European Alternatives to WPS Office

#1

LibreOffice

the free desktop suite with no account

Berlin, GermanyFree and open source#4 in Office Suites

• Which law reaches it. EU (Germany), non-profit foundation. WPS Office is operated from Singapore, outside the EU and without an adequacy decision, so transfers rest on contractual safeguards rather than on the data staying inside the EEA.
• Where the data sits. Runs entirely on your own machine.
• Source code. Open source, where WPS Office is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
• Independently checked. GDPR — no data leaves the device.

Best for: Individuals, schools and small offices that want a free suite on a computer

LibreOffice is published by The Document Foundation, whose imprint gives an address at Winterfeldtstrasse 52 in Berlin. It describes itself as free and open source, developed by a community of contributors. The suite has Writer for documents, Calc for spreadsheets and Impress for presentations.

It needs no account and shows no ads, which are two of the things WPS's free plan trades on. It does not come bundled with a cloud account or a mobile app in the way WPS does, so shared editing in a browser needs another tool, for example Collabora or Nextcloud.

Standout against WPS Office. It is the one that costs nothing and asks for nothing, and still covers all three core apps.

#2

SoftMaker Office

the closest in feel to WPS, with mobile apps and a free edition

Nuremberg, GermanyFree version (FreeOffice) / from about €29.90/year#11 in Office Suites

• Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). WPS Office is operated from Singapore, outside the EU and without an adequacy decision, so transfers rest on contractual safeguards rather than on the data staying inside the EEA.
• Where the data sits. Local — no cloud required.
• Source code. Closed source, as WPS Office is.

Best for: People who want a Microsoft-like suite on Windows, Mac, Linux and a phone

SoftMaker Office is made by SoftMaker Software GmbH in Nuremberg (commercial register Nuremberg HRB 8788). Its product page lists TextMaker, PlanMaker and Presentations, versions for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android, and says DOCX is TextMaker's native file format. It also offers a free trial, and the company runs a separate free edition called FreeOffice.

Of the desktop suites here it is the one whose product page lists phone and tablet versions next to a free edition, which is a combination many WPS users look for. We have not quoted a price: the product page shows several versions and first-year offers, so check the current figure for the one you need.

Standout against WPS Office. It combines a Microsoft-style workflow with real mobile apps, from a company with a register entry.

#3

OnlyOffice

free desktop and mobile apps, with an ownership caveat

Riga, LatviaFree desktop and self-hosted Community / DocSpace Business $20 per admin per month#1 in Office Suites

• Which law reaches it. EU (Latvia). WPS Office is operated from Singapore, outside the EU and without an adequacy decision, so transfers rest on contractual safeguards rather than on the data staying inside the EEA.
• Where the data sits. EU, or self-hosted.
• Source code. Open source, where WPS Office is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.

Best for: Teams that want editors with strong Microsoft format support and a free start

OnlyOffice's privacy policy names Ascensio System SIA, a company in Latvia, as the party behind the product. Its own FAQ says the company is a subsidiary of OnlyOffice Capital Group Pte. Ltd., whose beneficiaries are listed in the Singapore registry. That is the same country as WPS's contracting entity, so if Singapore is your reason for leaving, read this carefully.

The product side is strong: free desktop editors for Windows, Linux and macOS, free mobile apps for iOS and Android, a free Startup plan of its DocSpace Cloud, and a free community build for self-hosting. Its Docs Enterprise tier is priced from a dollar figure on its price page.

Standout against WPS Office. It has the widest free offering here across desktop, phone and cloud, with a parent-company caveat.

#4

Infomaniak kSuite

a Swiss workplace with a free-for-life tier

Geneva, SwitzerlandFree plan / Standard CHF 1.76 per user per month / Business CHF 7.34 (CHF 3.67 in the first year) / Enterprise CHF 13.83 (CHF 6.92 in the first year), prices exclude VAT#7 in Office Suites

• Which law reaches it. Switzerland (adequacy decision, outside the EEA). WPS Office is operated from Singapore, outside the EU and without an adequacy decision, so transfers rest on contractual safeguards rather than on the data staying inside the EEA.
• Where the data sits. Switzerland, on Infomaniak servers in its own data centres.
• Source code. Closed source, as WPS Office is.

