Engadget Recommends Office Online and OnlyOffice as Free Microsoft 365 Alternatives

The guide said Microsoft 365 Family can be a reasonable deal for families because each member gets 1TB of cloud storage, but it criticized the subscription model for a fundamental tool and said Microsoft added AI features and raised prices without letting users skip the AI tools.

For users who want to stay inside Microsoft's ecosystem, the report said Office Online offers free web versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, along with Forms, Teams and To Do, through a Microsoft account. The web apps lack advanced features such as macros and watermarks, the report said, but retain core functions including headings in Word, pivot tables in Excel and transitions in PowerPoint. It said Office Online requires an internet connection, pushes users to save files to OneDrive's free 5GB storage and can struggle with heavy or complex documents.

The guide recommended OnlyOffice as its main free alternative, describing it as offering a fuller Office-like experience. It said OnlyOffice supports documents, spreadsheets, presentations and PDFs in tabs in one app window, saves in standard DOCX and XLSX formats, and uses a Ribbon interface similar to Microsoft Office. According to the report, it includes track changes, signatures, footnotes and tables in documents; data validation, cell protection and freezing in spreadsheets; and themes, transitions, animations, charts and shapes in presentations. Its PDF tool can create and read PDFs and supports form fields such as dropdowns and checkboxes, though it cannot combine PDFs, the report said.

The report said OnlyOffice has AI features that can connect to a chatbot of the user's choice, but they are optional and can be turned off by opening Settings, unchecking Use AI functions and restarting the app. It also cited a dark theme, including dark-mode documents, easy updates, templates and plugins as advantages.

Engadget also named LibreOffice as another popular free option, noting that its applications open separately rather than in a single window.