Self-hosted alternatives to Microsoft 365
A perpetual licence is no longer really offered — you rent your word processor now.
Below are 7 open-source projects that cover the same ground, each scored 0–100 on how actively it is actually maintained — commit volume, release cadence and recent trend. 3 of the 7 are currently rated healthy or better. Ordering reflects that score, not sponsorship.
| Project | Health | Activity (11 mo) | Stars | Licence | Last release |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nextcloud Access and share your files, calendars, contacts, mail and more from any device, on your terms. | Thriving · 98 | 37k | AGPL-3.0 | 24 Sept 2026 | |
| Etherpad Highly customizable online editor providing collaborative editing in real-time. | Healthy · 81 | 19k | Apache-2.0 | 21 Sept 2026 | |
| Grist Next-generation spreadsheet with relational structure, formula-based access control, and a portable, self-cont | Healthy · 81 | 12k | Apache-2.0 | 6 Sept 2026 | |
| CryptPad Collaboration suite built to enable collaboration, synchronizing changes to documents in real time. | Steady · 64 | 8k | AGPL-3.0 | 26 May 2026 | |
| ONLYOFFICE Office suite that enables you to manage documents, projects, team and customer relations in one place. | Slowing · 44 | 7k | AGPL-3.0 | 19 May 2026 | |
| Collabora Online Development Edition Collabora Online Development Edition (CODE) is a powerful LibreOffice-based online office that supports all ma | Unrated | — | MPL-2.0 | — | |
| Digislides Create multimedia presentations in a quick and easy way. (documentation in French). | Unrated | — | AGPL-3.0 | — |
How these were picked
Every project listed here is open source and can run entirely on hardware you control. We start from the categories that match Microsoft 365's job — Office Suites — then rank by health score so that a popular-but-abandoned project never appears above a smaller one that is actively shipping. The scoring method is documented in full.
The scores are recomputed from repository data on every rebuild, so this page reflects the state of these projects as of 1 Oct 2026 — not the day it was written.
Nextcloud
Access and share your files, calendars, contacts, mail and more from any device, on your terms.
Best fit: It suits individuals and organisations who want to keep their files and productivity data on their own hardware rather than relying on commercial cloud storage.
Worth knowing: Running a large PHP-based groupware suite requires careful resource tuning and regular updates to maintain security and acceptable performance.
Etherpad
Highly customizable online editor providing collaborative editing in real-time.
Best fit: Teams or organisations that require synchronous, multi-user text editing hosted entirely on their own infrastructure.
Worth knowing: Self-hosting involves managing real-time synchronisation state, which can increase operational overhead compared to static document storage.
Grist
Next-generation spreadsheet with relational structure, formula-based access control, and a portable, self-contained format (alternative to Airtable).
Best fit: Teams and individuals who need the flexibility of a spreadsheet combined with the referential integrity of a relational database, particularly when self-hosting is a strict requirement.
Worth knowing: It represents a heavy software stack involving both Node.js and Python, which increases the surface area for maintenance compared to flat files or single-binary tools. It also directly competes with established proprietary SaaS platforms, meaning user migration and team adoption may require deliberate effort.
CryptPad
Collaboration suite built to enable collaboration, synchronizing changes to documents in real time.
Best fit: Teams requiring collaborative office tools who need to self-host their infrastructure under an open source licence.
Worth knowing: You will need to evaluate how well its feature set and document formats meet your specific workflow requirements compared to more established office suites.
ONLYOFFICE
Office suite that enables you to manage documents, projects, team and customer relations in one place.
Best fit: Teams looking to self-host an integrated workspace for document editing and basic collaboration behind their own firewall.
Worth knowing: The AGPL-3.0 licence places copyleft constraints on network services, which may affect how you integrate it into your internal infrastructure. Furthermore, running a comprehensive office suite with multiple backend services can introduce significant resource overhead.