Collabora Office
Ranked 10 of 18 office suites by recommenders
LibreOffice-based office suite with a newer interface and less Java; spreadsheets usually sync well between home and work. Critics find it janky, slow and dated.
LibreOffice-based office suite with a newer interface and less Java; spreadsheets usually sync well between home and work. Critics find it janky, slow and dated.
29 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 16
- approval share
- 45%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Dated, janky, ugly interface
“the design, both of the site and the office software, looks so dated”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” “It is actually very, very janky and behaves like someone tried to reimplement ~15 years old Office UI in JavaScript.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” “the Pivot Table UI is still the ugly non-interactive one found in LibreOffice”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” Slow and laggy editing
“It's laggy on MacBook Pro M4 Max. I have no idea what is it doing.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” “Now speed in editing thats a clear showstopper.”
Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” “When I tried it last, it was painfully slow.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” Connects to internet unnecessarily
“Stop hiding your shit behind hard to navigate/use/privacy invading bullshit.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” “There is no reason for an office programm to connect to the internet.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” Broken download and website
“Download button takes me to windows store. That doesn't work on my machine. On Linux got as a flatpak.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” “It just bugs out and redirects to a home page with a broken URL attempting to inject HTML from client side.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop”
Other office suites people recommend
The four most recommended other office suites, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LibreOffice | 345 | 188 | 65% | 13 | 20 yrs11 owners | — |
| Microsoft Office | 256 | 407 | 39% | 12 | 12 yrs11 owners | — |
| Microsoft 365 | 151 | 340 | 31% | 12 | 2 yrs11 owners | — |
| Google Workspace | 107 | 214 | 33% | 12 | 10 yrs14 owners | — |
| Collabora OfficeThis page | 13 | 16 | 45% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
31 of the 33 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Collabora Office for spreadsheets”
“The author has many, many free alternatives.”
“I don't like Collabora Office at all as a product (sorry, and I have tried)”
“there's a hell of a lot of stuff on that page that does not help to be clear”
“edit the same spreadsheet at home and at work and that usually works flawlessly, besides automatic coloring”
“Now speed in editing thats a clear showstopper.”
“IMO it's grown on me. As for my experience, collabora thus-far has been plenty responsive.”
“only the version shipped in Collabora Office for Desktop”
“It's laggy on MacBook Pro M4 Max. I have no idea what is it doing.”
“The new one looks all Microsoft-Ribbony.”
“this seems to combine the UI and performance issues of LibreOffice with new issues from the new front end”
“Happy to see Collabora doing it a bit better.”
“There is no reason for an office programm to connect to the internet.”
“much quicker/accurate than collabora office”
“the Pivot Table UI is still the ugly non-interactive one found in LibreOffice”
“it feels clunkier than LO itself”
“there is no way to connect it to your online collabora instance or directly to Nextcloud”
“When I tried it last, it was painfully slow.”
“Download button takes me to windows store. That doesn't work on my machine. On Linux got as a flatpak.”
“Stop hiding your shit behind hard to navigate/use/privacy invading bullshit.”
“It looks like a 2015 wordpress template”
“It is actually very, very janky and behaves like someone tried to reimplement ~15 years old Office UI in JavaScript.”
“It just bugs out and redirects to a home page with a broken URL attempting to inject HTML from client side.”
“Seems to be a dumbed down UI with less customization, but built with shiny new browser tech”
“But how will we spam you if you don't give us email?”
“the design, both of the site and the office software, looks so dated”
“Nothing but enshittification.”
“Collabora office looks really great too.”
“If you want LibreOffice with less Java, you should try Collabora Office.”
“handily meets the majority of needs”
“Just tried it. Honestly, I prefer the old LibreOffice experience.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.