Why I Stopped Paying for Microsoft Office

In 2019 my Office 365 subscription renewed automatically and I noticed the charge for the first time in years. Ninety-nine euros. For software I used maybe twice a month. To write documents I could have written in Notepad.

I cancelled that afternoon. I figured I'd struggle for a week and then crawl back. That was six years ago. I never crawled back.

This is the article I wish someone had written for me at the time. Not a generic "free alternatives" listicle, but a real walkthrough of what works, what doesn't, and what trade-offs you'll actually make. I've used every tool in this guide for years. I have opinions. I'll share them.

If you're tired of paying Microsoft, this article will save you money. If you're a business that genuinely needs Office, I'll be honest about that too.

Quick Answer for the People Skimming

• For most personal use: install LibreOffice and be done with it

• For collaboration with others online: Google Docs (free with a Gmail account)

• For a Word-look-alike that opens .docx files perfectly: OnlyOffice

• For very occasional document opening on a clean install: the free web version of Microsoft Office itself (yes, really)

• For when you absolutely need Word for work: keep paying, you have my sympathy

The rest of this article explains why, and what surprised me when I made the switch.

What I Actually Use Microsoft Office For (And You Probably Too)

Before we look at alternatives, let's be honest about what most people use Office for:

• Writing documents that are mostly paragraphs of text

• Making spreadsheets with formulas, charts, sometimes pivot tables

• Building slide decks once or twice a year

• Opening files other people send me

That's the entire list for 90% of users. We're not building macros that scrape SAP databases. We're not running financial models with VBA. We're writing a letter, tracking some expenses, and putting together a deck for a friend's wedding.

If your needs look like that list, you don't need Office. You haven't needed Office for a decade. You just thought you did because Microsoft has been the default since 1995.

LibreOffice: The Workhorse That Replaced Office for Me

LibreOffice is what 95% of my Office-style work happens in now. It's a full office suite: Writer (Word), Calc (Excel), Impress (PowerPoint), plus Draw, Base, and Math for the people who need those.

I'm going to be honest about the trade-offs because too many articles aren't.

What's genuinely great:

It's free forever. No subscription, no account, no telemetry phoning home. The installation is one file you download from libreoffice.org. Install it, use it, forget it exists.

It opens every Microsoft format I've thrown at it. Old .doc files from 2003, modern .docx, .xlsx with complex formulas, .pptx with animations. Saves to those formats too. I've sent hundreds of LibreOffice-edited files to clients and colleagues over the years. Not one has ever asked me what software I used.

It's stable. The version I install today will work the same way in 2031. Microsoft "updates" Office every few months and moves your buttons. LibreOffice respects that you actually want to get work done.

Calc (the Excel equivalent) is more powerful than people give it credit for. I've built genuinely complex spreadsheets in it with multiple sheets, named ranges, pivot tables, and all the lookup functions you'd expect.

What's honestly worse than Office:

The interface looks like 2010. There's a "ribbon" view you can turn on that looks more modern, but the default toolbar layout is dated. You'll get used to it. Your kids will not believe you used software this ugly. But it works.

Some advanced Excel features don't have direct equivalents. Power Query and Power Pivot don't exist in Calc. If you use these for work, LibreOffice is not your tool.

Compatibility with very complex Word documents (heavy track changes, custom styles, complex tables) is good but not perfect. About 1% of files I open need minor adjustments. For most people this never comes up.

The fonts. Microsoft's Calibri and Cambria are proprietary. LibreOffice substitutes its own fonts (Carlito, Caladea) that are metrically compatible, meaning the spacing matches even if the letterforms differ slightly. For 99% of cases nobody notices. For pixel-perfect compatibility with a client document, you might.

Who should install LibreOffice: anyone who writes documents, builds spreadsheets, or makes presentations, and isn't required by their job to use Microsoft formats exactly. That's most people.

OnlyOffice: When LibreOffice's Interface Bothers You

OnlyOffice exists for a specific user: someone who wants LibreOffice's price and ethics but Microsoft Office's look.

