Best European Office Suites

#1 OnlyOffice

Riga, Latvia Founded 2009 Free desktop and self-hosted / cloud from about €4/user/month Free desktop editors

Best for: Teams needing Microsoft Office compatibility with European data sovereignty

• Operating company. Ascensio System SIA
• Jurisdiction. EU (Latvia)
• Where the data sits. EU, or self-hosted
• Independent checks. Open source
• Source code. Open source
• Replaces. Microsoft 365, Google Docs

OnlyOffice is the European office suite that survives contact with a real Microsoft document.

It natively supports DOCX, XLSX and PPTX and was engineered around OOXML from the start rather than adding those formats to an existing engine — which is why it holds fidelity through complex layouts, embedded objects and macros where a converter drifts. That makes OnlyOffice a genuine drop-in replacement for Microsoft 365 in environments where a document rendering wrong for a client is a real cost, rather than an approximation that works until it does not.

Ascensio System SIA operates from Riga with EU hosting and a self-hosting option. Real-time collaboration covers simultaneous editing, comments, track changes, version history and user tagging.

Deployment is unusually flexible: free Desktop Editors for Windows, macOS and Linux working offline on local files, a cloud service from about €4 per user per month, and a free self-hosted Community Edition for up to 20 concurrent connections. Integration is where it pulls ahead — OnlyOffice embeds into Nextcloud, ownCloud, Seafile, Alfresco, SharePoint and Confluence, so an organisation adds editing to the platform it already runs instead of migrating to a new one.

Standout feature. OOXML as the native format: OnlyOffice is the only European suite that treats DOCX as its own format rather than as something to convert.

#2 Collabora Online

Cambridge, United Kingdom Founded 2015 Free Community Edition / Enterprise on request Free Community Edition

Best for: Organisations building a self-hosted Google Workspace replacement

• Operating company. Collabora Productivity Ltd
• Jurisdiction. Wherever you host it
• Where the data sits. Your own infrastructure, or European managed hosting
• Independent checks. Open source (MPL 2.0)
• Source code. Open source
• Replaces. Google Docs, Microsoft 365

Collabora Online is the document half of the stack European public sector actually deploys.

Its partnership with Nextcloud is the most consequential collaboration in the European open-source ecosystem: Collabora is the recommended and fully integrated editor for Nextcloud, so documents open directly from the file manager with no extra configuration.

Together they give file storage, document editing, calendar, contacts, video calls through Nextcloud Talk and project management — a complete Google Workspace replacement running entirely on an organisation's own infrastructure, which is why it appears in government agencies that cannot use American cloud services at all.

Collabora Productivity Ltd operates from Cambridge and builds on LibreOffice technology, open source under MPL 2.0, with a free Community Edition and enterprise support on request. Deployment covers Docker in minutes, Kubernetes Helm charts and multi-server high-availability setups, plus native packages for Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS and RHEL.

It speaks WOPI — the protocol Microsoft Office Online uses — so it works with ownCloud, Seafile and enterprise content management systems as well as Nextcloud. The LibreOffice foundation means excellent ODF support and OOXML rendering that is good rather than pixel-exact, and self-hosting means you own the operations.

Standout feature. The Nextcloud pairing: Collabora Online is the only suite here that is the officially recommended editor for Europe's leading self-hosted file platform.

#3 CryptPad

Paris, France Founded 2016 Free (50MB) / from about €5/month (5GB) Free tier

Best for: Privacy-focused teams needing encrypted real-time collaboration

• Operating company. XWiki SAS
• Jurisdiction. EU (France)
• Where the data sits. France
• Independent checks. Open source, zero-knowledge
• Source code. Open source
• Replaces. Google Docs, Notion

CryptPad does something that sounds contradictory: several people edit the same document simultaneously while the server cannot read a word of it. Encryption happens on the client with keys the server never receives, and the collaborative merge happens between clients rather than server-side — which is how zero-knowledge and real-time collaboration coexist, when normally the first rules out the second.

CryptPad is built by XWiki SAS in Paris with French hosting, open source, and covers more than documents: spreadsheets, presentations, kanban boards, forms and a whiteboard, so it replaces parts of Notion alongside Google Docs.

Free at 50MB, from about €5 per month for 5GB, and self-hostable for organisations that want the whole thing on their own infrastructure. The trade-offs follow from the architecture and deserve stating: performance on very large documents is weaker than a server-side editor, Microsoft format fidelity is not the priority it is at OnlyOffice, and because the server holds no keys, losing yours means losing the document.

Standout feature. Encrypted co-editing across the widest format range: kanban, forms and a whiteboard alongside documents, spreadsheets and presentations, all zero-knowledge.

