Microsoft 365 → LibreOffice
What it saves, what actually moves, what you rebuild — and the thing that catches people.
What it costs, and what it saves
Microsoft 365, as listed on microsoft.com on 2026-10-03 (US): Personal $99.99/year or $9.99/month, Family $129.99/year or $12.99/month (1-6 people), Premium $199.99/year or $19.99/month, and Basic (100 GB OneDrive and ad-free Outlook, web and mobile apps only) $19.99/year; Office Home 2024 is a $179.99 one-time purchase. LibreOffice is free (26.8.0 latest, 26.2.6 also offered on libreoffice.org). Replacing only the desktop apps with LibreOffice saves $99.99/year for one person; if you still want 100 GB of OneDrive and ad-free Outlook.com, keeping Basic makes the net saving $80/year.
Moves cleanly
Documents open directly: LibreOffice opens and saves .docx, .xlsx and .pptx as well as the older .doc, .xls and .ppt, and can be set to save in Microsoft formats by default (Tools > Options > Load/Save > General). Text, tables, ordinary formulas and slides carry over. File > Wizards > Document Converter can batch-convert a folder of Office files to OpenDocument if you want to change format.
You rebuild
Macros, advanced spreadsheet features and anything that lived in the cloud. LibreOffice's help says it and Microsoft Office cannot run the same macro code; only some Excel VBA runs, when enabled under VBA Properties. The Document Foundation's feature comparison (edited 2026-09-29) lists no Power Query, no Power Pivot, no waterfall or treemap-style charts and no real-time co-authoring in the desktop apps.
What Microsoft 365 costs you today
Consumer: Microsoft 365 Personal $9.99/month or $99.99/year (1 person, 1 TB OneDrive); Family $12.99/month or $129.99/year (up to 6 people, 1 TB each). Business (per user/month, annual commitment, effective July 1, 2026): Basic $7, Standard $14 (adds the desktop apps), Premium $22. Enterprise plans (Office 365 E3, Microsoft 365 E3/E5) run from roughly $26 to $57+ per user/month. Copilot for Microsoft 365 is an additional add-on on most business plans. Prices are per user and recurring; access to the apps ends if the subscription lapses.
What actually holds you in
The apps run on an active subscription; cancel it and the installed Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps become view-only. Files, email, and calendars live in OneDrive and Exchange Online by default, and moving an organization off Exchange and Teams is a substantial migration. The document formats themselves are relatively open (DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX are published Office Open XML standards that other suites read and write), so the documents are portable even when the surrounding services are not. The heaviest lock-in is the cloud stack (Exchange, Teams, SharePoint, and identity/admin), not the file formats.
What you are moving to
LibreOffice is the most complete free desktop office suite and the closest all-round replacement for the Word/Excel/PowerPoint apps. It bundles Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, and Math, runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and opens and saves Microsoft's DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX files as well as the open OpenDocument (ODF) formats. It is produced by the non-profit Document Foundation, installs locally with no account or cloud, and costs nothing. It is the right pick for individuals and organizations that mainly need capable offline documents and full control over their files. Its main gap versus 365 is native real-time co-authoring in the desktop apps; browser-based simultaneous editing comes from the related Collabora Online project, listed below.
Free / runs locally
LibreOffice strengths
- Fully open-source under MPL-2.0, an OSI-approved license
- Runs entirely offline on your own computer with no account, subscription, or cloud
- The most feature-complete free desktop suite: word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, plus Draw, Base, and Math
- Reads and writes Microsoft's DOCX/XLSX/PPTX as well as the open ODF formats, so files stay portable
- Backed by the non-profit Document Foundation with a very active release cadence and large community
What you give up
- No built-in real-time co-authoring in the desktop apps; browser-based simultaneous editing needs the related Collabora Online
- Complex Microsoft documents (heavy macros, advanced pivot tables, intricate formatting) can shift slightly on import/export
- No bundled cloud storage, email, or team-chat equivalent to OneDrive/Outlook/Teams
- The interface and defaults differ from Microsoft's, so there is a short adjustment period
The migration, step by step
- 1Inventory what the subscription gives you: desktop Word, Excel and PowerPoint (replaced by LibreOffice) versus Outlook email, OneDrive's 1 TB, Teams and Family sharing (not replaced by LibreOffice). Decide where mail, storage and calls go before cancelling.
- 2Install LibreOffice from libreoffice.org, set Tools > Options > Load/Save > General to save in Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats if you exchange files with Office users, and enable VBA executable code only for workbooks you trust.
- 3During the overlap, open your most important files (20 is a reasonable sample, estimate) in both suites and check pivot tables, conditional formatting, charts, tracked changes and form fields - LibreOffice's own help lists these as areas where conversion can differ.
- 4Bring OneDrive under the free 5 GB before the term ends: download files to the PC or move them to other storage. Over quota you cannot sync or send and receive Outlook.com mail; OneDrive is frozen after 3 months and may be deleted after 6.
- 5Cutover: at account.microsoft.com/services, cancel or turn off recurring billing. When the term ends the Office apps drop to reduced functionality (open, view and print only), so finish comparing files before that date.
- 6Keep Outlook.com on its free 15 GB mailbox or move mail to another service, and use free Teams (group calls up to 60 minutes and 100 people) or another meeting tool - none of these come from LibreOffice.
The gotcha
Cancelling Microsoft 365 removes more than Word. Your Microsoft storage reverts to 5 GB of cloud storage, and that 5 GB covers OneDrive files and Outlook.com attachments together. If you are over it, OneDrive stops syncing and Outlook.com cannot send or receive email - Microsoft says incoming messages are returned to the sender. After 3 months over quota OneDrive is frozen; after 6 months Microsoft may delete it, and deleted files cannot be recovered. Anyone who used a meaningful share of a 1 TB plan is in this position, so shrink or move OneDrive content before the subscription ends, not after.
When to stay on Microsoft 365
Stay with Microsoft 365 if your work depends on Excel VBA macros, Power Query or Power Pivot, real-time co-authoring in Word, Excel or PowerPoint, or files that must round-trip with clients without layout drift. Also stay if six people share the Family plan's 1 TB each, or if an employer's compliance, Teams or SharePoint setup requires Microsoft apps. If you want Microsoft's apps without a subscription, Office Home 2024 at $179.99 once is that path.
More Layer 5 migrations
Figures verified 2026-07-06 against vendor pricing pages. Prices change and migrations differ by estate — treat the cost delta as a starting model, not a quote. Rankings and recommendations here are merit-only; affiliate income never changes a verdict. See our methodology.