Sure, LibreOffice has improved over the years, but some still like FreeOffice’s capability to open Microsoft Office files without much distortion. FreeOffice handles Microsoft Office files a tad bit better than LibreOffice, considering SoftMaker Office is famous for the same reason. The differences arrive when it comes to the quality of compatibility. File Format Compatibilityīoth FreeOffice and LibreOffice handle Microsoft Office files (DOCS, XLSX, and PPTX) just fine. You can use the same subscription to use it for your business, but nothing special to support a range of devices at once. In contrast, I could not find SoftMaker’s enterprise offering. If you are an enterprise, you can opt for LibreOffice professional support that provides you with priority technical support and certification programs to provide your team with the necessary training to use/manage LibreOffice. And you get more features out of the box. With LibreOffice, you can get free help from the community of fellow active users. If you don't mind that, it is a good option. You can expect free support from the forum, and basic features like spell checking on FreeOffice. You can only avail of these benefits with SoftMaker Office with a premium subscription. In contrast, FreeOffice suite is limited to:Īdditionally, FreeOffice cuts back on features like synonym dictionaries, tabs, macros, and free technical support. LibreOffice gets an advantage here, considering it provides a variety of programs and features for free.

Even if you are not a Windows user, it looks polished and provides a good experience for free.

The user experience makes you feel right at home if you are a Windows-first user. SoftMaker’s FreeOffice gets an edge for its variety of user interface options and provides a modern user experience comparatively. Unless you want a user interface similar to/close to Microsoft Office, it should be plenty good. The screenshots above show how LibreOffice looks on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. I believe that LibreOffice’s layout can use improvements, providing more clarity to the available tools/icons on the main screen. But it keeps up with modern standards by a good margin. Sure, it may not be a fancy user interface. It takes a simple and clean approach to make things aesthetically pleasing. In the end, however, the decision depends on your power to purchase and what are your requirements as a user.LibreOffice has improved its user experience over the years. You might want to read their guidelines to make sure you don’t end yourself up in a security problem (which is has very few chances of happening). The three suites that we are talking about are secure for use by any individual. The need to download an external software to check spelling errorsĪll three of these softwares for suites have products similar to each others, for instance, what Microsoft calls Microsoft Word is called as Writer for LibreOffice and OpenOffice.Microsoft Office, LibreOffice and OpenOffice: Features and Security Features You can download either of these two free softwares on as many computers as you like. But this is not the case for LibreOffice or OpenOffice.

For instance, if you have bought a license for Microsoft Office for a single computer, you will not be allowed by the company to have it downloaded on other computers for free. Microsoft ExcelĪnother very important factor that makes these paid and free softwares different from each other is that Microsoft Office can only be downloaded on different devices which directly depends on the kind of purchase you have made. The developers of these suites are not focused on the profits, unlike those, of Microsoft. While on the other hand, free office suites like LibreOffice and OpenOffice, cost nothing. Making the company, a profit driven organization. This is sometimes the biggest deciding factors for many Office users, who would want to get the best services at the cheapest cost possible.Īs Microsoft Office is a paid commercial software, the users must pay a certain amount to keep the software running smoothly. The basic, and foremost difference between Microsoft Office and, LibreOffice and OpenOffice, is, that Microsoft Office is a paid software, while the other two are free of cost.

Openoffice vs libreoffice security