Apache OpenOffice
Ranked 7 of 18 office suites by recommenders
Free, open-source office suite that people use for everyday documents, though critics say development has slowed to a near standstill.
Free, open-source office suite that people use for everyday documents, though critics say development has slowed to a near standstill.
63 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 22
- criticize it
- 41
- approval share
- 35%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: 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 doesn’t carry the badge
- 22 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 10 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
Free and open source
“None of the tools that you mentioned except for LibreOffice and OpenOffice are free-as-in-freedom”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation” “No look in, since both are open source.”
Comment from 21 Mar 2026 in “Germany Mandates ODF for Public Administration” Works fine for everyday documents
“Google Sheets, Google Docs, OpenOffice etc. work fine.”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “OpenDesk – a flexible all-in-one office suite for the public sector” “they still get their work done like before”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “Danish Government silently drops plan to dump MS Office” “Was working fine on openoffice”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “Swiss authorities want to reduce dependency on Microsoft” Named as Microsoft Office alternative
“Most of M$ office software has alternatives (Google Docs, OpenOffice...)”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability” “Google Sheets, Google Docs, OpenOffice etc. work fine.”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “OpenDesk – a flexible all-in-one office suite for the public sector” “Open Office, Libre Office, Only Office to start.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” Long-term use without client issues
“I've been an OpenOffice and LibreOffice use for my personal use and contracting business since 2004.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” “using a simple email/open-office combination never caused any issues with clients or suppliers”
Comment from 28 Nov 2025 in “Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Development slowed, project near abandoned
“Difficulties maintaining a sufficient number of contributors to keep the project viable have persisted for several years.”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Android 17 is the first since 3.x to add new APIs without releasing to the AOSP” “instead it has limped on for all these years, sucking up valuable effort by users”
Comment from 21 Feb 2026 in “LibreOffice blasts OnlyOffice for working with Microsoft to lock users in” “development has slowed to a glacial pace and it's close to abandoned”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” - Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation”
Feels dated, lags Microsoft Office
“OpenOffice and LibreOffice already feel irrelevant and dated to begin with.”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation” “As much as I cheer for OpenOffice, it sucks. And it has been decades now.”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.” “OpenOffice never took off because new features got added to Office first”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “A Social Filesystem” Not reliable enough for real work
“Openoffice is somewhat better on those fronts, but neither are good enough if it's for actual work”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything” “you might have had to trust Open Office's export capability to render docs the way you wanted”
Comment from 22 Jun 2026 on Hacker News
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 | — |
| Apache OpenOfficeThis page | 22 | 41 | 35% | 10 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 65 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Check the commits they make for their "releases" and you'll see what I mean.”
“It used to be near impossible for Open Office to get documents 100% right when opening old files saved with Microsoft Word 95 or whatever.”
“That has not had an actual release for something like 12 years”
“they still get their work done like before”
“I used to make part of my money porting or cloning bespoke small business apps to OpenOffice Basic or OpenOffice with its Python integration”
“let the MySQL, Hudson and OpenOffice communities fork away”
“Difficulties maintaining a sufficient number of contributors to keep the project viable have persisted for several years.”
“Neither is a viable mass-market alternative in my opinion.”
“Still not as slow as Open Office but man it's close.”
“they are less useful than an older version of Word or OpenOffice/LibreOffice”
“OpenOffice.org and the Google apps still don't come close.”
“you might have had to trust Open Office's export capability to render docs the way you wanted”
“OpenOffice figured this out a decade ago.”
“Openoffice is somewhat better on those fronts, but neither are good enough if it's for actual work”
“Bought openoffice, messed it up, now libreoffice is king.”
“Open Office on Ubuntu deleted my 30 page undergrad biochem thesis I'd spent a month on.”
“Was working fine on openoffice”
“Not a really active project. Also most of the community moved on.”
“None of the tools that you mentioned except for LibreOffice and OpenOffice are free-as-in-freedom”
“OpenOffice and LibreOffice already feel irrelevant and dated to begin with.”
“OpenOffice is by far the better name and has a potential brand recognition that LibreOffice never will.”
“No look in, since both are open source.”
“Big Tech cannot be trusted and there's a long lineage to prove it—MS Windows, Sun/OpenOffice and many others”
“I could write without getting angry”
“allowing downloading effectively abandonware that doesn't represent the quality of the open source office software”
“instead it has limped on for all these years, sucking up valuable effort by users”
“Most of M$ office software has alternatives (Google Docs, OpenOffice...)”
“the only reason for a user to use OpenOffice/Collabra is because they don't want to deal with an annoying company”
“The latest version of OpenOffice (4.1.x) is over a decode old”
“As much as I cheer for OpenOffice, it sucks. And it has been decades now.”
“OpenOffice never took off because new features got added to Office first”
“things have not been going well at Apache for last decade”
“OpenOffice and LibreOffice effectively duplicated long startup times”
“If you think open office and some kind of custom IAM solution will work, you just don't have the experience to have an opinion on it”
“development has slowed to a glacial pace and it's close to abandoned”
“Open Office, Libre Office, Only Office to start.”
“I've been an OpenOffice and LibreOffice use for my personal use and contracting business since 2004.”
“using a simple email/open-office combination never caused any issues with clients or suppliers”
“This is the curse of OpenOffice”
“Google Sheets, Google Docs, OpenOffice etc. work fine.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.