Collabora Online Blog
collaboraonline.com · Company blog · on HN since 2024
The Collabora Online Blog is by Collabora, which builds LibreOffice-based online and desktop office software.
What HN saysHN links it when discussing LibreOffice-based web office options, with some praising the work and one complaining about a gated document.
32HN people shared it
23linked it in comments
10stories submitted
96story points
3 months agolast shared
2024people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Homepage8 people · first shared 2025
- 2The Document Foundation ejects its core developers4 people · 6 points · first shared 2026 · 2 comments on HN
- 3Collabora Online Desktop Released with Improved UI from LibreOffice3 people · 72 points · first shared 2025 · 8 comments on HN
- 4Bringing Collabora Online to the Desktop3 people · 12 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
- 5The New Collabora Office for Desktop2 people · 1 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 6Cool 25.04 – Bringing the Latest in Collaborative Office Productivity1 people · 2 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 7Collabora and Allotropia Merge1 people · 1 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 8Finding a Secure Document Editor for Your Organisation1 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 9Collabora Online 26.04: Your Documents, Your AI, Your Decade of Data Sovereignty1 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 10Collabora office latest snapshots1 people · first shared 2025
- 11Calc1 people · first shared 2025
- 12LO 26.2 Contributors 011 1024x675.png1 people · first shared 2026
- 13Collabora online1 people · first shared 2025
- 14Torf index1 people · first shared 2026
- 15Opendesk1 people · first shared 2026
What HN people wrote when they linked it
nhatcher · 2025-12-07
No, I don't think LibreOffice is the answer. And I am with you here, I would love to be wrong. One issue is that it doesn't really work well online. The folks from Collabora[1] have done an amazing job at wrapping LibreOffice for the web and maybe that is a way to go?
As a sibling comment says you don't need to implement absolutely everything Excel does to _disrupt_ Excel. But you do need to provide a fantastic tool that is easy to use and solves 99% of the problems. If governments start putting their money were their mouth is I am very convinced we can create tools that supersede Excel, Word,...
[1]: https://www.collaboraonline.com/
k310 · 2025-11-06
May I recommend Libre Office? [0] For casual/home use, it should meet needs. Free, no subscription. Spreadsheet can collaborate. [1]
Collabra Office seems to be the port of LibreOffice to ios. (free) Look it up on the app store.
> Collabora Office is a text editor, spreadsheet and presentation program based on LibreOffice, the world's most popular Open Source office suite - and now it's on iOS, enhancing your possibilities to work on mobile devices.
Collaborative versions, a.k.a. Collabra online are available, but hosting is never free.
But TBH, I am your "more casual than casual" office suite user and the bundled Apple apps do my minimal office tasks, and are compatible with MS formats.
[0] https://www.libreoffice.org/
[1] https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/shared/guide/collab.htm…
[2] https://www.collaboraonline.com/
Joel_Mckay · 2026-05-31
Haven't spent much time with cloud offerings, and so ymmv with these options. =3
https://en.libre-office.fr/article.php/free-online-libreoffice-easily-…
https://www.collaboraonline.com/
https://www.offidocs.com/
Drag and drop will depend on browser specific security policy. =3
teekert · 2026-02-25
I do like this news, but I wonder why they choose LibreOffice. It's the most widely known MS alternative, but things like OnlyOffice [0] and Nextcloud Office [1] (which is based on Collabora Online [2], which in turn is based on LibreOffice) offer much more compelling collaborative features, imho. Just plain office (like it's 1997) is quite a step back, no?
Especially OnlyOffice looks extremely similar to MS Office, I have it on all our Linux laptops at home so the kids don't feel much difference between home and school envs. I think document interoperability (as in: Looks similar) is also better.
[0] https://www.onlyoffice.com/
[1] https://nextcloud.com/office/
[2] https://www.collaboraonline.com/
HexDecOctBin · 2026-02-05
Why is 'Differences between Collabora Office and Collabora Office Classic' document gated behind a email-wall? Nothing but enshittification.
https://www.collaboraonline.com/case-studies/differences-between-colla…
c0balt · 2025-11-09
It's file sharing with organizational features (shared directories, autz) and some value adds. They have integrated collabora online[0] for web office tasks and provide search on some indexable files (full-text + metadata).
[0]: https://www.collaboraonline.com/
pabs3 · 2025-04-24
LibreOffice/Collabora online could work for #3.
