LibreOffice — A free, open-source office suite with word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and more, maintained by The Document Foundation.

What is LibreOffice?

LibreOffice is a full desktop office suite forked from OpenOffice.org in 2010, now maintained by the nonprofit Document Foundation with contributions from a large volunteer community and some corporate sponsors. It bundles six applications covering the core office-productivity workflow: Writer for documents, Calc for spreadsheets, Impress for presentations, Draw for vector illustration and diagramming, Base for desktop databases, and Math for typesetting mathematical formulas. The suite is licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, with some components under GPL or LGPL, and its source is published on GitHub (a read-only mirror of the primary Gerrit-hosted repository at github.com/LibreOffice/core). LibreOffice natively uses the OpenDocument Format (ODF) but has broad, actively maintained compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .doc, .xls, .ppt), which is its most common practical use case: opening and editing Office documents without an Office 365 subscription. It's distributed entirely free with no paid tier, no account requirement, and no feature gating, and is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux (it's also the default office suite on many Linux distributions). LibreOffice is used by individuals avoiding subscription software, schools and public-sector organizations standardizing on open formats, and Linux users who need a full office suite out of the box; it lacks the real-time cloud co-authoring that Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace both offer natively.

LibreOffice is a free and open-source office productivity suite made up of six applications: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics/diagrams), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing). It's developed by The Document Foundation and a global volunteer community, distributed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 (with parts under GPL/LGPL), and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux at no cost with no paid tier. It supports OpenDocument Format natively and reads/writes Microsoft Office formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx), making it a common no-cost alternative to Microsoft Office for individuals, schools, and organizations that don't need Office 365's cloud collaboration features.

Standout feature: A complete six-application office suite (including a desktop database tool in Base, which neither Microsoft nor Google offer at the consumer level) that is entirely free and open source with no feature paywall.

Biggest weakness: No native real-time multi-user co-authoring in the way Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace offer it, and complex documents with heavy Microsoft-specific formatting (advanced macros, certain chart types, some fonts) can render or convert imperfectly when round-tripped through .docx/.xlsx/.pptx.

LibreOffice pricing

Free · verified undefined NaN, NaN from the vendor's pricing page

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