating and collaborating on word-processing files, spreadsheets, and presentations, often bundled with email and cloud storage. Alternatives here let you edit and co-author documents on desktops you own or servers you control, with open formats and no per-seat subscription.
L5Applications — layer 5 of the AI stack- 1
LibreOffice
Top pickOpen sourceThe mature, fully open-source desktop office suite that runs entirely on your own machine.
Free / runs locally · in our Microsoft 365 comparison →
What is LibreOffice? →100sovereignty - 2
ONLYOFFICE
Open sourceOpen-source suite with the closest Microsoft-format fidelity and real-time co-editing.
Free desktop apps and self-hosted Community server; paid cloud and enterprise editions available · in our Microsoft 365 comparison →
What is ONLYOFFICE? →97sovereignty - 3
Collabora Online
Open sourceSelf-hosted, browser-based collaborative editing built on the LibreOffice engine.
Free self-hosted CODE edition; paid supported edition and hosting available · in our Microsoft 365 comparison →
What is Collabora Online? →95sovereignty - 4
CryptPad
Open sourceEnd-to-end-encrypted collaborative documents where the server never sees your content.
Free / self-host; free public instance at cryptpad.fr · in our Microsoft 365 comparison →
What is CryptPad? →92sovereignty
Is it free?
The free tier, its real limits and where you start paying — read from each vendor's own pricing page and dated.
Run these yourself
What each one actually needs — real RAM, honest running cost, and the setup time nobody quotes.
- Self-hosting LibreOffice 2 GB with a large spreadsheet open
- Self-hosting ONLYOFFICE 6 GB for the Document Server with a handful of concurrent editors
- Self-hosting Collabora Online 4 GB, and roughly 1 GB per 20 concurrent documents
- Self-hosting CryptPad 2 GB for a small instance
Replacing a specific tool?
Head-to-head comparisons for each popular office & productivity suites product.
Straight head-to-heads
Two office & productivity suites tools, side by side — verified facts and a plain verdict.