Best Free Office Suites – MS Office Alternative

Many home users, organizations and enterprises are increasingly using free office suites that can compete with well-known brands. Microsoft Office is still the benchmark in this industry, but it has worthy competitors.

Now it is difficult to imagine our life without documents created on a computer. Electronic text files, spreadsheets and presentations have become an integral part of our lives.

Most office programs are offered to users as part of a package – a set of applications related to the same subject area. Programs from one package are created with a similar interface, taking into account functional features, they are interconnected at the level of data exchange and sharing of certain tools.

There are paid and free office programs that differ from each other in terms of distribution methods and sets of built-in functions. Paid apps tend to be more stable and feature rich. Free packages may be less convenient than their commercial counterparts.

For many years, the unofficial standard for working with electronic documents has been Microsoft’s Office application. It is the most advanced and popular software package for Windows, stable, functional and easy to use.

In recent years, it has had serious competitors that can pull some of the users over and shake the dominant position of Microsoft’s office product. Many free office suites have come close to Microsoft Office in terms of core feature set.

The main reason why free office for Windows is in demand is the considerable cost of MS Office for consumers. Often because of this, users pay attention to free office programs.

Need a free alternative to office – a free office document program that can be used for personal purposes or at work, as long as it does not conflict with the license to distribute specific software. For these purposes, free office programs for Windows are well suited.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the best free office programs that can replace Microsoft software. We need a free office suite for Windows that is compatible with MS Office document formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more). In addition to programs installed on a PC, this review includes several web applications running in the cloud.

LibreOffice is a free office suite

LibreOffice is a free analogue of Microsoft Office, perhaps the most powerful application of the programs mentioned in this article. Initially, the project began its journey in 2010 as an offshoot of OpenOffice under the auspices of The Document Foundation.

LibreOffice supports the following software platforms: Windows, Linux, macOS, BSD, Android, iOS.

In addition to analogues of the most famous applications from the MS Office package, LibreOffice includes programs for working with mathematical data, vector graphics and diagrams.

The application has built-in support for a large number of languages, including Russian. You can download LibreOffice from the official website: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/?lang=en .

The LibreOffice package includes the following applications:

• Writer is a word processor.
• Calk is a spreadsheet processor.
• Impress is a program for creating presentations.
• Draw is a graphical vector editor.
• Math is a formula editor.
• Base is a tool for working with a DBMS.

The program supports opening and working with a large number of different formats, from native “ODT” to Microsoft Office formats – “DOCX” or “DOC”.

Based on LibreOffice, a large number of forks (branches) have been created, which are distributed under other names and authorship.

OpenOffice – free office programs for your computer

OpenOffice is a free version of Office, based on the free version of StarOffice in 2002. In 2010, due to disagreements, most of the development team left this product and founded a new project based on OpenOffice – LibreOffice.

As a free replacement for paid Microsoft Office products, OpenOffice has been widely used on home computers, educational institutions, enterprises and organizations of various types: government and commercial.

OpenOffice supports the following platforms: Linux, Windows, macOS, BSD. To download to a computer, go to the official website of the application: https://www.openoffice.org/download/ .

OpenOffice includes the following tools:

• Writer is a text editor.
• Calc is a spreadsheet editor.
• Impress – preparation of presentations.
• Draw — creation of drawings of vector graphics.
• Base – work with databases.
• Math is a formula editor.

In Russia, the assembly from the Infra-Resource company, created on the basis of OpenOffice, was popular. In particular, the commercial version of this assembly contained enhanced security checks.

WPS Office – an alternative from China

WPS Office is a Chinese alternative to MS Office. Previously, the package was distributed under the name Kingsoft Office. The program has support for several languages, including Russian.

WPS Office is available on the following operating systems: Windows, Linux, macOS, Android. The Windows version has paid and free distribution options. When using this package for free, ads are shown.

You can download WPS Office from this link: https://www.wps.com/en-US/download/ .