Best for: People and small teams who want mail, storage and online documents together

kSuite is provided by Infomaniak Network SA, named as data controller in its confidentiality policy at Rue Eugene-Marziano 25 in Les Acacias, Geneva. The kSuite page says it is developed and hosted in Switzerland by Infomaniak, protected by Swiss law and the GDPR. Switzerland is outside the EU, but has its own data protection law.

The free tier is listed as free for life, with 20 GB for email and 15 GB for cloud files. The suite includes Docs for text, Grids for spreadsheets and Points for presentations, and its kDrive page mentions working online with Microsoft Office or OnlyOffice documents. The paid kSuite Pro adds more storage, more AI features and a per-user price that is shown on the page but not quoted here, as it may vary by country.

Standout against WPS Office. It puts a free mailbox, cloud storage and online office editors in one Swiss account.

#5

Proton Docs

end-to-end encrypted documents and sheets

Geneva, SwitzerlandFree with any Proton account, including the free plan; higher storage and collaboration limits come with the paid Mail Plus, Drive Plus, Proton Unlimited and Proton Business plans — exact rates on proton.me/pricing depend on currency and billing cycle#8 in Office Suites

• Which law reaches it. Switzerland (adequacy decision, outside the EEA). WPS Office is operated from Singapore, outside the EU and without an adequacy decision, so transfers rest on contractual safeguards rather than on the data staying inside the EEA.
• Where the data sits. Proton's own European data centres (API and database servers).
• Source code. Open source, where WPS Office is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.

Best for: People who write sensitive documents and want the provider unable to read them

Proton Docs is part of Proton Drive. The terms say the services are operated by Proton AG, a Swiss company at Route de la Galaise 32 in Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva, under the supervision of the non-profit Proton Foundation. The pages describe an end-to-end encrypted, real-time collaborative editor for documents, with a spreadsheet editor in the same product.

The free Proton account offers 5 GB of storage and the online document and spreadsheet editor, according to the pricing page. It has no presentation editor on the pages we read and no desktop app for editing documents offline, so it covers writing and basic spreadsheets rather than a full suite.

Standout against WPS Office. It is the one where the provider has technically locked itself out of reading your work.

#6

Collabora Online

LibreOffice-based editing, on the desktop or in a browser

Cambridge, United KingdomFree Community Edition / Enterprise on request#2 in Office Suites

• Which law reaches it. Wherever you host it. WPS Office is operated from Singapore, outside the EU and without an adequacy decision, so transfers rest on contractual safeguards rather than on the data staying inside the EEA.
• Where the data sits. Your own infrastructure, or European managed hosting.
• Source code. Open source, where WPS Office is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.

Best for: Organisations and IT partners that want a LibreOffice-based editor with a supported vendor

Collabora Productivity Limited is based at St John's Innovation Centre in Cambridge, United Kingdom, per its contact page, and its privacy notice describes it as a division of the Collabora consultancy. The UK is outside the EU, but is inside this site's scope. Its site lists Collabora Online for browser editing, and Collabora Office for the desktop, built on the same open-source core as LibreOffice.

It is mostly sold to organisations and through partners (Nextcloud and openDesk both embed it) rather than to a single person. We found no public price list for it, so no amount is given. For a single user, LibreOffice is the simpler route to the same engine.

Standout against WPS Office. It sells the LibreOffice engine as a supported browser and desktop product, and others build on it.

#7

CryptPad

encrypted collaboration for documents, sheets and slides

Paris, FranceFree (50MB) / from about €5/month (5GB)#3 in Office Suites

• Which law reaches it. EU (France). WPS Office is operated from Singapore, outside the EU and without an adequacy decision, so transfers rest on contractual safeguards rather than on the data staying inside the EEA.
• Where the data sits. France.
• Source code. Open source, where WPS Office is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.

Best for: Activists, journalists, associations and teams that need private shared editing

CryptPad is made at XWiki, which describes itself as a company based in Paris, France, and its pricing page names XWiki SAS for the CryptPad.fr flagship instance. The project says it is open source, funded partly by French and European grants, and that anyone can self-host it.

