Looking for Microsoft Office Alternatives? Here is our list of handpicked best free Microsoft Office alternatives. Microsoft Office is a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft.

It was first announced by Bill Gates on 1 August 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint.

Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, OLE data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language.

It is produced in several versions targeted towards different end-users and computing environments. The original, and most widely used version, is the desktop version, available for PCs running the Windows and macOS operating systems.

Today the office suite includes MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Access, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Skype, Project, SharePoint and many more. It has a plethora of features to get the job done for anyone in this world and this is evident by the fact that it is used by over a billion people from around the globe.

But everyone does not need such heavyweight software for their day-to-day task. Take me as an example, I have been using Microsoft Office since I did not know but I am confident that I never used even half of its features.

Similarly, if you are someone who is running an organization with a small base and funding, it will be very difficult to manage the subscription of every machine out there.

To help you out of this problem, here is the list of best Microsoft Office Alternatives that one can try out.

G Suite

If you are a tech enthusiast, by now you might have guessed that it is one of the offerings from Google LLC.

It was initially released in 2006 and since then has gone through numerous reforms to be an apt contender for the throne of the best Office Suites which has been claimed by Microsoft Office for a long time now.

It is a cloud-based program which is capable of doing all of your office work. G Suite comprises Gmail, Hangouts, Calendar, and Google+ for communication; Drive for storage; Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and Sites for collaboration; and, depending on the plan, an Admin panel and Vault for managing users and the services.

The best part about the G Suite is that it is available for free and can be accessed from anywhere in the world if you have a Google account. All this is evidence of the fact that it is used by over 70 million people from around the globe.

To get the G Suite, click here.

WPS Office

Previously known as Kingsoft Office, WPS Office is an office suite for Microsoft Windows, Linux, iOS and Android OS, developed by Zhuhai-based Chinese software developer Kingsoft.

WPS Office is a suite of software which is made up of three primary components: WPS Writer, WPS Presentation, and WPS Spreadsheet.

The basic version of the software is available for free but there is a paid version as well to facilitate the needs of power users which comes to around 30 USD per year and you can use that on up to 9 computers.

The user interface of this suite is very similar to that of Microsoft Office and one can easily get used to it. It also features a word to pdf converter which you can use to convert your word documents into pdf files.

To download WPS Office, click here.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free and open-source office suite, a project of The Document Foundation. It was forked from OpenOffice.org in 2010.

The LibreOffice suite comprises programs for word processing, the creation and editing of spreadsheets, slideshows, diagrams and drawings, working with databases, and composing mathematical formulae.

It was first announced in 2010 and the stable version was released in 2011. Since then, it has been downloaded over 10 million times. LibreOffice is available for a variety of computing platforms, including Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux.

It is also available in the form of an online office suite. The suite includes a word processor called “Writer”, a spreadsheet called “Calc”, a presentation program called “Impress”, a graphics editor called “Draw”, a database manager called “Base” and an add-on utility called “Math” to assist you in other programs.

The best thing about LibreOffice is that it is completely free, open source, and cross-platform.

To download LibreOffice, click here.

SoftMaker Office

SoftMaker Office is an office suite developed since 1987 by the German company SoftMaker Software GmbH, Nuremberg. It is available in free and paid versions.

The free version is known as  SoftMaker Free Office. It has a very basic, easy to use interface and is available on Microsoft Window, Linux, MacOS and Android. The free version is very lightweight yet packs all the essential features that can be expected from an office suite. 

SoftMaker Free Office includes a word processor called “TextMaker”, a spreadsheet application called “PlanMaker”, a presentation graphics application called “SoftMaker Presentations” and a programming tool called “BasicMaker.”

The paid version includes an e-mail client, a spell checker, two Duden dictionaries and four Langenscheidt dictionaries. The best thing about SoftMaker Free Office is that you can run it from a USB flash drive as well.

To download SoftMaker Office, click here.

Calligra

Calligra Suite is a graphic art and office suite by KDE. It is available for desktop PCs, tablet computers, and smartphones.

It contains applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, databases, vector graphics and digital painting. Its development started way back in 2000 but has never gotten most of the limelight because of the issues inside its parent company and some compatibility issues with MS Office files.

Its interface is quite different from what we have seen in other office suites. Saying so, it is feature packed and can be a good alternative to Microsoft Office once someone gets used to it.

To download Calligra, click here.