The three alternatives at a glance
| Alternative | Cost model | Suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Perpetual Office licence | One-time purchase | Anyone who wants to stay with their familiar Office but get rid of the subscription |
| LibreOffice | Free | Anyone willing to accept a different, free program: a learning curve in how it works and possible layout shifts in Office files included |
| Google Workspace | Subscription, cloud-based | Anyone who needs real-time team collaboration |
Which alternative suits whom
- Perpetual Office licence. The most obvious alternative. You keep the familiar Office but pay once instead of on an ongoing basis. Office 2024 or the cheaper Office 2021.
- LibreOffice. Free and open source, but a different program: the menus, terms and workflows are not those of Office, and getting used to it takes time. With Word and Excel files from the Microsoft world, the layout can shift, sometimes considerably with complex documents (embedded objects, special formatting, macros). Anyone who exchanges files with others will notice this. On top of that: no vendor support, only the community.
- Google Workspace. Cloud-based, strong on real-time collaboration. As a solution for a single user it is often unnecessary and is likewise a subscription.
- The honest rule of thumb. Anyone who wants to stay with their familiar Office and only get rid of the subscription is best served by the perpetual licence.