Most of us are quite comfortable with MS Office suite. Whether it’s creating a doc with MS Word, Preparing a presentation with PowerPoint, or making calculations using a spreadsheet, MS office helps us to unleash our productivity at its best.
Despite the fact that MS Office suite is the best among its contemporaries, its subscription pricing is a huge pain.
If paying for MS Office is something you’re not interested in, we are sharing here a comprehensive list of 7 MS Office alternatives that you can install and use for free.
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Why MS Office Alternative?
There are many reasons why users switch to a better MS office alternative than sticking to it. Below are a few:
- Licensed version of MS Office comes with a hefty price tag
- MS Office consumes resources that impact performance of being used on low configured PC
- The suit is overly loaded. Some of the features that we hardly use being the normal users.
Top 7 Best MS Office Alternatives
Read on the list of our major Microsoft Office Alternatives:
1: Polaris Office
Polaris Office is our foremost choice for top bet for top Microsoft Office alternatives in 2019. The app is available in both free and paid versions.
The free version is loaded with all necessary features that you may want to use without paying a subscription fee. Its pro-version can be unlocked by paying a small subscription fee.
The Polaris Office is packed with all the standard and required features that Microsoft Office offers. The software is indeed a power-packed application with a number of amazing features in built.
Using the app, you can do the following:
- Ability to edit MS Office documents and text files
- Ability to access to both local and cloud storage
- Connect external cloud services such as Dropbox and Google Drive
- Manage multiple document versions
In addition, the application also lets users collaborate and work on the same doc project. With paid plans, you will be able to access some advanced features that include PDF annotations, comments, animation editing, document security, and more. In my view, Polaris Office is one of the best MS Office alternatives to date.
2: OnlyOffice
OnlyOffice is another alternative to MS Office that’s being used widely. The application software is available as a smartphone app for Android and iOS platforms and a web version for desktop users.
The best part of OnlyOffice app is that it can be integrated with major third-party services including mail, CRM, and calendars.
The downside with the app is that it’s more aimed at commercial uses rather than individual users. Therefore, if you’re exploring an MS office alternative for personal use, better to go with other apps on the list.
The OnlyOffice app is packed with a number of business-centric features. Enterprise can host the OnlyOffice app on their private servers to keep the data safe and breach-proof.
The app is loaded with unbeatable security options that one can hardly find in other alternatives. If all you need is an alternative to MS Office that offers best-in-class document management, try OnlyOffice.
3: Apache OpenOffice
I personally used Apache OpenOffice for a while in my last office. I found it quite cool and user-friendly. The beauty of the app is that it’s completely free and open-source software.
The app combines together office applications (word processor, spreadsheet program, and presentation software), a graphics editor, and a DBMS application.
Besides offering compatibility with MS Office file formats, the OpenOffice also supports a huge number of other formats such as SWF and PPT.
4: LibreOffice
LibreOffice is our next app in the list of top free MS Office alternatives. The software is fully loaded and contains all required standard features that you could expect.
The app comes packed with all necessary document-related features such as editing and creating presentations and documents. Though LibreOffice may appear different from OpenOffice in terms of UI, both have similar features to offer.
Similar read: The Best Free Word Processors Of 2021
But LibreOffice has the upper hand due to the many advantages it offers that OpenOffice lacks. LibreOffice boasts of its optimized code and is the default office suite included with the majority of Linux distros.
5: WPS Office
WPS Office could be the best MS office alternative for those looking for a basic office suite with standard features. The application software only packs three standard applications (word processor, presentation software, and spreadsheet program) that we frequently use.
This lightweight app features all the essential document creation/editing abilities for the users. The software packs over a hundred free templates and fonts to choose from.
Like other MS Office alternatives we discussed above, the OutOffice also comes in free and paid versions. With the free version of the software, you create and edit documents in MS Office compatible formats.
But to save the file in MS Office formats, you have to buy the paid version which even allows VBA and Macro support as well.
6: Softmaker FreeOffice
We won’t say Softmaker FreeOffice the best MS Office Alternative, but the features it’s bundled with make it a product worth trying.
This is a lightweight app and offers three standard office programs including a word processor, spreadsheet program, and presentation software.
You can get almost every necessary feature that you have in MS Office. Softmaker comes with complete support for MS Office file formats and is compatible with Office XML compatibility.
Its paid version is loaded with some advanced features like multiple languages dictionaries.
7: NeoOffice
NeoOffice is an ideal MS Office alternative for Mac users. It’s built with almost all the standard features of OpenOffice app we discussed above. The features include word processor, spreadsheet program, and presentation software, along with a graphics program.
The application also offers support for Mac OS X native extras such as grammar checking, text highlighting, and integration with OS X’s drag and drop functions.
The downside of the NeoOffice is that it doesn’t support newer MS Office formats. This means you can’t save your doc files into new MS Office formats.
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