Best Free Microsoft Word Alternatives in 2026: Office Suites and Google Workspace Replacements

LibreOffice is the best free Microsoft Word alternative for most people: a desktop suite with a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation program, free to download and run offline. ONLYOFFICE is the pick if you work mostly in .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files, Google Docs is the free browser option, and Nextcloud with an online editor is the strongest self-hosted replacement for Google Workspace.

This guide covers Microsoft Office and Google Workspace together, because the real question is often where your documents live as much as which app edits them. Picks 1 to 5 are desktop suites, 6 is a browser editor, and 7 to 10 are self-hosted or privacy-first suites. A table near the end shows what each project says about Office file formats, and a decision guide closes the post.

Why people look for Microsoft Office and Google Workspace alternatives

Both suites are polished and widely used, so the reasons for leaving are usually practical ones.

• Subscriptions. Enlisted lists Microsoft 365 as a subscription suite bundling Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and OneDrive, with Copilot AI built in. Google Workspace has no free plan, only trials, and is billed per user.
• Closed source and vendor-hosted. Both are proprietary, neither can be self-hosted, and your cloud documents sit on the vendor's servers, which matters to schools, public bodies and privacy-minded teams.
• You only need a word processor. If the job is letters, essays and the occasional spreadsheet, a full suite with email, chat and cloud storage is more than you asked for.
• File ownership. Desktop suites such as LibreOffice keep documents on your own machine, and self-hosted suites such as Nextcloud keep them on your own server.

One more point in Microsoft's favor: the catalogue notes that Word for the web is advertised as free, so the cheapest "alternative" for light use may be Microsoft's own browser version. The section on whether Word itself is free, further down, covers what that includes.

How we picked

We looked for tools that cover real document work: a word processor, a spreadsheet or slides, or a collaborative editor that can stand in for Google Docs. Open-source entries had to show recent GitHub activity, licences are copied from Enlisted's listings, and each pick says whether it can be self-hosted. Statements about Microsoft file formats come from each project's own pages, and prices stay out of the text because plans change. More on how Enlisted ranks tools.

1. LibreOffice: best free desktop office suite

LibreOffice is a free, open-source office suite from The Document Foundation that includes Writer for documents, Calc for spreadsheets, Impress for presentations, Draw, Base and Math. It installs on your own computer, so it works offline and has no hosted service or per-seat fee behind it.

Its download page covers Windows, macOS and Linux, including ARM64 builds for Windows and Linux. If you are still deciding between it and the older Apache suite, OpenOffice vs LibreOffice explains the differences.

• Best for: individuals, students and small offices that want a free suite with no account.
• Watch out for: it is a desktop suite, so teams that want real-time co-editing should look at browser-based options such as Collabora Online. Enlisted lists the licence as GPL-3.0, while the project's site says the source code is under the Mozilla Public License v2.0.

2. ONLYOFFICE Docs: best for docx, xlsx and pptx files

ONLYOFFICE Docs is an open-source online office suite whose editors are built around Office Open XML formats, so docx, xlsx and pptx are the native language rather than an import. It supports real-time collaborative editing and is released under AGPL-3.0, with integrations for Nextcloud, Moodle, Odoo and WordPress among others.

For a local install, ONLYOFFICE's free Desktop Editors cover Windows, Linux and macOS, work with DOCX, ODT, XLSX, ODS, CSV, PPTX and ODP, and can connect to platforms such as Nextcloud and ownCloud, according to the vendor.

• Best for: people who trade many Word, Excel and PowerPoint files with Office users.
• Watch out for: the catalogue entry is the document server, so a single user is better off starting with the desktop editors. The vendor publishes separate plans for its hosted DocSpace.

3. WPS Office: best free-plan suite with Microsoft file compatibility

WPS Office is a commercial office suite with a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation app that is built to open and save common Microsoft Office formats. Its site lists Writer, Spreadsheet, Presentation and PDF tools on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS and iPad, plus an online version, and says it can open, edit and convert Microsoft Office, PDF and Google Docs files.

Enlisted lists a free Standard plan with a small amount of cloud space, with paid Pro plans above it. Unlike LibreOffice, it is closed source and offers cloud storage through the vendor.

• Best for: people who want a free suite on desktop and phone that opens Microsoft files, and do not need open source.
• Watch out for: it is proprietary, and extra features and storage sit in paid plans, so read the plan page before committing a team to it.

4. SoftMaker Office: best suite you buy once and keep

SoftMaker Office is a commercial suite with a word processor (TextMaker), a spreadsheet (PlanMaker) and a presentation program for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. The vendor positions it as a Microsoft Office alternative and stresses privacy under European data protection rules.

It is sold in two forms: a Professional edition that you buy once and keep using, and NX Universal as a subscription. Recent updates listed on its site include XLOOKUP and dynamic arrays in the spreadsheet and Markdown in the word processor.

• Best for: people who want to pay once for a Microsoft-style suite on several platforms.
• Watch out for: it is not free and not open source, so it only belongs here if you are happy to pay once rather than monthly.

5. Apple Pages: best free word processor on a Mac, iPad or iPhone

Apple Pages is the word processor and page-layout app Apple makes for Mac, iPad and iPhone, included at no charge with Apple devices. Documents stay editable across those devices, and Pages for iCloud allows editing in a web browser.

It suits letters, flyers and essays, and Apple's pages describe Apple Pencil handwriting on iPad, a table of contents view and publishing books directly to Apple Books. Apple's guide also has a section on exporting to Word, PDF and other formats. Apple makes Numbers and Keynote for spreadsheets and slides.