The pricing page lists a free account on a public instance, paid plans on the flagship instance of EUR 5 to EUR 100 a month, and a hosted or on-premise instance from EUR 1.5K a year. It is best for collaboration and privacy rather than for pixel-exact Microsoft layouts.

Standout against WPS Office. It is the privacy-first collaboration option, free to try and open to self-host.

#8

mailbox.org

a German mail provider with Office in its mid-range plan

Berlin, GermanyFrom about €1/month (Light) to €9/month (Business)#2 in Email Providers

• Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). WPS Office is operated from Singapore, outside the EU and without an adequacy decision, so transfers rest on contractual safeguards rather than on the data staying inside the EEA.
• Where the data sits. Germany (green energy).
• Source code. Closed source, as WPS Office is.

Best for: Small businesses that want mail, drive, calendar and online Office from one German provider

mailbox.org is operated by Heinlein Hosting GmbH in Berlin, registered at the district court of Berlin-Charlottenburg under HRB 220010 B. Its site says data is stored in certified German data centres, and it lists Mail, Drive, Meet and Office together.

The price page lists Light at EUR 1, Standard at EUR 4 and Premium at EUR 12 per user a month, net. Office appears in Standard and Premium, with Standard giving 20 GB of mail and 10 GB of Drive. A free 30-day trial is offered. It is a good fit if you also need an email provider; it is more than you need if you only want a word processor.

Standout against WPS Office. It makes online Office part of a EUR 4 per user a month mail and storage plan from a German company.

#9

Nextcloud

a self-hosted workspace with built-in office editing

Stuttgart, GermanyFree self-hosted / Enterprise plans on request#2 in Cloud Storage

• Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). WPS Office is operated from Singapore, outside the EU and without an adequacy decision, so transfers rest on contractual safeguards rather than on the data staying inside the EEA.
• Where the data sits. Wherever you host it.
• Source code. Open source, where WPS Office is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.

Best for: Organisations with an IT team that want files, calendars and documents on their own server

Nextcloud GmbH gives its legal address in Stuttgart, Germany, with a commercial register entry HRB 227086 in its imprint. The platform includes Nextcloud Office, which its site describes as real-time document collaboration, with Collabora Online and Euro-Office named among the engines it can use.

Its pricing page lists Enterprise Standard from 100 users at 71.29 EUR per user a year, Premium at 104.99 and Ultimate at 204.75. The software is free to run yourself, but setup and upkeep are your work. It is for organisations, not individuals who want an app on their laptop.

Standout against WPS Office. It puts the whole workspace, including office editing, on infrastructure you control.

Best for: Government bodies and large organisations that want an open-source workplace

openDesk is a product of ZenDiS GmbH in Bochum, a publicly funded company of the German federal government. Its legal notice gives the commercial register as Bochum district court, number 21488. The product page says documents, spreadsheets and presentations are edited with Collabora Online, and the FAQ says apps are available for desktop and mobile.

The operating-models page describes a free Community Edition, with community support, that can be run and adapted; it is called ideal for smaller or experimental organisations. It is meant for the public sector, so a freelancer or a family will find it too heavy. No price list is published.

Standout against WPS Office. It is built and funded as a sovereign workplace for public administration.

#11

Calligra Suite

a free KDE suite, best on Linux

Berlin, GermanyFree and open source#10 in Office Suites

• Which law reaches it. EU (Germany), non-profit association (KDE e.V.). WPS Office is operated from Singapore, outside the EU and without an adequacy decision, so transfers rest on contractual safeguards rather than on the data staying inside the EEA.
• Where the data sits. Runs entirely on your own machine.
• Source code. Open source, where WPS Office is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.

Best for: Linux users who want a free native suite

Calligra describes itself as an office and graphic art suite made by KDE, with Words, Sheets, Stage, Karbon and Plan, and a database app called Kexi. KDE e.V., the registered non-profit behind KDE, gives its address as Prinzenstrasse 85 F in Berlin. We did not check a register number for it.

Its download page lists Linux and Flatpak, and says Windows is still being worked on. That makes it the narrowest option here, and a poor match for the Windows, Android and iPhone users who typically choose WPS. It is on the list for completeness and for Linux users who want a native suite.

Standout against WPS Office. It is a free, native KDE suite for Linux, for the few who want exactly that.