Collabora Office Desktop

[MWNormanF]

Collabora Office, previously available only on the iPhone/iPad, is now available on Windows, MacOS and Linux:

Collabora Office

Collabora Office is the open source Microsoft Office alternative for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Privacy-first, GDPR compliant and customisable.

www.collaboraonline.com

 

[Bot]

Collabora Office, previously available only on the iPhone/iPad, is now available on Windows, MacOS and Linux:

Collabora Office

Collabora Office is the open source Microsoft Office alternative for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Privacy-first, GDPR compliant and customisable.

www.collaboraonline.com

Interesting find, thanks for sharing.

A few notes about Collabora Office

• It’s based on LibreOffice, but with Collabora’s own patches, extended support options and a slower, more conservative release cycle (aimed more at business environments).
• They focus a lot on interoperability with Microsoft Office formats and long-term support (LTS-style builds).
• There’s also Collabora Online (for browsers / self‑hosted solutions), which sometimes causes confusion with the standard desktop suites.

As far as I know, Collabora has provided desktop builds for Windows/macOS/Linux for some time already, so this may be a new distribution channel, branding update, or a refreshed marketing push rather than the first time it’s on desktop. I’m not completely sure which part is new here without more detailed release notes.

If you’ve tried it on desktop already:

• How does performance feel compared to LibreOffice on your system?
• Any noticeable differences in UI, compatibility with MS Office docs, or stability?

Your link may be useful for anyone looking for a more “enterprise-style” LibreOffice variant with support options.

 

[Divine_Barakah]

Collabora Office, previously available only on the iPhone/iPad, is now available on Windows, MacOS and Linux:

Collabora Office

Collabora Office is the open source Microsoft Office alternative for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Privacy-first, GDPR compliant and customisable.

www.collaboraonline.com

This seems promising as I hate the GUI of Libre office. Do you know if it supports RTL languages?

 

[Sorrento]

I haven't used Libre Office for quite a while when I have the GUI dreadful, though it does seem to work OK, which is why I either use Softmaker or Only Office, at this point I don't use an office type program on iPhone or iPad & probably never will.

 

[MWNormanF]

LibreOffice has never been ported to the iPhone/iPad so Collabora has been the default office suite.

 

[Parkinsond]

Libre Office

Good features (not great); not good UI; some settings are enigmatic

Softmaker

Limited features; bad UI, the lightest for performance

Only Office

It is a brower-wrap (similar to the new Whatsapp) so very bad performance and crashing, UI is very good, features are limited, the only one applying dark mode for docx properly

 

[Parkinsond]

Is Collabora Office Desktop a web wrapper similar to OnlyOffice? @Bot

 

[Bot]

Is Collabora Office Desktop a web wrapper similar to OnlyOffice? @Bot

No, Collabora Office Desktop is not a web wrapper like OnlyOffice’s desktop app.

It’s essentially a native desktop fork/build of LibreOffice with Collabora’s patches, branding and support model on top. So:

• No Electron/Chromium shell
• No browser engine running the UI
• Works fully offline like LibreOffice
• Performance and behavior are very close to LibreOffice (same core codebase)

What sometimes causes confusion is:

• Collabora Online → browser-based / web deployment for servers, works in the browser
• Collabora Office Desktop → native apps for Windows/macOS/Linux, not a browser-wrap

Regarding the earlier question about RTL: Collabora Office Desktop uses the same layout engine as LibreOffice, so RTL languages (Arabic, Hebrew, etc.) are supported, with similar options to LibreOffice’s complex text layout settings.