I replaced Microsoft Word with a self-hosted, open-source alternative
Microsoft Word is ubiquitous in the professional world, and its widespread support and capabilities have made it one of the most popular word processors today.
However, after switching my cloud storage to Proton and my laptop to Linux, I needed a replacement for Microsoft Word. This open source alternative is the one I switched to.
Why replace Microsoft Word?
Word is powerful, relatively easy to use (unless you move an image) and almost universal. Why create trouble by getting rid of it?
I was motivated by two main things: cost and confidentiality.
Microsoft Word is not cheap
Microsoft Word costs $180 if you buy it individually, or $100 per year if you buy Microsoft 365, which also includes Excel, PowerPoint, and the rest of the Office suite. I’ve been paying for the Microsoft 365 Family plan since 2019, which costs $130 per year.
That means I’ve already spent $780 on something I don’t really use frequently. I’m looking to completely replace Office and OneDrive with free, self-hosted, or privacy-focused alternatives before my subscription ends in May 2026.
$780 is not change. This is a 5070 Ti if you can get one at MSRP in the US. You can buy an upper mid-range processor and motherboard for this price, or a mini PC for self-hosting. This is a very nice 3D printer.
I did the math and decided there were other places I would rather allocate this money.
Microsoft Word forces cloud integration
Microsoft Word, by default, will attempt to force you to use a cloud save feature every time you save a draft. In fact, autosave can only be enabled if Word is linked to your Microsoft account to save it to OneDrive.
This doesn’t really do me much good and I would prefer a solution that isn’t so pushy about using a cloud service.
What does a word processor replacement for Microsoft Word need?
Unlike a plain text editor, a word processor must be able to handle complex formatting, images, tables, charts, and more fonts than I can count.
It should support indexes, chapters, and anything else you might find in a book.
Cross-compatibility with Word file formats (DOC and DOCX) is a must-have feature. I don’t want to have to fight bugs to open Word documents.
Additionally, I started by looking for something that had a user interface similar to Microsoft Word. It’s not strictly necessary, but when you’re looking for an immediate replacement, who really wants to take the time to learn a new program from scratch and adapt to a completely different look?
ONLYOffice is my favorite Microsoft Word replacement
I tested more than a dozen word processors before finally settling on ONLYOFFICE, a free and open source alternative.
It meets all my must-have criteria and even looks a lot like Microsoft Word to boot. It’s not an exact copy, but it’s close enough that anyone familiar with Word will instantly feel at home in ONLYOFFICE’s document editor.
Above all, not only look similar, it acts very similar. I don’t do a lot of fancy formatting in Word or ONLYOFFICE, but the tools I use are pretty much the same. This made the switch from Word to ONLYOFFICE quite smooth.
ONLYOFFICE is surprisingly stable
I’ve now been using ONLYOFFICE on my laptop for a few months (running Linux) and I’ve been using it on my Windows 11 desktop for a little over a week. During this time, I haven’t encountered any bugs or crashes. All Word (DOCX) files I received worked out of the box and had no compatibility issues.
Funny enough, I was regularly experiencing freezes and crashes with Word for reasons I can’t understand. So far, ONLYOFFICE, which is free– actually proved to be more reliable. I also didn’t encounter any issues with the ONLYOFFIE spreadsheet (the Excel alternative), which is where I expected the most issues.
ONLYOFFICE offers a self-hosted option
If you don’t want to give up cloud collaboration features, there is a community edition of ONLYOFFICE Document Server that you can download and configure for free.
ONLYOFFICE DocumentServer supports most major operating systems that you may want to use. Fortunately, the installation and setup process is quite simple and the developers have provided instructions for each operating system. Select the one you want, download the installer, then click “Read instructions” and follow the steps. Most of the work is done, as they provide the commands you’ll need and instructions on what settings you need to change.
Additionally, if you’re worried about security, you don’t necessarily need to go to the trouble of directly exposing your ONLYOFFICE server to the Internet.
Instead, you can set up a WireGuard server on your local network. When you need to access your ONLYOFFICE server, simply connect to your VPN and you will have access to all devices on your local network (LAN). This makes your ONLYOFFICE server as secure as your VPN.
As a bonus, ONLYOFFICE is pretty close to a complete replacement for the entire Microsoft Office suite, or at least the common programs. When you launch ONLYOFFICE for the first time, you will be asked to choose between Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation and PDF.
Since I’ve been using it, I’ve never been tempted to go back to Google Sheets.