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/ https://www.collaboraonline.com/
donohoe · 2025-03-20
Thank you. The overall site design and UX makes me pessimistic. Its not just depresses me to use it. I really wanted to be enthusiastic and pleasantly surprised by it.
https://www.collaboraonline.com/
belter · 2025-03-20
Except for emailing Linux kernel patches...:-) Do people for example do that with Code in 2025? Or do they use Version Management and Shared Portals with document locking?
Are most companies having three or four employees working in the SAME document at the SAME time? Maybe while singing Kumbaya over Teams? That would not be very efficient...
Or just use: https://www.collaboraonline.com/
homebrewer · 2024-11-10
I recommend you un-discover it and take a look at the Collabora office suite. It's basically the LibreOffice engine with a web ui on top. We've been using both OnlyOffice and CODE for years, and CODE has much better performance (both the client and the server; probably because the backend is in C++ instead of Node), it's more stable over the long term, and has better compatibility with msoffice.
https://www.collaboraonline.com/code
https://hub.docker.com/r/collabora/code
(it's FOSS, the language about "home use" is there to scare large companies into buying commercial versions with support contracts.)
maxloh · 2026-04-29
I don't think that will work. How many of us did contribute a simple patch to LibreOffice, Firefox, or GNOME?
At least this statement doesn't hold for LibreOffice. Their Online version, including "simple" HTML/CSS components, was archived because of a lack of maintainers. For their main project, the vast majority of contributions in the last release were made by former ecosystem partners (Collabora) or TDF staff. Volunteers only did a fraction of the work [1].
[1]: https://www.collaboraonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/LO-26.2-Con…
SEJeff · 2026-04-06
Michael Meek’s referenced blog post. The irony is I remember him championing openness for OpenOffice and I remember how transparent he was when he helped found libreoffice and TDF. What a shame we have devolved to this situation.
https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/tdf-ejects-its-core-developers/
everybodyknows · 2026-04-05
Meeks' blog post, for comparison:
https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/tdf-ejects-its-core-developers/
Note the references to legal issues; draw your own conclusions.
sgbeal · 2026-04-03
Please help me understand where the missing comma is supposed to be in:
> their Membership Committee has decided to eject from membership all Collabora staff and partners over thirty people who ...
Is it:
1) "eject from membership all Collabora staff and partners, over thirty people ..."
2) "eject from membership all Collabora staff and partners over thirty, people who ..."
:-?
Edit: that's from the article this post leads to: <https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/tdf-ejects-its-core-developers/&g…
(Downvoted for asking for legitimate clarification? Seriously? Age discrimination _is_ a real thing, so there's no way of knowing, for lack of a comma, which interpretation was intended.)
trelane · 2026-04-01
The Open Road to Freedom comic at Collabora is making more and more sense.
https://www.collaboraonline.com/torf-index/
Aissen · 2026-02-05
If anyone from Collabora Office is looking, there is a weird paragraph with syntax-colored HTML in https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/collabora-online-now-available-on… "*A Note on Early Releases"
gowld · 2026-02-05
Even funnier when you try that from the "freedom" whitepage download https://www.collaboraonline.com/case-studies/opendesk/
If you don't give an email address, it doesn't even prompt you to ttry again. It just bugs out and redirects to a home page with a broken URL attempting to inject HTML from client side.
That's strange because the only reason for a user to use OpenOffice/Collabra is because they don't want to deal with an annoying company that makes a far superior product. If the inferior product is also run by an annoying company, why bother?
buccal · 2025-12-09
Speaking of online use please see: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/ https://www.collaboraonline.com/collabora-online/ https://www.onlyoffice.com/docs
zerofor_conduct · 2025-12-09
here is a (somewhat biased) comparison between OnlyOffice and Collabora Online
https://www.collaboraonline.com/comparing-collabora-with-onlyoffice/
hex-m · 2025-12-09
If you want LibreOffice with less Java, you should try Collabora Office. https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/collabora-online-now-available-on… (I'm not affiliated)
erk__ · 2025-11-06
The Excel replacement they use is this one: https://www.collaboraonline.com/calc/
stephen_g · 2025-02-14
Specifically Collabora Office - https://www.collaboraonline.com/collabora-office/ - since one of the points was off-line (those subscriptions are for the browser-based version)
phonon · 2025-02-14
Hmmm...the linked Linux version is an unsupported snapshot...to get the supported version you need to contact them.
[1] https://www.collaboraonline.com/collabora-office-latest-snapshots/