I replaced Microsoft Word with a self-hosted, open-source alternative

Microsoft Word is ubiquitous in the professional world, and its widespread support and capabilities have lead to it becoming one of the most popular word processors today.

However, after I switched my cloud storage to Proton and my laptop to Linux, I needed a replacement for Microsoft Word. This open-source alternative is what I've switched to.

Why replace Microsoft Word?

Word is capable, relatively easy to use (unless you're moving a picture), and pretty much universal. Why invite trouble by getting rid of it?

I was motivated by two main things: cost and privacy.

Microsoft Word isn't cheap

Microsoft Word costs 180ドル if you buy it individually, or 100ドル yearly if you buy Microsoft 365, which also includes Excel, PowerPoint, and the rest of the Office suite. I've been paying for the Microsoft 365 Family plan since 2019, which costs 130ドル per year.

That means that I've already spent 780ドル on something I don't really use all that frequently. I'm looking to completely replace Office and OneDrive with free, self-hosted, or privacy-focused alternatives before my subscription is up in May 2026.

780ドル isn't chump change. That is a 5070 Ti if you can get one at MSRP in the United States. You could buy an upper-mid range CPU and motherboard for that much, or a mini PC for self-hosting. It is a very nice 3D printer.

I've done the math and decided there are other places I'd rather allocate that money.

Microsoft Word forces cloud integration

Microsoft Word, by default, will try to force you to use a cloud save feature any time you save a draft. In fact, autosave can only be enabled if Word is attached to your Microsoft account to save it to OneDrive.

I don't really have any use for that, and I'd prefer a solution that wasn't so pushy about using a cloud service.

What does a replacement word processor for Microsoft Word need?

Unlike a plain text editor, a word processor needs to be able to handle complex formatting, images, tables, charts, and more fonts than I can care to count.

It needs to support indexes, chapters, and everything else you might find in a book.

Cross compatibility with Word's file formats—DOC and DOCX—are a must-have feature. I don't want to have to fight with bugs to open Word documents.

Additionally, I started by looking for something that had a similar user interface to Microsoft Word. It isn't strictly necessary, but when you're looking for a drop-in replacement, who really wants to take the time to learn a new program from scratch and adjust to a completely different look?

ONLYOffice is my favorite Microsoft Word replacement

I tested more than a dozen Word Processors before finally settling on ONLYOFFICE, a free and open-source alternative.

It meets all of my must-have criteria, and it even closely resembles Microsoft Word as an added bonus. It isn't an exact copy, but it is close enough that anyone familiar with Word will instantly feel right at home in ONLYOFFICE's Document editor.

Critically, not only does it look similar, it acts very similarly. I don't do a ton of sophisticated formatting in Word or ONLYOFFICE, but the tools that I do use are pretty much the same. That has made moving from Word to ONLYOFFICE pretty smooth.

ONLYOFFICE is surprisingly stable

I've now been using ONLYOFFICE on my laptop for a few months (on Linux) and I've been using it on my Windows 11 desktop for a bit over a week. In that time, I haven't experienced any bugs or crashes. Any Word files (DOCXs) that I've received have worked out of the box and haven't had any compatibility issues.

Funny enough, I regularly ran into hangs and crashes with Word for reasons I can't work out. So far, ONLYOFFICE—which is free—has actually been more reliable. I also haven't experienced any issues with ONLYOFFIE Spreadsheet (the Excel alternative), which is where I would have expected the most trouble.

ONLYOFFICE has a self-hosted option

If you don't want to give up the functionality of cloud collaboration, there is a community edition of ONLYOFFICE Document Server that you can download and setup for free.

The ONLYOFFICE DocumentServer supports most major operating systems you might want to use. Fortunately, the installation and setup process is pretty simple, and the developers have provided instructions for each operating system. Select the one you want, download the installer, then click "Read Instructions" and follow the steps. Most of the heavy-lifting is done, since they provide the commands you'll need and instructions on what settings you need to tweak.

Additionally, if you're worried about the security angle, you don't necessarily need to go through the trouble of directly exposing your ONLYOFFICE server to the internet.

Instead, you can set up a WireGuard server on your local network. When you need to access your ONLYOFFICE server, just connect to your VPN, and you'll have access to all the devices on your local area network (LAN). That makes your ONLYOFFICE Server as secure as your VPN.

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As an added bonus, ONLYOFFICE is pretty close to a complete replacement for the entire Microsoft Office Suite, or at least the common programs. When you first launch ONLYOFFICE, you'll be prompted to pick between Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation, and PDF.

In the time I've been using it, I've never been tempted to go back to Google Sheets.