#4 SoftMaker Office

Nuremberg, Germany Founded 1987 Free version (FreeOffice) / from about €29.90/year FreeOffice is permanently free

Best for: Users who want Microsoft compatibility with no cloud involved at all

• Operating company. SoftMaker Software GmbH
• Jurisdiction. EU (Germany)
• Where the data sits. Local — no cloud required
• Source code. Closed source
• Replaces. Microsoft Office, Google Docs, LibreOffice

SoftMaker Office has been shipping since 1987 and still runs entirely on your machine, which in this category is a feature rather than a legacy. TextMaker, PlanMaker and Presentations read and write DOCX, XLSX and PPTX with close Microsoft compatibility, and everything is processed locally — no cloud requirement, so documents never leave the computer, there is no processor to assess, no DPA to negotiate and no outage to sit through.

SoftMaker Software GmbH operates from Nuremberg, and two things distinguish the product beyond the local processing. Performance is genuinely fast, noticeably so against heavier suites on modest hardware.

And SoftMaker ships portable versions that run from a USB stick without installation, which is useful on locked-down corporate machines, shared workstations and anywhere installing software means a change request. FreeOffice is a permanently free version rather than a trial, with the paid suite from about €29.90 per year. The trade is collaboration: local software cannot offer simultaneous editing, so a team that needs that will pair it with something else.

Standout feature. A suite on a USB stick: SoftMaker is the only option here that runs without installation on a machine you are not allowed to install software on.

#5 LibreOffice

Berlin, Germany Founded 2010 Free and open source Free

Best for: Anyone who wants a complete office suite that costs nothing and phones nowhere

• Operating company. The Document Foundation
• Jurisdiction. EU (Germany), non-profit foundation
• Where the data sits. Runs entirely on your own machine
• Independent checks. GDPR — no data leaves the device
• Source code. Open source
• Replaces. Microsoft 365, Google Docs

LibreOffice is the most widely deployed European office suite by a wide margin and the one that asks least of you: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base and Math, free, installed locally, working entirely offline. There is no account, no subscription, no cloud component and nothing transmitted — which makes the data protection assessment for it about as short as such a document can be.

That is precisely why public administrations keep choosing it. Several European cities and government departments have standardised on it, and the reasoning is consistent: documents produced by a public body should not require a licence from a foreign vendor to open in twenty years, and open formats plus open source is the only arrangement that guarantees it. ODF is its native format, and Microsoft formats are read and written well enough for everyday exchange.

It is developed by The Document Foundation, a non-profit incorporated in Berlin, funded by donations and corporate contributors rather than by licence sales — so there is no upsell path and no tier above the one you have. The trade-offs are real: OOXML fidelity is good but not exact, so a heavily formatted DOCX can shift, real-time collaborative editing needs Collabora Online on top, and the interface looks its age next to a subscription product.

Standout feature. A document you can still open in twenty years without asking a vendor for permission.

#6 Cryptee

Tallinn, Estonia Free tier / paid storage plans Free tier

Best for: People whose documents should be unreadable to the service storing them

• Operating company. Cryptee
• Jurisdiction. EU (Estonia)
• Where the data sits. EU, client-side encrypted
• Independent checks. GDPR, zero-knowledge encryption
• Source code. Open source
• Replaces. Google Docs, Evernote, Apple Notes

Cryptee encrypts on your device before anything is uploaded, which means the servers hold ciphertext and the company operating them cannot read a word of your documents or see a single photograph. That is a different guarantee from a promise not to look, and it is the whole reason to choose it.

It covers documents and photographs in one place — a rich text editor with Markdown and LaTeX support for anyone writing anything mathematical, document linking, and encrypted photo storage that most encrypted note tools do not attempt. For journals, medical records, legal notes, research or anything else that would be genuinely damaging to leak, the combination is unusual.

Cryptee operates from Tallinn under Estonian and EU jurisdiction, with a free tier and paid storage plans, and its client is open source so the encryption is inspectable rather than asserted.

The costs of zero-knowledge are the ones that always apply: search is inherently more limited when the server cannot read the content, collaborative editing is not the point, there are no integrations to speak of, and losing your key means losing the documents — nobody can reset it for you.

Standout feature. The company running it cannot read your documents — which is the only version of privacy that needs no policy.

#7 Nextcloud

Stuttgart, Germany Free (self-hosted) / enterprise plans available Free self-hosted

Best for: Organisations that want the whole workspace on their own infrastructure

• Operating company. Nextcloud GmbH
• Jurisdiction. EU (Germany)
• Where the data sits. Self-hosted, or a managed provider you choose
• Independent checks. GDPR (depends on hosting)
• Source code. Open source
• Replaces. Microsoft 365, Google Workspace

Nextcloud belongs in this category because Nextcloud Office turns it from file storage into a genuine office suite: collaborative documents, spreadsheets and presentations edited in the browser, sitting beside the files, calendar, contacts and Talk that make up the rest of a working day.

What that produces is one of the most complete self-hosted Google Workspace replacements in this directory. Files, documents, calendar, contacts, chat and video calls on infrastructure you chose, under one login and one administration, with an app marketplace extending it further. For an organisation whose objection to Google is architectural rather than featural, that completeness is the argument — half a replacement means running both.

