Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

Related: what options are there to avoid a dependency on either Google or Microsoft when it comes to productivity apps? I feel like the only two "real" options are G Suite (or whatever it is called now) and Office. Are there others that are compatible-enough that they are realistic options, particularly with online (in browser) experiences?

View on HN

Next cloud has integration with collabora

https://nextcloud.com/collaboraonline/

There's http://libreoffice.org . It's not a web collaboration suite though.

FreeOffice is closed-source, but free, and available on Linux, macOS and Windows. It works pretty well and I think it's better than what LibreOffice currently offers.

[1] https://www.freeoffice.com/en/

> closed-source, but free,

That's the scariest combination possible IMO. Regardless of the trustworthiness of the developer, it stacks incentives in a bad way. Even if LibreOffice is worse, at least it'll be around longer than one single developer.

I agree completely, but it might suit the use case of someone trying to get some work done.

There is also WPS Office. https://www.wps.com/en-US/. It's actually very well done, and seems to be pretty compatible. It also runs on everything.

It's usable in isolation, but at least the last time I used it, it did not fit the parent post's criteria for "compatible-enough that they are realistic options"; it did break document layouts when exchanging work to/from people using MS Office.

I've been impressed with the recent versions of LibreOffice. If you don't need collaboration, it's quite good.

I use Apple’s iWork suite (mainly Pages and Numbers). It’s closed source, obviously, but very usable for my needs. It also has collaborative editing built in without involving the browser. I’m pretty generally anti-browser as a person though. If there’s a desktop application I can use instead of the browser, I’ll use it.

Cryptpad (https://cryptpad.fr/) is what's recommended on PrivacyGuides, though it looks like it's only using OnlyOffice under the hood, at least for its spreadsheet.

Only Office: https://www.onlyoffice.com/ compatible Office, connects to NextCloud, Android and iOs, open source… (didn't try but I see organizations using it)

Check out FreeOffice[1]. It's closed-source but zero cost.

[1] https://www.freeoffice.com/en/

Without defining what "real" means, I think you've answered the question for yourself.

https://prism-break.org

There is Onlyoffice for nextcloud, but it was a bit laggy when I tried it myself

Reply on news.ycombinator.com