Lib­reOf­fice vs. Open­Of­fice: Which free office suite is best?

Open­Of­fice or Lib­reOf­fice are popular as free Office al­tern­at­ives, because they offer practical and com­pat­ible standard ap­plic­a­tions for text creation, spread­sheets and present­a­tion, and some have at­tract­ive ad­di­tion­al features. However, features for team com­mu­nic­a­tion, an email client or cloud storage are lacking in Lib­reOf­fice and Open­Of­fice.

Our com­par­is­on high­lights which of the two office solutions is suitable depending on in­di­vidu­al re­quire­ments. This article was last updated in September 2021.

It all started with Open­Of­fice. The ap­plic­a­tion ori­gin­ated as a com­mer­cial office product from the German company Star Division. The company launched StarOf­fice 3.0, an office solution for Windows, OS/2 and Mac in 1995. Star Division was bought by the Cali­for­ni­an Sun Mi­crosys­tems in 1999 - in the same year Sun StarOf­fice 5.2 was released. This was the precursor to Open­Of­fice: one year later the source code of StarOf­fice was released, so that de­velopers could see it and use it for their purposes.

Thus Open­Of­fice.org was born and the spread of the free software took its course. Open­Of­fice is an open-source ap­plic­a­tion because of its use of open source code, which is reflected in the name. This means that users can make their own ad­just­ments or use parts of the Open­Of­fice code for their own purposes by accessing the source code.

10 years after Open­Of­fice emerged, Sun Mi­crosys­tems was bought by Oracle, who dis­con­tin­ued the product ‘StarOf­fice’ which has since been renamed Oracle Open Office. The com­mer­cial version of the office solution dis­ap­peared. Open­Of­fice was renamed Apache Open­Of­fice.org.

The takeover of Sun Mi­crosys­tems by Oracle also marks the start of Lib­reOf­fice. The US company Oracle was aiming for profit, and so some de­velopers moved away, sub­sequently es­tab­lish­ing their own found­a­tion called ‘The Document Found­a­tion’ and have since continued their vision of the Open­Of­fice project under the name Lib­reOf­fice. According to an analysis by the Found­a­tion, there were around 200 million Lib­reOf­fice users worldwide in 2018, many of which are Linux users.

The genesis or the trans­ition of the de­velopers from Open­Of­fice to Lib­reOf­fice is also reflected in the scope of the two packages in terms of the main programs. The products are very similar and in both cases they are available for users of Windows, macOS, and Linux. Both products offer a total package of ap­plic­a­tions with their office suite, as known from other providers, for example Microsoft with its office solution including Word and Excel. Lib­reOf­fice and Open­Of­fice each include:

• WRITE: Create and edit texts
• CALC: Manage tables and set up cal­cu­la­tions
• IMPRESS: Design and present present­a­tions
• DRAW: Create drawings
• BASE: Manage databases

Users who have pre­vi­ously worked with Microsoft Office will im­me­di­ately find their way around both of the presented ap­plic­a­tions. The ap­plic­a­tions are very similar, as well as the user ex­per­i­ence and the functions. For example, format­ting texts in WRITE is very similar to the market leader Word from Microsoft. Similar in structure to Excel, the other ap­plic­a­tions from Lib­reOf­fice or Open­Of­fice also offer a whole range of functions that users will already be familiar with.

There are four main areas for daily tasks when studying or working in the elec­tron­ic office en­vir­on­ment: text creation, spread­sheets, present­a­tion design, and emailing. Wondering if the free office al­tern­at­ives Lib­reOf­fice and Open­Of­fice can keep up with the com­pet­i­tion?

• With the free ap­plic­a­tions, texts can be created and formatted in the familiar manner, in­ser­tions can be made, and even sent texts can be provided with comments and traceable changes.
• The func­tion­al­ity of spread­sheet ap­plic­a­tions is similar to what MS users are familiar with. In addition to simple formulas, pivot functions or the automatic embedding of diagrams as graphs, bars, or pies are also part of the game.
• For the creation of present­a­tions there is a practical template wizard, which takes different spe­cific­a­tions as a basis for the creation of a template when creating a new present­a­tion - similar to a master slide in Power­Point. Power­Point users will notice that the open-source versions are limited when it comes to embedding mul­ti­me­dia content such as videos or music, or that the range of functions cannot keep up with paid products. Nev­er­the­less, IMPRESS can be used to create pro­fes­sion­al present­a­tions, which companies can also use to ac­cur­ately present their products, processes, or services.

As can be seen from the list of main ap­plic­a­tions, the ap­plic­a­tion packages of the two office suites are almost identical. This is also true with regard to the fact that neither ap­plic­a­tion packages have an email client, as is the case with Microsoft’s uni­ver­sally known Outlook. Here, you can rely on Outlook al­tern­at­ives like Thun­der­bird or SeaMonkey to be able to send emails in addition to creating documents.

In terms of com­pat­ib­il­ity with other programs, both ap­plic­a­tions perform well. Lib­reOf­fice and Open­Of­fice can each also open and save files in the widely used Microsoft Office formats:

• Text-based documents in the DOCX format (Microsoft Word)
• Number pro­cessing sheets in XLSX format (Microsoft Excel)
• Present­a­tions in PPTX format (Microsoft Power­Point)

Otherwise, the programs of the two office solutions already offer ap­plic­a­tion areas known from Google Workspace or MS Office, which are almost identical in both. The design of the two packages within the programs is also quite similar in terms of the ar­range­ment of the icons and the user-friend­li­ness - Lib­reOf­fice is somewhat more similar to MS Office, while the look of Open­Of­fice is more similar to Google Docs. However, this has no influence on the operation of the programs.