The interface is a near-clone of modern Office. Tabs, ribbons, the same panel layouts. If you've used Office in the last five years, OnlyOffice will feel familiar within minutes.

What I like about it:

The Microsoft format compatibility is the best of any free office suite. If you regularly exchange files with Office users, OnlyOffice gives you the smallest chance of weird formatting issues.

The free desktop version is genuinely free. No nag screens, no time limits, no "free trial" rug-pull.

It's lighter than LibreOffice. Faster startup, less RAM. On older computers this matters.

Where it falls short:

The feature set is slightly thinner than LibreOffice. For simple documents, you won't notice. For power users, LibreOffice still has more depth.

The free cloud version (where you can collaborate in real time, document sharing, etc.) is limited. The free tier is mostly designed to push you toward paid plans. The desktop version stays free.

Pick OnlyOffice if LibreOffice's interface makes you wince, or if your work involves a lot of Office file exchange and you want maximum compatibility.

Google Docs: The Real Microsoft Killer Nobody Calls Out

Here's the inconvenient truth: Google Docs is probably what's actually replaced Microsoft Office in most people's lives, not LibreOffice. It just doesn't get credit because it's not "free software" in the traditional sense.

If you have a Gmail account, you have free access to:

• Docs (Word equivalent, in your browser)

• Sheets (Excel equivalent, in your browser)

• Slides (PowerPoint equivalent, in your browser)

It works. It's actually good. Real-time collaboration is genuinely seamless in a way Microsoft has been trying and failing to copy for years. Your files sync everywhere. No installation needed.

Why I don't recommend it as the only solution:

Google reads everything. Your documents live on their servers and contribute to your ad profile. For personal letters, sensitive financial documents, or anything you'd consider private, this matters.

You need internet to use it. Offline mode exists but is fragile.

If Google decides to delete your account (which they do, sometimes incorrectly, with no human appeal process), you lose everything.

The privacy and dependency concerns are real. But for everyday document work that isn't sensitive, Google Docs is fine and might already be what you're using.

Pick Google Docs if you collaborate a lot, you don't mind Google's data practices, and you're online most of the time.

The Free Microsoft Office Trick Nobody Mentions

This is the part that genuinely surprised me when I learned it.

Microsoft offers Office for free in your browser. Go to office.com, sign in with a free Microsoft account, and you get Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in the browser. Same UI as the paid version, slightly fewer features, but more than enough for most documents.

It has limitations. You need internet. Some features (advanced macros, complex add-ins) are missing. There's a 5GB OneDrive cap on the free tier.

But for "I just need to open this .docx file someone sent me and edit one paragraph", the free Office.com is right there. It costs nothing. It's official Microsoft software.

Why doesn't Microsoft advertise this? Because they want you on the paid tier. They've made it deliberately hard to find. But it exists, and for occasional Office users it's a legitimate free option.

What About Apple iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)?

If you're on a Mac or iPhone, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are free, pre-installed, and actually excellent. Pages handles 90% of document needs. Keynote is genuinely better than PowerPoint for design-focused presentations.

They open .docx and .xlsx files reasonably well. They export to those formats too.

The catch: they're Apple-only. If you exchange files with Windows users, you'll constantly convert formats. And on Windows you can't use them at all.

Use iWork if you're in the Apple ecosystem and mostly send finished PDFs, not editable files.

Quick Comparison: The Honest Version

What Microsoft Office Actually Does Better

I'm not going to pretend Office has no advantages. It does, and being honest about them makes the rest of this article more credible.

Real Office wins:

• Excel at the high end. Power Query, Power Pivot, complex VBA macros, models that touch SAP or other enterprise systems. If your job is in finance or data analysis at scale, real Excel is hard to replace.

• Outlook for corporate email environments. The integration with Exchange and Teams is deeply baked. If your company runs on Microsoft 365 infrastructure, fighting it isn't worth it.

• PowerPoint for complex animated presentations with weird transitions and embedded video. Impress and Keynote handle simple decks better, but PowerPoint has more depth at the high end.

