Why we still pay Microsoft
Microsoft 365 sits at the centre of how most of us work. Word for documents, Excel for spreadsheets, PowerPoint for slides, Outlook for email, OneDrive for files, Teams for chat. The bundle is convenient and the file formats — .docx, .xlsx, .pptx — are the default everywhere.
The cost has crept up. Microsoft 365 Personal is now €99/year for a single user. Microsoft 365 Business Standard is €12.50/user/month. Multiply by team size and you're looking at thousands per year for software that, for most use cases, you already had in cheaper or free European alternatives.
There is one. It's been around longer than Office 365. It's German, it's free, and it reads and writes Microsoft file formats natively.
Quick facts
- Country: Germany (The Document Foundation, Berlin)
- Founded: 2010 (forked from OpenOffice)
- Ownership: Non-profit foundation
- Pricing: Free, forever, no asterisk
- License: MPL v2 (Mozilla Public License) — open source
- Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux, plus a viable mobile companion
- Best for: Households, freelancers, small businesses, schools, public-sector organisations that don't need real-time cloud co-editing
The LibreOffice story
LibreOffice is the most-used office suite you've probably never paid attention to. It's the default in most Linux distributions, in the French and Italian governments, in a growing number of German and Spanish public-sector deployments, and on millions of personal computers worldwide.
It's maintained by The Document Foundation, a German non-profit. Contributors include enterprises (Collabora, Allotropia), national governments (most of the EU member states), and thousands of individual developers. No single company can buy it. No private-equity owner can extract from it. It just keeps shipping.
Why it's a real alternative
LibreOffice covers every Microsoft Office use case for individuals and most small organisations. Writer (Word), Calc (Excel), Impress (PowerPoint), Draw (vector graphics), Base (Access-equivalent database), Math (formula editor).
File compatibility: LibreOffice reads and writes .docx, .xlsx, .pptx natively. Round-tripping a complex Word document with tracked changes, comments, and embedded styles usually works. Round-tripping a heavy Excel macro file may not. Test before you commit your accounting workbook.
What you gain: €99/year saved per user, no subscription pressure, no telemetry, full data sovereignty, support for the OpenDocument standard (which the EU itself uses for interoperable government documents).
What you lose: Real-time co-editing in the browser (LibreOffice's Collabora Online add-on exists but requires self-hosting), Microsoft's deep integration with Teams and OneDrive, and the absolute familiarity of the Office UI.
Side-by-side
| Feature | Microsoft 365 | LibreOffice |
|---|---|---|
| Country | United States | Germany |
| Ownership | Microsoft Corp (public) | The Document Foundation (non-profit) |
| License | Proprietary subscription | Open source (MPL v2) |
| Personal annual price | €99/year | €0 |
| Business annual price | €150/user/year (Standard) | €0 (community), enterprise support optional |
| Word processing | Word | Writer |
| Spreadsheets | Excel | Calc |
| Presentations | PowerPoint | Impress |
| Native file formats | .docx .xlsx .pptx | .odt .ods .odp + reads/writes .docx etc. |
| Real-time co-editing | Yes (cloud) | Collabora Online (self-hosted) |
| Mac/Windows/Linux | Win/Mac (no Linux) | All three |
| Telemetry | Yes (opt-out) | None |
Prices checked: May 2026.
Worth knowing
LibreOffice is genuinely free, but free comes with trade-offs we'd be dishonest not to flag.
The interface looks dated. Functional, complete, and slightly stuck in 2012. LibreOffice 25.x has improved this materially, but if you expect Microsoft's polish, you'll be disappointed for the first week. By the third week you'll have stopped noticing.
Complex Excel workbooks may not round-trip cleanly. If your business runs on macro-heavy spreadsheets with Power Query, ODBC connections, or proprietary Microsoft add-ins, LibreOffice's Calc will be a downgrade. Test a representative file before migrating finance teams.
No cloud-first workflow. If your team relies on simultaneous co-editing in the browser, LibreOffice's standalone desktop model will feel like a regression. Look at OnlyOffice or Nextcloud Hub with Collabora if cloud collaboration is the requirement.
Support is community-driven. Forums, mailing lists, and a few commercial providers (Collabora Productivity, Allotropia) for enterprise contracts. No Microsoft-grade SLA out of the box.
How to switch
- Download LibreOffice. Go to libreoffice.org. Choose your platform. Install. Five minutes.
- Open your existing Office files. Just open them. LibreOffice reads .docx, .xlsx, .pptx natively. Notice what looks wrong, then fix anything that matters.
- Set defaults. In LibreOffice settings, choose whether to default-save to Microsoft formats (recommended if you share files with non-LibreOffice users) or to OpenDocument (recommended if everyone in your circle is on LibreOffice).
- Migrate your templates. If you have custom Word templates, open them in Writer and re-save as .odt or .docx LibreOffice-style.
- Test your hardest workbook. Pick the most complex Excel file you have. Open in Calc. See if everything works. If yes, you're done. If no, decide whether to keep Excel for that one file or rebuild.
- Cancel Microsoft 365. After 30 days of LibreOffice working, stop the subscription. Save €99-300 per year per user.
Who this is for
Switch now if: you're an individual, freelancer, or small business not bound by enterprise software contracts. Especially if you find yourself paying €99/year for software you use casually.
Wait if: your job depends on advanced Excel features (Power Query, complex VBA macros, real-time data connections), or your team's documents are deeply formatted Word files with tracked-changes workflows.
Don't switch if: you live in PowerPoint with embedded video and need cross-platform fidelity guaranteed. PowerPoint exports from Impress are good but not pixel-perfect.
Get started
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LibreOffice is free. No affiliate. We just think you should use it.