What are the best office suites for macOS?

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5

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104

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May 4, 2021

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

5 Options Considered

Best office suites for macOS	Price	Platforms	Project management
87 LibreOffice	-	Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD	Yes
-- Apple iWork	-	-	-
-- Calligra	-	Windows; OSX; Linux	No
-- Microsoft Office	Paid	-	-
-- Apache OpenOffice	-	Windows; Linux; Android; WP	Yes

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score 41 · Answer 1

LibreOffice

Top Pro

Free, open source and cross-platform

LibreOffice is available for free with code available here. It's licensed under LGPL v3 with new contributions dual-licensed under MPL. All major operating systems are supported, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux (Arch, Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, Ubuntu, Suse). See More

Top Con

Not fully compatible with MSOffice

Its not fully compatible to MSOffice and often breaks documents. See More

InsightfulKagutsuchi's Experience

beautifully crafted, very functional, easy to learn and use, utterly reliable, many free add-ins, easy pdf export and template handling See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD

Project management:Yes

Word processing:Yes

Notetaking:No

See All Specs

Top Pro

Has a portable version

LibreOffice offers a version of the suite that does not require installation. It can be kept on a thumb stick to ensure that you have an office suite on whichever machine you choose to use. See More

Top Con

Restricted license

LibreOffice uses a more restrictive license than OpenOffice, which makes it almost impossible to backport features to OpenOffice. See More

Top Pro

Multilingual

It is available in more than 110 languages. See More

Top Con

Won't work with themes

It does not work with custom themes due to all the different wrappers involved. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

LibreOffice is available for free with code available here. It's licensed under LGPL v3 with new contributions dual-licensed under MPL. See More

Top Con

Documentation is out of date

Good luck turning off autocorrect, because the place where the documentation says that option is doesn't exist. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

All major operating systems are supported, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux (Arch, Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, Ubuntu, Suse). See More

Top Con

LibreOffice Base requires Java

If you need to use Base, it requires Java. See More

Top Pro

Presentations can have 3D models embeded within them

Impress supports 3D models in gITF format. See More

Top Con

Does not run as stable as OnlyOffice

It runs fine until it crashes. Users have experienced multiple crashes when using the cursor to select text in writer, running in Kubuntu 18.04. See More

Top Pro

LibreOffice can take from OpenOffice, but not the other way around

Due to licensing each office suite uses, only a one-way transfer of code is possible, offering more long-term potential for LibreOffice over OpenOffice. See More

Top Con

Track Changes needs to be improved

Collaborating on a single document is difficult. Track Changes makes the document hard to read as both edited and deleted text is displayed, it's not possible to print comments, tracked differences between document versions are sub-optimal and there's no system for accepting/rejecting changes. See More

Top Pro

Encryption support

LibreOffice allows encrypting and password-locking files. See More

Top Pro

Comprehensive suite of applications

LibreOffice includes applications for word-processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and database management. See More

Top Pro

Font embedding support

Font embedding ensures that the document will display correctly whether or not the target machine has that specific font installed. See More

Top Pro

Widely used

There is a large base of satisfied LibreOffice users worldwide. See More

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score 14 · Answer 2

Apple iWork

Top Pro

iCloud Access

You can access the applications and documents* from iCloud.com *Documents must be stored in iCloud. See More

Top Con

Not 100% compatible with Excel spreadsheets

Numbers is not fully compatible with Excel spreadsheets with a lot of coding incorporated. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use applications

Top Con

Effectively limited to Apple devices

While you can edit documents through your browser on any OS if you use iCloud, the full feature set of the iWork programs is limited to Mac computers, iPad tablets, and iPhone and iPod touch mobile devices. If you use any other OS, you should look for something more portable. See More

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score 9 · Answer 3

Calligra

Top Con

Subpar compatibility

Top Pro

Unified design language

Specs

Platforms:Windows; OSX; Linux

Project management:No

Notetaking:No

Word processing:yes

See All Specs

Top Con

Slow development

Development is slower and less active than competition. See More

Top Pro

Calligra offers cutting edge applications for artists to work on 2D drawings and illustrations

Calligra includes Krita, a sketching and painting application, and Karbon, a vector drawing application. Both offer end-to-end solutions. Krita is also available as a standalone program. See More