• Best for: anyone who already owns Apple devices and wants a capable free writing app.
• Watch out for: it is built for Apple's platforms plus a web version through iCloud, so it is a poor fit for a mixed team with Windows or Linux machines. It is closed source.

6. Google Docs: best free browser editor for real-time teamwork

Google Docs is the word processor inside Google's Workspace suite. Documents are written in a browser or mobile app, saved automatically to Drive, and shared for simultaneous editing with comments and suggestions. A personal Google account is enough to use it, while business accounts get it through paid Workspace plans.

Google's help pages say you can edit an Office file directly in Docs, Sheets or Slides and save it back as .docx, .xlsx or .pptx, with caveats: macros are unsupported, embedded charts and videos convert to images, and SmartArt converts to Google Drawings. For spreadsheets, Google Sheets is the companion app.

• Best for: teams that co-write constantly and are happy to live in a browser.
• Watch out for: Google hosts everything and the code is closed, so it does not help if data control is the issue. Compare the wider suite on Google Workspace alternatives.

7. Collabora Online: best for LibreOffice-style editing in a browser

Collabora Online runs LibreOffice's engine on a server, so people can open documents, spreadsheets and presentations from a browser while the files stay on infrastructure you control. It is built for organizations that already run a file platform, and Nextcloud is a common partner. Collabora also mentions desktop and mobile Collabora Office apps on its site.

Development happens on the project's Gerrit instance, so the GitHub repository mainly serves issues and release artifacts such as the container image and Helm chart.

• Best for: teams that run a file platform such as Nextcloud and want a browser editor built on LibreOffice.
• Watch out for: it needs a server, and Enlisted lists the licence as Other, so check the terms for your use.

8. Nextcloud: best self-hosted Google Workspace alternative

Nextcloud is software you install on your own server, or rent from a hosting provider, to sync and share files and to run calendars and contacts without handing them to a large cloud company. Its App Store adds hundreds of apps, including Calendar, Contacts, Mail and Video Chat, which is why it is the closest open-source match for Google Workspace's mix of Drive, Calendar and Meet.

For documents, Nextcloud's site describes an online office with simultaneous editing, offering Euro-Office, Collabora Online and Thinkfree Office as options, and lists DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX and ODF support. You can sign up with a provider, install it yourself, use an appliance or have a service provider host it.

• Best for: schools, companies and families who want one self-hosted home for files, calendars and documents.
• Watch out for: it is a platform to run, so updates and backups are your job, and the editors are separate components you enable. Enlisted lists paid Enterprise subscriptions aimed at larger organizations.

9. CryptPad: best for end-to-end encrypted collaboration

CryptPad is an open-source collaboration suite with end-to-end encryption, where documents sync between collaborators in real time and the server cannot read their content. Encryption happens in the browser before data is sent, and it is released under AGPL-3.0.

The README is candid about a limit: the code that does the encrypting comes from the host server, so users must trust the administrator to keep it secure. Free accounts are available on public instances, you can self-host it, and Enlisted lists paid plans on CryptPad.fr and managed own-instance plans.

• Best for: groups that handle sensitive documents and want the server unable to read them.
• Watch out for: check that its editors cover the formatting and file formats your work needs before moving a whole team.

10. La Suite Docs: best self-hosted Google Docs replacement under the MIT licence

La Suite Docs is a collaborative text editor from the La Suite initiative, positioned against both Notion and Google Docs. Several people can edit at once with visible cursors, organize pages as nested subpages, comment, and share with detailed access rules. Writing happens in rich text or Markdown, with slash commands.

It runs under the MIT licence and can be self-hosted. Extras include offline editing, optional AI rewriting tools, import and export, and a mode that turns a document into slides.

• Best for: organizations that want a self-hosted Google Docs replacement with a permissive licence.
• Watch out for: it is a document editor, not a spreadsheet, so pair it with another tool if you need Excel-style work.

Which of these open .docx and .xlsx files?

Each project says something slightly different about Microsoft formats, and the claims below come from their own pages.

No vendor other than Microsoft promises identical layout, so open a few of your most complex files, with tables, tracked changes or macros, before you switch a team.

Is Microsoft Word itself free?

Microsoft's own listing says Word for the web is advertised as free, and the Microsoft 365 entry is marked freemium, with paid plans for individuals, families and businesses described on Microsoft 365's page. The web edition lets people create, edit and co-author documents online, and Microsoft's pricing page is the place to check what the free tier leaves out. If your concern is cost for a larger group or keeping data in Microsoft's cloud, the alternatives above answer that more directly. Enlisted also keeps a list of Microsoft Word alternatives.

More alternatives worth a look

• Real-time pads: Etherpad is a self-hosted editor that shows who wrote each keystroke and keeps full revision history.
• For developers: Univer is an Apache-2.0 SDK for embedding spreadsheet, document and presentation editing in your own product.
• Team suite: ONLYOFFICE Groups combines documents, projects, CRM and a wiki in one self-hostable app.
• Self-hosted email and calendar: Mailcow, Stalwart, Mail-in-a-Box and SOGo cover the email and groupware side of Google Workspace.
• Hosted email: Fastmail is paid, and Zoho Mail has a free plan for small domains.
• All-in-one hosted: Lark combines chat, documents, calendar and video meetings.

Which free Microsoft Word alternative should you choose?

Browse more in the productivity category and the documentation category. To compare the two oldest free desktop suites head to head, read OpenOffice vs LibreOffice, and if your documents are really notes, the best note-taking apps guide covers that side. For a wider toolkit review, see the best productivity apps.