Open Source Versus Commercialīefore we look at specific features of the competing suites, it may be helpful to take a step back. Neither of the open-source alternatives provides an email or calendaring tool or an analogue for OneNote.įor the purposes of this article, we'll focus on word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tools.

The open-source options also include 'Base,' a database similar to Microsoft Access a tool called 'Draw' that's similar to Microsoft Visio a chart-creation module called 'Charts' and an equation editor called 'Math.' Although some desktop versions of Microsoft Office don't include the desktop-publishing application Publisher, all now offer OneNote, a note-taking and sharing tool. How do these open-source suites differ from Microsoft Office? Should your nonprofit consider one of them? To help you decide, we compared key features of the 2016 version of Microsoft's productivity suite to Apache OpenOffice 4.1 and LibreOffice 5.1.īoth open-source suites offer tools with the same names - Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), and Impress (slide presentations) - to compete with Microsoft's equivalent products - Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. However, open-source options such as Apache OpenOffice and the Document Foundation's LibreOffice have emerged-and many users feel they are as good or better than Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office continues to dominate the productivity software marketplace. How do open-source productivity suites compare to Office 2016-and does it make sense for your organization to choose free, community-based software rather than the commercially licensed offering from Microsoft? We compare three toolsets on philosophy, price, and features to help you decide.

We’re grateful for the financial support our friends there provided for this article. Editor's note: This article originally appeared at, where you can find many other nonprofit technology resources.

Openoffice excel compatibility