• Compatibility certainty. If a client says "send me a .docx" and they're going to open it in Word, sending them a file made in Word eliminates one variable.

These are real advantages. They don't apply to most people. They might apply to you.

The Mental Switch That Made It Work

Here's the thing nobody tells you about leaving Office: the hard part isn't the software. The hard part is letting go of muscle memory.

I'd been using Word since high school. My fingers knew exactly where every button was. The first week with LibreOffice I kept reaching for things in the wrong places and getting annoyed.

By week three I'd built new muscle memory. By month two I was faster in LibreOffice than I'd been in Word, because LibreOffice doesn't reorganize itself every six months.

Most people who try the switch and give up do it in the first week. Push through one annoying weekend and you're done. It's not a software problem. It's a habit problem.

How to Actually Make the Switch

If you've decided to do this, here's the process I'd follow:

Step 1: Install LibreOffice tonight. Don't uninstall Office yet. Just put LibreOffice next to it.

Step 2: For one week, open new documents in LibreOffice by default. Keep using Office if you need it for specific tasks. You're building the habit gradually.

Step 3: Save everything in .docx, .xlsx, .pptx formats. LibreOffice's native .odt format is technically better in some ways, but using Microsoft formats means you can switch back any time and stay compatible with everyone.

Step 4: After two weeks, look at what you actually opened Office for. Probably nothing. Cancel your subscription.

Step 5: Leave Office installed for another month as a safety net. Not paying for it, just having it. Almost certainly you'll never open it again. Then uninstall.

Step 6: Donate to LibreOffice. It's free, but it's maintained by a foundation that runs on donations. €20 once a year is fair compensation for the money you're saving.

Things You Might Need Beyond an Office Suite

The full Office subscription includes some peripheral things people forget about. If you're cancelling, here's what to think about:

OneDrive (cloud storage): the 1TB you got with Office. Free alternatives include the limited free tiers of Proton Drive, Filen, pCloud, or just using Syncthing to sync files between your own devices.

Outlook: if you used Outlook for email, Thunderbird is a free desktop replacement and is genuinely excellent.

Teams: for video calls, Jitsi Meet is free and runs in the browser. For team messaging, you're probably already using Slack or Discord.

OneNote: Joplin is a free open source alternative that does everything OneNote does and more. Obsidian is the modern alternative everyone's switching to.

The Office subscription was always more than just Word. Once you start replacing the pieces individually, you realize most of them have better free alternatives than Office's bundled versions.

The Money You'll Actually Save

Microsoft 365 Personal: €99/year as of 2026. Microsoft 365 Family: €129/year.

Over 10 years, that's €1,000 to €1,300 you're not spending. For software you can replace with free tools that do the job.

That's not nothing. That's a vacation. That's a piece of furniture. That's three years of a quality VPN, a password manager subscription, and a Proton Mail premium plan combined, with money left over.

The math is hard to argue with. The habits are harder to change. The habits are the only real barrier.

My Actual Setup, 2026 Edition

For full transparency, here's what I use today:

• LibreOffice for 80% of document and spreadsheet work

• Google Docs for collaborative documents with other people

• Thunderbird for email

• Obsidian for notes

• Joplin for some legacy note archives

• Proton Drive for the small amount of cloud storage I actually need

Cost per year: zero. Functionality lost compared to my old Office 365 + OneDrive setup: zero. Annoyances introduced: minor and fading.

Six years in, this isn't an experiment anymore. It's just how I work.

Final Honest Thought

Microsoft Office is a fine product. If your job pays for it, use it. If you genuinely need its advanced features, use it.

But if you're paying personal money for Office to write the occasional letter and track personal expenses, you're being charged €99 a year for habit and brand recognition.

The free alternatives in this article aren't compromises. For most uses they're genuinely equivalent. For some uses they're better. The only thing they lack is the Microsoft logo, and the only person who cares about that is Microsoft.

Install LibreOffice tonight. Give it two weeks. You'll wonder what took you so long.