9 Best Microsoft Office Alternatives of 2026

LibreOffice is the closest like-for-like replacement for the Microsoft Office desktop apps, and it costs nothing. The Document Foundation ships six programs: Writer for documents, Calc for spreadsheets, Impress for slides, Draw for diagrams, Base for databases and Math for formulas. That last pair matters for people leaving Office Professional, because Base covers tables, forms, queries and reports, a job most free alternatives skip. The current 26.8.3 release has native downloads for Windows on x86-64 and ARM64, Macs with Apple Silicon or Intel chips, and Linux in rpm and deb packages. Version 26.8 added Markdown import and export, plus connectors between objects in Calc and Writer. The trade-offs are about modern extras: the desktop apps have no built-in cloud drive or live co-editing, the downloads cover desktop systems only, and help comes from the community and its documentation unless you pay a professional support partner. For a household or small office that edits files locally, none of that outweighs a free, complete suite.

ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors is the pick for people whose main worry is file compatibility. Ascensio System says the editors are built around native support for DOCX, XLSX and PPTX, keeping formatting, fonts, charts and styles intact, which reduces the broken layouts that come with converting files. The same app also edits PDFs as if they were documents, changing text, images and layout, and it can create and fill forms, so many users can drop a separate PDF editor. The interface uses tabs, which feels familiar to anyone coming from recent versions of Office. The desktop editors are free for personal and professional use on Windows, macOS and Linux, and mobile apps cover Android and iOS. Collaboration depends on where your files live: you connect the editors to ONLYOFFICE, Nextcloud, ownCloud, Seafile, Box or Dropbox to co-edit. Teams that want their own server pay for ONLYOFFICE Docs, starting with the Home edition at $149 per server per year. The optional AI Tools also need a provider you set up.

Google Workspace is the strongest option when several people need to work on the same file at once. Docs, Sheets and Slides run in the browser, show other editors live, and support comments and action items, and Google says anyone with a Google Account can create in Docs. Leaving Microsoft Office is easier than it used to be because Docs can edit Word documents directly without making a copy, leaving the original intact, and documents can be created and edited offline. Paid Business plans add a custom email address, Meet video calls and admin controls; Business Starter includes 30 GB of pooled storage per user, a Gemini assistant in Gmail and meetings for 100 participants, while Business Standard raises storage to 2 TB and Business Plus to 5 TB. Business plans come with a 14-day trial and are limited to 300 users. We could not confirm USD prices from our location, so check the pricing page for your region. The main limit is fidelity: Docs is its own editor, so layout-heavy Office files deserve a check after import.

Apple iWork is the easiest free answer for people who already own a Mac, iPad or iPhone. Pages, Numbers and Keynote cover documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and Apple says they remain free for everyone, along with the Freeform whiteboard app. Office compatibility works through conversion: Apple's support pages explain that Numbers spreadsheets can be converted to Microsoft Excel, CSV and PDF before you share them. The iCloud versions run in a web browser, so a colleague without a Mac can still open and edit a shared file. Apple now sells Apple Creator Studio, which adds premium templates, a library of royalty-free photos and graphics, and AI features to these apps for $12.99 per month or $129 per year after a one-month free trial. The paid layer is optional. The real limit is platform: there are no native Windows or Android apps, and files stay in Apple formats unless you export them, which adds a step every time you send a file to an Office user.

FreeOffice is SoftMaker's no-cost suite and a good fit for people who want the three core Office jobs done without learning a new layout. It includes TextMaker for documents, PlanMaker for spreadsheets and Presentations for slides, and SoftMaker says all three are compatible with their Microsoft Office counterparts: Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Free downloads are offered for Windows, Mac and Linux, and the mobile versions of TextMaker, PlanMaker and Presentations are free on iPhone, iPad and Android. SoftMaker also offers FreePDF, a separate free PDF editor for Windows that creates, edits and annotates PDF files. The suite is deliberately narrow. There is no database or drawing app like LibreOffice's Base and Draw, no built-in shared cloud workspace like Google Docs, and the newer extras, including AI text and translation tools, sit in the paid SoftMaker Office. For a home computer that mainly opens and edits Word and Excel files, that narrow scope keeps things simple.

WPS Office suits people who want something that looks and behaves like Microsoft Office without the subscription. Kingsoft bundles Writer, Spreadsheet, Presentation, PDF and Photo into one lightweight app, and the free Standard version runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS, plus a web editor. The PDF side is a real strength: you can view, edit, convert and sign PDFs, and turn them into Word, Excel or PowerPoint files without a second tool. WPS AI can draft documents from a prompt, build editable slide decks from a short description and summarize PDFs. Cloud documents support live co-editing with cursors, comments and access controls. The free plan has 1 GB of cloud storage against 20 GB on paid plans, and Pro+ AI features stop for the day once you hit a usage limit. Pricing is the confusing part: the US App Store lists more than ten in-app plans, from WPS VIP Monthly at $3.99, and WPS notes its website prices apply to PC and Android.

Zoho Workplace is the budget route for small businesses that want to replace both Microsoft 365 email and the Office apps. The bundle includes Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show for documents, spreadsheets and presentations, WorkDrive for shared files, Cliq for chat and Meeting for video calls. Workplace Standard costs $3 per user per month billed annually or $4 month to month on Zoho's default USD price list, and it includes custom domain email with 30 GB of mail storage per user and the Zia AI assistant. WorkDrive gives teams of 3 to 10 users 100 GB of shared storage, adding 10 GB per user after that, while teams under 3 users get 10 GB each. Zoho also has a forever free Mail plan for one domain and up to 5 users, but it covers email only, with 5 GB per user and no IMAP, POP or ActiveSync. The office apps run mainly in the browser, so people who live in desktop Excel may find them lighter than they expect.

Collabora Online is for organizations that want browser-based co-editing like Google Docs but cannot put their files in someone else's cloud. Collabora builds on LibreOffice technology, and the suite covers Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw in the browser, with desktop and mobile apps also available. It runs on premise, inside your own infrastructure, usually connected to a file-sharing platform. The Business subscription costs $3.40 per user per month on Collabora's USD price list, covers up to 99 users, and includes long-term support, a signed service level agreement, signed security updates, lifetime maintenance, a customer portal and accessibility certification. Organizations with 100 or more users move to an Enterprise quote with volume discounts and roadmap input. The free Collabora Online Development Edition, called CODE, gets rolling updates and is aimed at home use, testing and start-ups. This is not a download-and-go app: someone has to host it, which is why it ranks below the desktop suites for individual shoppers.

Polaris Office is a free cross-platform suite that matters most to people who receive files in many formats on a phone or tablet. On the US App Store, Polaris Office Corp. lists support for DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PPT, PPTX, PPS, PPSX, TXT, HWP, HWPX, ODT, PDF and CSV, which makes it one of the few suites here that opens Korean Hangul HWP files. Apps cover Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, and a web office edits documents in the browser. Polaris Drive is the default cloud, but the app also connects to iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, WebDAV and FTP, and the interface comes in 18 languages. The free version is real but limited: Polaris says some features depend on cloud usage or subscription level. Paid tiers on the App Store start with the Smart Plan at $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year, followed by Pro at $5.99 per month and AI plans from $12.99 per month, with a separate ad removal purchase. That plan list is busier than most competitors here.