Nextcloud GmbH is based in Stuttgart and the software is AGPL, free to self-host, with enterprise plans and a network of managed European providers for organisations wanting the control without the operations. The honest trade-offs: you run it or pay someone to, GDPR compliance depends on how it is hosted rather than being automatic, and the office editing is Collabora technology underneath — so its OOXML fidelity is Collabora's, good but slightly behind OnlyOffice on complex documents.

Standout feature. Documents, files, calendar, chat and calls under one login on your own servers — the whole workspace, not half of it.

#8 Proton Docs

Geneva, Switzerland Free 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 Free plan includes Proton Docs and Proton Sheets

Best for: Privacy-conscious teams wanting encrypted real-time documents and spreadsheets

• Operating company. Proton AG
• Jurisdiction. Switzerland (adequacy decision, outside the EEA)
• Where the data sits. Proton's own European data centres (API and database servers)
• Source code. Open source
• Replaces. Google Docs, Google Sheets, Microsoft 365

Proton Docs is a real-time collaborative document editor built into Proton Drive, encrypted end to end on every keystroke — Proton itself cannot read what is being typed, even while several people edit the same document at once. Proton Sheets does the same for spreadsheets, added alongside it.

That puts the pair in the same rare category as CryptPad: zero-knowledge encryption combined with live multi-user editing, an architecture that normally rules out collaboration because a server that cannot read a document cannot merge two people's edits into it. Proton reaches the same result the way CryptPad does, by moving that merge to the client rather than the server.

Proton AG operates from Geneva under Swiss jurisdiction — outside the EU and EEA but covered by an adequacy decision — with Docs and Sheets running on Proton's own European data centres.

Both are included free with any Proton account, including the free plan, with higher storage and collaboration limits on the paid Mail Plus, Drive Plus, Unlimited and Business tiers; the client code is open source, published in Proton's WebClients repository. Sheets imports Excel and Google Sheets files, and Docs sits alongside the rest of Proton's encrypted suite — Mail, Calendar, Pass — for a team already inside that ecosystem.

The gaps are real. There is no presentation app, so the suite covers two of the usual three formats rather than three.

Microsoft format fidelity is not the focus it is at OnlyOffice — Docs and Sheets are built around Proton's own format, with import rather than a promise of exact DOCX or XLSX round-tripping. Proton Sheets launched more recently than Docs and is the less mature of the two. And everything sits inside the Proton account system, so a team not otherwise using Proton is adopting an ecosystem, not just an editor.

Standout feature. The second zero-knowledge suite in this category: Proton encrypts every keystroke in Docs and Sheets, even during real-time co-editing.

#9 ownCloud

Regensburg, Germany Founded 2010 Community Edition free, self-hosted, unlimited users, 100% open source / Enterprise and Standard from 25 users, annual commitment, quote-based / ownCloud.online hosted plans from 1 user, quote-based / volume and education licensing on request, from about €1.85/user/year 30-day free trial (Enterprise); 14-day free trial (ownCloud.online)

Best for: Organisations wanting a self-hosted file platform with document editing built in

• Operating company. ownCloud GmbH
• Jurisdiction. EU (Germany)
• Where the data sits. Germany (ownCloud.online hosting), or self-hosted wherever you choose
• Source code. Open source
• Replaces. Dropbox Business, Box, Microsoft SharePoint

ownCloud is the original of the two major open-source, self-hosted file platforms in this directory — Frank Karlitschek, one of its three co-founders, left in 2016 and forked the project to start Nextcloud, which is also reviewed here. ownCloud earns its own place through the same route: file sync and share on infrastructure you control, with Collabora Online or ONLYOFFICE embedded for document, spreadsheet and presentation editing directly from the file manager.

The current generation, ownCloud Infinite Scale, is a ground-up rewrite for large-scale deployments, and its Community Edition stays free, Apache-2.0 licensed and unlimited in users, so trying it costs nothing beyond a server.

ownCloud GmbH operates from Regensburg, Germany, and offers ownCloud.online as a hosted option with data kept in Germany for teams that would rather not run the server themselves.

Enterprise and Standard tiers start at 25 users on an annual commitment, quote-based rather than published per seat, and volume or education licensing starts from about €1.85 per user per year according to ownCloud's own pricing page. In 2018 ownCloud was named the only open-source vendor in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Content Collaboration Platforms, a recognition earned for the file-sharing core this office layer sits on top of.

The trade-offs mirror Nextcloud's: OOXML fidelity is Collabora's or ONLYOFFICE's, not ownCloud's own, so it is good rather than pixel-exact on complex documents; someone has to run, patch and back up the server unless you pay for hosting; and ownCloud's calendar, contacts and chat apps live in its marketplace rather than the core, the same modular approach Nextcloud takes.

Between the two, the practical difference is less about features than about which fork's roadmap and support relationship an organisation would rather commit to.

Standout feature. The original: ownCloud is the platform Nextcloud itself forked from in 2016, still developed and free to self-host.