Collabora Online
Self-hosted, browser-based collaborative editing built on the LibreOffice engine.
Collabora Online is a self-hostable, browser-based office suite from Collabora that brings real-time co-authoring to the LibreOffice engine, so multiple people can edit the same Writer, Calc, or Impress document at once through a web browser. The free Collabora Online Development Edition (CODE) is a rolling release aimed at home use, testing, and small teams, while the supported Collabora Online product targets organizations that need stability and vendor support. It is the natural way to add Google-Docs-style collaboration on your own server, and it is what powers Nextcloud Office (the richdocuments app) inside a Nextcloud instance. It is MPL-2.0 licensed.
What it does well
- +Fully open-source under MPL-2.0, an OSI-approved license
- +Real-time, in-browser co-authoring of documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on a server you control
- +Built on the mature LibreOffice engine, so format handling matches LibreOffice closely
- +Powers Nextcloud Office, giving an easy path for people already running Nextcloud
- +Supports ODF and Microsoft formats, keeping documents portable
Where it falls short
- −Requires running a server; setup and maintenance are more involved than a desktop install
- −The free CODE edition is a rolling release the vendor does not recommend for production; production use points to the paid supported edition
- −Best used alongside a file backend such as Nextcloud, rather than as a standalone suite
- −Browser-based editing depends on the server being available, so it is less 'offline-first' than a desktop app
Collabora Online as an alternative to
Where Collabora Online shows up in our comparisons, and how it ranked.
Collabora Online head-to-head
Straight comparisons against the tools people weigh it against.