Disclaimer: Besides Nextcloud, Collabora Online is one of our most popular services, which is why we want to highlight its advantages and give a small tour of its capabilities. This blog post is not sponsored by Collabora, but we offer Collabora Online as a paid service, which is advertised through this post.
Almost right from the start of ViOffice, we have been a proud partner of Collabora, enabling us to give customers easy, affordable and quick access to state-of-the-art office document collaboration in the Free and Open Source world. Collabora has been an important pillar of the development of the underlying LibreOffice codebase, contributing roughly a third of the commits during LibreOffice’s development cycles. LibreOffice is of course known to many individuals in the FOSS-community as the Open Source office suite for home use, be it on GNU+Linux, Microsoft Windows, MacOS, and even Android or iOS and of course of the successor of the once famous Open Office, which is now mostly dysfunct. Collabora builts on top of LibreOffice in order to make it enterprise ready for small, medium or large companies. [1]
Not only that, but Collabora is also the driving force behind the development of the LibreOffice Cloud version “LibreOffice Online”, which for the business context is branded as “Collabora Online” (COOL). It is this tool, that makes Collabora stand out from many other office solutions. COOL has a unique design, that enables very dynamic and easy collaboration with numerous authors, while keeping documents secure within, for example, an On-Premise cloud infrastructure.
Collabora Online Features
Collabora Online sits on top of the Collabora Desktop (and therefore LibreOffice) codebase. For the most part, Collabora Online can do, what the desktop version of Collabora and LibreOffice can do as well, including the superb compatibility with Microsoft’s Office file formats as well as the widespread Open Document Formats. The main difference is the user interface, which of course on the desktop is already known to many, but in the online-version depends on the integration in cloud software like Nextcloud, Moodle, Owncloud and many others. [2]
Collabora Online supports all the main applications offered by the desktop counterpart, including “Writer” (in MS Office terminology: “Word”™) for text documents, “Calc” (“Excel”™) for spreadsheets and calculations, “Impress” (“PowerPoint”™) for presentations and posters and a tool for creating flowcharts, vector, and pixel graphics called “Draw”. In Collabora Online, all four applications can be used collaboratively together with others, online in the browser, without any further software necessary and across various devices.
Of course, all the basic features one would expect from a collaborative office suite are present there as well. For example live notifications of other users entering the document and a neat Nextcloud Talk integration, that lets you chat or even do a video-call within the document, in order to work together more efficiently. Expansive commenting and auditing features within documents are available as well. Images and other media can be inserted into documents either from the end device or the users’ attached cloud storage (like Nextcloud).
Another advantage of Collabora is the wide compatibility with operating systems and devices. While Collabora Desktop (and LibreOffice) are generally available for almost any desktop Operating System (GNU+Linux, Microsoft Windows, MacOS, some BSDs), it is also available on special devices like Raspberry Pi and other single board computers as well as for iOS and Android Smartphones and Tablets or even Linux Smartphones! So whomever you collaborate with, there are close to no barriers to entry for them.
In terms of compatibility to and comparison with Microsoft Office or Office 365 specifically, we have already compiled an overview table a few years ago. A more detailed and technical comparison is available from Collabora directly:
Privacy, Selfhosting & Open Source
One of the main advantages, that few other solutions can compete with is the strong focus on privacy that stems among other reasons from the LibreOffice base which Collabora is built upon. Because Collabora Online is completely Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), interested users may inspect the source code at any time. Contrary to what advocates of commercial proprietary software claim, Free and Open Source Software in theory turns out to be more secure and less bug prone than proprietary counterparts.
Another advantage, which stems from the Free Licensing model, is the ease of self-hosting Collabora, which we typically refer to as On-Premise (“on your own servers”). Collabora is easy to integrate into already existing Cloud Storage solutions like Nextcloud, either as a hosted service (SaaS) or On-Premise with full control and transparency over the service. With such a setup, documents never leave the hosting server, as the document view is streamed to users working on it. On-Premise hosting also ensures GDPR compliance, even in more enclosed setup, as no external services are involved and no data is sent to any other party.
Lastly, other than most proprietary services, Collabora Online does not establish vendor lock-in. If users want to stay with Collabora, they can simply and seamlessly switch hosts to any of the numerous Collabora partners. If users want to switch to a different solution entirely, that is easily possible, too. All documents always remain on your cloud storage solution. You can simply interchange your office suite any time or work with offline tools entirely. The Open Standards used by Collabora and LibreOffice make software transitions seamless.
Do you want to try Collabora?
If you want to try Collabora Online, do not hesitate to try our hosted services! We offer flexible rates for individuals, smaller and medium groups or large companies. As with all of our offers, we have special pricing for students and NGOs. We also offer risk-free trials, if you want to test-drive Collabora Online beforehand.
Sources
- Vignoli, Italo (2025): LibreOffice 25.2, the office suite that meets today’s user needs. URL: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2025/02/06/libreoffice-25-2/
- Collabora Online Documentation: Available Integrations. URL: https://sdk.collaboraonline.com/docs/available_integrations.html
Jan is co-founder of ViOffice. He is responsible for the technical implementation and maintenance of the software. His interests lie in particular in the areas of security, data protection and encryption.
In addition to his studies in economics, later in applied statistics and his subsequent doctorate, he has years of experience in software development, open source and server administration.