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 vi­su­al­iz­ing 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.