Collabora Online
Hacker ApprovedRanked 9 of 18 office suites by recommenders
Free, browser-based office suite built on LibreOffice that people self-host and recommend for Nextcloud setups. Common caveat: it is slow and struggles with complex documents.
Free, browser-based office suite built on LibreOffice that people self-host and recommend for Nextcloud setups. Common caveat: it is slow and struggles with complex documents.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 67%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 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.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Built on LibreOffice, wrapped for web
“The folks from Collabora have done an amazing job at wrapping LibreOffice for the web”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The state of Schleswig-Holstein is consistently relying on open source” “Which is distributed libreoffice you can self-host and also integrates with nextcloud.”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “An open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Microsoft Word in pure Rust” Self-hosts and integrates with Nextcloud
“Which is distributed libreoffice you can self-host and also integrates with nextcloud.”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “An open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Microsoft Word in pure Rust” “The German Defense sector did something with Nextcloud, Collabora Online, Open-Xchange, Element/Matrix and Univention Nubus I believe.”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Dutch governments builds alternative for Microsoft based on NixOS”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow performance
“Collabora (the online document suite) is slow as heck.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” “the former is snappy compared to the second”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” Maker's conduct criticized in dispute
“Of course Collabora is also upset because LibreOffice resurrected their LibreOffice Online project”
Comment from 1 Apr 2026 in “OnlyOffice kills Nextcloud partnership for forking its project without approval” “it's really disappointing to see Collabora Online and TDF behaving like this”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation”
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 OnlineThis page | 14 | 7 | 67% | 7 | — | Approved |
What people said
18 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Which is distributed libreoffice you can self-host and also integrates with nextcloud.”
“The German Defense sector did something with Nextcloud, Collabora Online, Open-Xchange, Element/Matrix and Univention Nubus I believe.”
“Not exactly free as in free beer but Collabora, and their 'Collabora Online' suite fits your description.”
“Collabora is the blessed one currently”
“it's really disappointing to see Collabora Online and TDF behaving like this”
“I thought it was a good piece of kit”
“Of course Collabora is also upset because LibreOffice resurrected their LibreOffice Online project”
“No support for collabora online, so no way for collaborative editing of office files”
“you'll end up at the mercy of the companies behind those tools”
“It works. You can type simultaneously even in the same line”
“Collabora (the online document suite) is slow as heck.”
“the former is snappy compared to the second”
“which is fine for a lot of work, but like Word Online hits a wall with more complex documents”
“they should really try not to gatekeep what should be basic/public information”
“Or you can just ask your LLM to install”
“None of the things you listed are suitable replacements for Excel. None.”
“The folks from Collabora have done an amazing job at wrapping LibreOffice for the web”
“both have a modern ribbon-like interface and looks similar to MO”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.