WPS Office includes the following applications:

• Writer is a word processor.
• Presentation is a spreadsheet processor.
• Spreadsheets is an application for creating presentations.
• PDF is an editor for files of this format.

WPS Office supports a large number of file formats. This application largely copies the interface and features of Microsoft Office.

ONLYOFFICE Desktop Edition

ONLYOFFICE (formerly TeamLab) are open source office applications for working in the cloud or on a PC from Latvia. ONLYOFFICE includes modules: document and project management system, online office, office suite, CRM, corporate portal.

ONLYOFFICE works on operating systems: Windows, Linux, macOS. Users can download a free office suite for installation on a computer in the ONLYOFFICE Desktop Edition at the link: https://www.onlyoffice.com/en/home-use.aspx .

The ONLYOFFICE desktop package includes the following components:

• Document (Document) – a text editor.
• Spreadsheet – spreadsheet editor.
• Presentation – creating presentations.

The ONLYOFFICE Desktop application can be used on a computer without the Internet, and if necessary, connect to cloud servers to collaborate on documents.

SoftMaker FreeOffice – free office version

SoftMaker FreeOffice is a free office suite from a German developer. This is a truncated version of the program, created on the basis of paid SoftMaker Office products.

The application works on the following systems: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android. Download the program on your PC from the official website: https://www.freeoffice.com/ru/download .

SotMaker FreeOffice includes tools:

• TextMaker – work with text documents.
• PlanMaker is a spreadsheet tool.
• Presentations is a tool for creating presentations.

A free version of this program can be found on the Internet under the name Ashampoo Office Free.

Office Online – Free Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office Online is a free web service for working with electronic documents online. Some users do not know that the main applications from the Microsoft office suite can be used for free from a browser.

Despite the fact that this is a lightweight version of the office suite, many users will have enough of these cloud service capabilities. You can access the online office from the official Microsoft website or from the interface of some cloud storages that support integration with the service. Read more about this on my website, links to articles are below.

Office Online includes web applications:

• Word is a text editor for working with documents.
• Excel – work with spreadsheets.
• PowerPoint is a presentation tool.

The finished document can be shared, saved in the OneDrive cloud, or downloaded to a PC in several formats.

A free Microsoft Office application has been released for users of mobile operating systems.

Google Docs – work with documents online

Google Docs is an online service from the search giant. Office applications Google Docs work in the browser without installing the appropriate software on your computer.

The service is associated with Google Drive cloud storage (Google Drive). To access office web applications, the user must have a gmail email address to which your Google account will be linked.

Google Docs consists of the following office web applications:

• Writely (Document) – work with text documents.
• Spreadsheets is a spreadsheet application.
• Presentations – creating presentations.

The created document can be accessed, published on the Internet, downloaded to a computer in various formats.

Mobile devices use the Google Docs app.

Best Free Office Suites: Comparison Chart

For greater clarity, the main features of the software from this review are summarized in a table that indicates the applications included in free office suites and supported operating systems.

Table for comparing free office applications:

Appendix	Composition of application tools	Operating systems
libreoffice	Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, Math	Windows, Linux, macOS, BSD, Android, iOS
openoffice	Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, Math	Windows, Linux, macOS, BSD
WPS Office	Writer, Spreadsheets, Presentations, PDF	Windows, Linux, macOS, Android
ONLYOFFICE Desktop	Document, Spreadsheets, Presentations	Windows, Linux, macOS
SoftMaker FreeOffice	TextMaker, PlanMaker, Presentations	Windows, Linux, macOS, Android
Microsoft Office Online	Word, Excel, PowerPoint	Web App, Android, iOS
Google Docs	Writely, Spreadsheets, Presentations	Web App, Android, iOS

Article Conclusions

Despite the fact that Microsoft Office is the benchmark for electronic document programs, users can take advantage of a free alternative. With the help of free applications, the user will be able to create or edit a text document, work with spreadsheets, prepare a presentation, and perform other necessary operations. You can install the free software on your computer or use the services of a web application in the cloud.