Top Pro

Huge list of efficient and capable office components

Calligra consists of 9 tools. In addition to word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, it includes tools for project management, sketching/painting, database management, vector graphics, diagramming and brainstorming. See More

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score 10 · Answer 4

Microsoft Office

Top Con

Next step down the path of constant surveillance

At least with standalone and a good packet filter you can limit what telemetry is being sent back to Microsoft. See More

Top Pro

Incredible apps and completely free to use

NeighborlyNinigi's Experience

365 is simply productized spying with the amount of data shared with Microsoft over the cloud. I am surprised thjey are charging so much for it given that you are paying with your personal data each time its used. See More

Top Con

Loaded with bugs

Program hangs can occur with 365 and tons of high CPU thermal loading from this package to the point of requiring uninstall of this package. Word hasn't gotten any better since they refined it in the early 2000s - it's only gotten far more bloated and crash prone, not to mention the horrible GUI appearance and lack of functionality that their older, stand-alone packages once had. Even XL (formerly, Lotus 1,2,3), was ruined and degraded to where, 101 functions ceased to function properly. Outlook - what a debacle that turned out to be. About the only useful application in the suite turned out to be PowerPoint in daily use. See More

See All

score 10 · Answer 5

Apache OpenOffice

Top Pro

Free and open source

Licensed under Apache License. See More

Top Con

Documentation is lacking

OpenOffice documentation is incomplete and language is highly technical. See More

André Pereira's Experience

It is fast, especially with -quickstart (that was removed from LibreOffice for Linux). Many functionalities can be added through extensions. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; Linux; Android; WP

Project management:Yes

Notetaking:No

Word processing:Yes

See All Specs

Top Pro

Comprehensive suite of applications

Apache OpenOffice includes applications for word-processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and database management. See More

Top Con

Poor compatibility with Microsoft Office compared with LibreOffice

Top Pro

Free, open source and cross-platform

Licensed under Apache License. OpenOffice is available on Windows, Mac OS, and *nix systems. See More

Top Pro

Full compatibility with Microsoft

Fully compatible with Microsoft formats - from the oldest to the latest. See More

Top Pro

No CopyLeft

Unlike LibreOffice, its Grandfather OpenOffice is real open software for anyome. See More

Top Pro

Functionalities can be added through extensions.

There are lots of extensions of OpenOffice (LibreOffice extensions also work) from dictionaries, grammar, pdf editting, etc. See More

Top Pro

It has QuickStart

Quickstart is an awesome functionality that makes open a document blazing fast. LibreOffice has removed it from the Linux app, but OpenOffice still has it, and it works GREAT. See More

Top Pro

Multilingual

OpenOffice is available in 170+ languages. See More

See All

What are the best office suites for macOS?

5 Options Considered

LibreOffice

My Recommendation for LibreOffice

My Recommendation for LibreOffice

Free, open source and cross-platform

Not fully compatible with MSOffice

Has a portable version

Restricted license

Multilingual

Won't work with themes

Free and open source

Documentation is out of date

Cross-platform

LibreOffice Base requires Java

Presentations can have 3D models embeded within them

Does not run as stable as OnlyOffice

LibreOffice can take from OpenOffice, but not the other way around

Track Changes needs to be improved

Encryption support

Comprehensive suite of applications

Font embedding support

Widely used

Apple iWork

My Recommendation for Apple iWork

My Recommendation for Apple iWork

iCloud Access

Not 100% compatible with Excel spreadsheets

Easy to use applications

Effectively limited to Apple devices

Calligra

My Recommendation for Calligra

My Recommendation for Calligra

Subpar compatibility

Unified design language

Slow development

Calligra offers cutting edge applications for artists to work on 2D drawings and illustrations

Huge list of efficient and capable office components

Microsoft Office

My Recommendation for Microsoft Office

My Recommendation for Microsoft Office

Next step down the path of constant surveillance

Incredible apps and completely free to use

Loaded with bugs

Apache OpenOffice

My Recommendation for Apache OpenOffice

My Recommendation for Apache OpenOffice

Free and open source

Documentation is lacking

Comprehensive suite of applications

Poor compatibility with Microsoft Office compared with LibreOffice

Free, open source and cross-platform

Full compatibility with Microsoft

No CopyLeft

Functionalities can be added through extensions.

It has QuickStart

Multilingual

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