This means that col­lab­or­a­tion with customers, agencies or other users who use a different office system, is possible with both Lib­reOf­fice and Open­Of­fice.

Even though the functions of both office solutions are very similar, there are some dif­fer­ences when comparing Open­Of­fice vs. Lib­reOf­fice.

• In addition to the presented ap­plic­a­tions such as CALC or WRITE, Lib­reOf­fice includes another ap­plic­a­tion that is es­pe­cially suitable for visu­al­ising data. CHARTS is aimed at all users who fre­quently want to produce pro­fes­sion­al graphics in the form of bar charts and other rep­res­ent­a­tions. (03/2021)
• In terms of design templates in the present­a­tion tool IMPRESS, Lib­reOf­fice has a head start. Although both versions provide a large number of sample slides, Lib­reOf­fice has an even larger selection than Open­Of­fice. (03/2021)
• As already described, both solutions sometimes encounter problems when they have to access Microsoft file formats that have very different formats to the usual format­ting. It has been shown in practice that Lib­reOf­fice copes better with complex format­ting. (06/2020 and 02/2021)
• Lib­reOf­fice offers more or simpler ways to format text or data; for example, CALC allows table cells to be color-coded with a click. Users are also more likely to find other helpful functions such as word counting or wa­ter­marks in PDF files in Lib­reOf­fice. (09/2018)
• A more limited feature set of Open­Of­fice is also evident in a similar point: Lib­reOf­fice supports more import and export functions. (02/2021)

• No 64-bit version in Open­Of­fice: Unlike Lib­reOffce, Open­Of­fice only offers a 32-bit variant. Since 64-bit versions are usually a tad faster, Lib­reOf­fice has the edge here. (06/2020)
• There are more de­velopers working on Lib­reOf­fice, which means that updates are released regularly and bugs can be fixed more quickly. For example, version (major release) 7 in August 2020 improved com­pat­ib­il­ity with the MS Office formats of Word, Excel, and Power­Point. In 2021, smaller updates followed, most recently to version 7.1.3, which brings more than 100 bug fixes, including even greater com­pat­ib­il­ity with the MS Office file formats DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX.
• However, these in­nov­a­tions com­prom­ise the stability of Lib­reOf­fice. Open­Of­fice has the edge here, as its Office programs run more stably on older computers. (02/2021) This is also due to the lower RAM con­sump­tion of Open­Of­fice - Lib­reOf­fice demands more available resources here. (06/2021)
• In the case of Open­Of­fice, although the last update was in 2021, it was an update to version 4.1.10, which is only a main­ten­ance release. This means that no new features were added in this update. In terms of security, regular updates are important, which is where Lib­reOf­fice shines. (06/2021)

• Open­Of­fice does not offer a solution for teams that want to work together on files and documents. With Lib­reOf­fice, the process is much more complex than with other providers. To use online editing, an app must first be installed on a dedicated server. Only then can team members use the col­lab­or­at­ive work functions in their web browser. (02/2021)
• Lib­reOf­fice users have to commit to the first selected language after startup, while Open­Of­fice users can load ad­di­tion­al language packs and thus adapt their ap­plic­a­tion to their own needs afterward. (03/2021)

With both Libre Office and Open­Of­fice, you get a real MS Office al­tern­at­ive that maps the basic func­tion­al­it­ies of Microsoft 365. With it, you can edit texts, design present­a­tions, and create tables in your everyday workspace.

Format­ting is handled ef­fort­lessly by the WRITE programs, and the CALC ap­plic­a­tions are also on a par with Excel when it comes to editing tables. The func­tion­al­ity is good enough for the majority of pro­cessing re­quire­ments, so that the free solutions are ideal when you need to consider a large number of licenses.

Whether you ul­ti­mately choose Open­Of­fice or Lib­reOf­fice depends on your personal pref­er­ences and which system you work with:

• Are you looking for up-to-date software that receives regular (security) updates and is con­stantly being further developed in terms of func­tion­al­ity? Then Lib­reOf­fice, together with its better com­pat­ib­il­ity with Microsoft products, covers all the re­quire­ments of free software.
• On the other hand, is it more important to use a stable and high-per­form­ance office package that also runs smoothly on older systems? Then Open­Of­fice is the ap­plic­a­tion of choice.

Important: Only Lib­reOf­fice offers users the pos­sib­il­ity to work together on files. However, this is only possible with ad­di­tion­al effort, because ad­di­tion­al resources in the form of a server must be available for this. (02/2021)

If you lack aspects such as a powerful email client, col­lab­or­a­tion options within in­di­vidu­al files, and cloud services, then neither Lib­reOf­fice nor Open­Of­fice will meet your re­quire­ments.

In that case, other ap­plic­a­tions are needed, such as Microsoft 365, which not only gives users access to familiar programs like Word or Excel, but also to OneDrive, an online storage allowing access to files anywhere – desktop or mobile. Of course, Outlook is also part of the Office 365 package as a com­pre­hens­ive email program.

Or take a look at Google Workspace, which gives each team member their own extensive online storage and allows col­lab­or­a­tion to happen across teams through real-time file syncing.

Included with both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are regular security updates and con­sist­ent customer service, making it easier and more secure for busi­nesses to use on a day-to-day basis. The article ‘Google Workspace vs. Microsoft 365’ shows all the ad­vant­ages of the two providers in a clear com­par­is­on.

Par­tic­u­larly for busi­nesses, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace offer valuable features such as extensive cloud storage, in­teg­rated email solutions, and the ability to work on files and documents quickly and easily as a team - without the need for ad­min­is­trat­ive tasks.