Current (mid 2025) recommendations for Office suites?

cloverskull · 2025-06-11 23:40:19

Hey friends,

I, as many people (presumably), have corporate/edu needs to interoperate with MS Office. I know about winapps, dual booting, VM, etc., but what I really am looking for is an application level solution to run locally on my machine. So, no *365 type cloud based solutions.

I'm tracking the following as current alternatives and welcome a discussion of each. I'll sprinkle in my knee jerk thoughts on each of these:

- OpenOffice
-- Most recent release is from 2014; this makes it a bit of a nonstarter

- LibreOffice
-- Typically recommended FOSS solution
-- Good MS Office compatibility
-- I've had some issues rendering certain Excel tables, sadly I need this functionality to work so this did block me, but it was years ago

- WPS Office
-- Reportedly excellent MS-Office like experience
-- Reportedly excellent compatibility with MS-Office files
-- Closed source
-- Written in China, which makes me nervous from a security perspective

- OnlyOffice
-- I know least about this
-- Of note: no official Arch wiki page
-- It /seems/ like their main focus is their cloud/commercial offerings, but I think they have standalone linux applications
-- They have at least one closed source binary blob (I read this and can't remember where or I'd link it)

Anyone have any other thoughts? I'm leaning toward LibreOffice as it's truly FOSS and I don't want closed source software doing God-knows-what with my personal documents. And I have zero need for cloud collab at this point in time, I'm strictly hunting for desktop applications.

Thanks!

seth · 2025-06-12 05:01:30

You can also try https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/freeoffice (closed source, free as in beer only)

kartin · 2025-06-12 06:32:01

seth wrote:

You can also try https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/freeoffice (closed source, free as in beer only)

Some features require a paid subscription. https://www.softmaker.com/en/discover-s … comparison

xerxes_ · 2025-06-12 09:49:21

Register mail account in Microsoft or Google and you will have access to their office apps, like excel, word, etc. through web browser.

Or use MS Office through wine if you don't want whole Windows on VM.

SimonJ · 2025-06-12 10:20:34

xerxes_ wrote:

Register mail account in Microsoft or Google and you will have access to their office apps, like excel, word, etc. through web browser.
Or use MS Office through wine if you don't want whole Windows on VM.

I really don't want to share my private files with either of them, or anybody actually.

seth · 2025-06-12 10:47:31

Also

The OP explicitly wrote:

So, no *365 type cloud based solutions.

There may even be legal reasons that preclude that and why people are seeking alternatives to MSO.
And that's before even the orangeman invading Greenland…

Arch Linux

#1 2025-06-11 23:40:19

Current (mid 2025) recommendations for Office suites?

#2 2025-06-12 05:01:30

Re: Current (mid 2025) recommendations for Office suites?

#3 2025-06-12 06:32:01

Re: Current (mid 2025) recommendations for Office suites?

#4 2025-06-12 09:49:21

Re: Current (mid 2025) recommendations for Office suites?

#5 2025-06-12 10:20:34

Re: Current (mid 2025) recommendations for Office suites?

#6 2025-06-12 10:47:31

Re: Current (mid 2025) recommendations for Office suites?

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