When comparing Microsoft Office vs ONLYOFFICE, the Slant community recommends Microsoft Office for most people. In the question“What are the best office suites for Windows?” Microsoft Office is ranked 2nd while ONLYOFFICE is ranked 8th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Incredible apps and completely free to use
Pro Available for Windows, Linux, MacOS, iOS, and Android
ONLYOFFICE offers desktop applications for Linux, Windows, and MacOS that can be connected to the web-based solution for document sharing and collaboration.
Pro High MS Office compatibility
Highly compatible with .docx, .xlsx, .pptx as well as with .odf.
Pro Collaboration capabilities
Pro Can be used as a web app
ONLYOFFICE offers a web-based office suite that can be deployed on your own server using various deployment options, including Docker script and virtual machines with the software pre-installed.
Pro Has a portable version
ONLYOFFICE portable works on almost every Linux distribution.
Pro Advanced work with math equations
Pro Integration with Nextcloud
Easy integration with Nextcloud for collaborative work.
Pro Free and open source
ONLYOFFICE is distributed under AGPL v.3 license with the source code available on GitHub.
Pro Support for add-ons (plugins)
Cons
Con Over priced and being slowly forced to 365
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.
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.
Con Web app
It is a text editor that is running in a browser window, how can you trust this? Not to mention that it needs a lot more system resources than native apps.