When comparing Evolution vs ONLYOFFICE, the Slant community recommends ONLYOFFICE for most people. In the question“What are the best Microsoft Office alternatives?” ONLYOFFICE is ranked 7th while Evolution is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose ONLYOFFICE is:
ONLYOFFICE offers desktop applications for Linux, Windows, and MacOS that can be connected to the web-based solution for document sharing and collaboration.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Supports exchange servers
Evolution is one of the few Linux desktop e-mail clients that's supports exchange servers.
Pro Great integration with Gnome environment
Pro Manages contacts, tasks, calendar and memos as well
Pro Excellent GPG support
The integration with GPG is excellent. You can sign, encrypt, decrypt, authenticate and verify GPG signatures and GPG signed/encrypted email messages. All of that is just a setting away.
Pro Good support for Google's services
Pro Clean interface with 2 layout variants
Going to View > Preview has the option of switching between "Classical View" and "Vertical View".
Pro HTML rendering is great
Of the many email clients available on GNU/Linux, Evolution has the best HTML renderer. It renders HTML and the entire email content exactly like it would appear on a full blown web browser. Not many email clients are capable of doing that.
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 Can't choose different settings for each mail account
Settings have to applied to all mail accounts.
Con Limited configuration options
Cannot format date as preferred.
Con RAM heavy
Very heavy on RAM usage.
Con Poor integration in any non-GNOME desktop
It is written with GNOME in mind.
Con No configuration messages
Although base functions like bullets, numbered, or pre-formatted text are possible, you can't select or set the font for your messages. Not even serif or sans serif. Which is a bit spartan TBH.
Con Can be wobbly with EWS
Don't be surprised if you have to reboot it a couple of times during a working day, because error messages are piling up (e.g. connection lost, can't sync, can't store appointment, read only). Then again, is this Evolution, or what it connects to? And since such an occasional reboot is dwarfed by the fact that MS365 seems to make full IMAP/ SMTP access (close to) impossible (nice meeting invite, THX, but when is it?), just reboot and get some work done...
Con Only available on Linux
If you have to switch to another platform for whatever reason, you will need to search for a different email client.
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.