LibreOffice vs Apache OpenOffice vs ONLYOFFICE

Origins and Development History

Understanding how these three projects relate to each other starts with their shared history. In 2000, Sun Microsystems released the source code of its StarOffice suite as OpenOffice.org, creating one of the earliest major open source office projects. When Oracle acquired Sun in 2010, concerns about the project's direction led a group of developers to fork the codebase and create LibreOffice under The Document Foundation, an independent non-profit. Oracle later donated the original OpenOffice.org code to the Apache Software Foundation, which renamed it Apache OpenOffice.

ONLYOFFICE has a completely separate origin. Developed by Ascensio System SIA starting around 2014, it was built from scratch rather than forking an existing codebase. Initially focused on cloud-based collaborative editing, ONLYOFFICE later added desktop editors. Its independent architecture explains many of the design differences compared to LibreOffice and OpenOffice, particularly its native use of OOXML formats and its modern, ribbon-style interface.

Feature Comparison

Word Processing

LibreOffice Writer is the most feature-rich word processor of the three. It supports master documents for managing multi-chapter publications, extensive mail merge with database integration, form creation, comprehensive revision tracking with threaded comments, bibliography management, text-to-table conversion, and hybrid PDF export that embeds editable ODF data within the PDF. Writer has received steady improvements, with version 26.2 adding better floating table support and automatic caption insertion for pasted images.

ONLYOFFICE Document Editor focuses on the features that matter most for everyday business documents and handles them well. It supports track changes, commenting with mentions, document comparison, version history, table of contents generation, headers and footers, footnotes, watermarks, mail merge and PDF export. While it lacks some of Writer's more advanced features like master documents and built-in bibliography tools, the features it does include work smoothly and the interface is more approachable for users coming from Microsoft Word.

Apache OpenOffice Writer shares much of its feature set with LibreOffice Writer due to their common codebase, but it has not received significant feature additions since 2014. The core functionality is solid for standard document editing, but it lacks the improvements that LibreOffice has accumulated over twelve years of independent development, including better OOXML handling, improved table management, enhanced accessibility features and modern UI refinements.

Spreadsheets

LibreOffice Calc supports over 500 built-in functions, pivot tables, goal seeking, a solver tool for optimization problems, conditional formatting with extensive rule types, data validation, autofilters, named ranges, array formulas and charting with a broad selection of chart types. It handles sheets up to 16,384 columns by 1,048,576 rows. Calc's macro language is LibreOffice Basic, with additional support for Python, JavaScript and BeanShell scripting.

ONLYOFFICE Sheets has been closing the feature gap rapidly. The 9.4 release added dynamic array support, regex functions (REGEXTEST, REGEXREPLACE, REGEXEXTRACT) and a Simplex LP solver for linear programming problems. It supports pivot tables, conditional formatting, data validation, named ranges, charts, sparklines and dark mode. ONLYOFFICE uses JavaScript for macros rather than a VBA-compatible language, which is a consideration for organizations with existing VBA macro libraries.

Apache OpenOffice Calc provides the fundamental spreadsheet features but with a function library and capability set that reflects its 2014 feature freeze. It lacks the formula improvements, pivot table refinements and performance optimizations that LibreOffice Calc has received in subsequent releases.

Presentations

LibreOffice Impress supports custom animations, slide transitions, speaker notes, presenter console mode, embedded media, handout layouts and export to PDF, HTML and video formats. Its template library has grown through community contributions, though the default templates remain modest.

ONLYOFFICE Presentation Editor added 25 new design themes and 20 new slide transitions in the 9.4 release, giving it a more polished visual baseline than Impress. It supports animations, transitions, speaker notes, embedded media and collaborative editing with real-time co-authoring. The interface closely matches PowerPoint's layout, which helps users transition without relearning their workflow.

Apache OpenOffice Impress provides basic presentation capabilities that are adequate for simple slide decks but lacks the animation refinements and modern template options available in both LibreOffice and ONLYOFFICE.

Microsoft Office Format Compatibility

This is where the three suites diverge most significantly. ONLYOFFICE uses OOXML (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) as its native format, which means documents created in Microsoft Office open with the highest fidelity. Complex layouts, precise table formatting, embedded objects and advanced typography all render more accurately because ONLYOFFICE works directly with the same file structure rather than converting between formats.

LibreOffice uses ODF as its native format but has invested heavily in OOXML import and export filters. Simple to moderately complex Microsoft Office documents open cleanly, and each release improves the handling of edge cases. However, documents that rely on Microsoft-specific rendering behaviors, complex SmartArt, certain embedded ActiveX controls or advanced VBA macros may show differences.

Apache OpenOffice's OOXML support is the weakest of the three, reflecting its older codebase. It can open .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files, but formatting fidelity is noticeably lower than either LibreOffice or ONLYOFFICE, particularly for documents created in recent versions of Microsoft Office.

Development Activity and Community

LibreOffice has the largest and most active development community. The Document Foundation coordinates contributions from hundreds of developers, including both volunteers and employees of companies like Collabora, Red Hat, Allotropia and CIB. The project follows a predictable release cycle with two major versions per year, plus regular maintenance updates. Bug reports are triaged actively, and the project maintains extensive documentation, a wiki, mailing lists and IRC/Matrix channels for community support.

ONLYOFFICE has a smaller but professional development team at Ascensio System SIA, supplemented by community contributions through its GitHub repositories. Development is consistent, with regular feature releases and responsive bug tracking. The project recently updated its licensing to improve clarity, and the Community Edition remains free for self-hosted deployments.

Apache OpenOffice has a small volunteer contributor base and releases updates infrequently, primarily for security patches. The project has faced repeated discussions about its long-term viability within the Apache community. While it continues to function and receive critical security fixes, its development pace is incomparable to either LibreOffice or ONLYOFFICE.

User Interface and Learning Curve

ONLYOFFICE offers the smoothest transition for Microsoft Office users because its ribbon-style interface closely mirrors the layout of Microsoft Office 2016 and later. Toolbar icons, menu groupings and feature placement are deliberately similar, which means experienced Office users can be productive immediately without relearning their muscle memory.

LibreOffice provides a traditional menu bar interface by default, with an optional Tabbed toolbar mode that approximates a ribbon layout. The default interface will feel familiar to users who remember Microsoft Office 2003 and earlier, or who prefer the classic menu-driven approach. The Tabbed mode has improved over recent releases but is not as polished as ONLYOFFICE's native ribbon implementation.

Apache OpenOffice uses a traditional menu bar interface without a ribbon option. For users comfortable with the classic layout, this works fine. For users whose Office experience is entirely with the ribbon interface (anyone who started after 2007), the adjustment may feel dated.

Platform Support

All three suites run on Windows, macOS and Linux. LibreOffice additionally has community-maintained packages for FreeBSD, NetBSD and other Unix-like systems, plus an Android viewer app (though full mobile editing support remains limited). ONLYOFFICE provides native packages for all three major desktop platforms and offers mobile apps for Android and iOS. Apache OpenOffice supports the same three desktop platforms but does not offer mobile applications.

For cloud deployment, ONLYOFFICE Docs and Collabora Online (the cloud version of the LibreOffice engine) are both available as self-hosted server applications. Apache OpenOffice has no cloud or web-based version.