So, you’ve decided to leave the proprietary shackles of Microsoft Office and Google Docs, but where does that leave you? Venturing into the realm of open-source alternatives may seem like a daunting task, but fear not, we’re here to guide you through the possibilities, and separate the marketing, from what’s real. In this article, we’ll embark on a brief comparison of two prominent open source alternatives: Collabora Online and OnlyOffice. We’ll explore their design philosophy and compatibility, helping you make an informed decision on which solution aligns best with your needs. Say goodbye to the constraints of proprietary software as we dive into this head-to-head showdown, determining which option reigns supreme in the realm of online document collaboration.
Open Source?
First things first, are both Collabora Online, and OnlyOffice truly open source, or is there more to this question then meets the eye? Collabora Online for starters, is fully open source. Whilst the majority of the programming is done in house, there is also a community or developers who can, and do, work on the project. OnlyOffice on the other hand is only open core – with open-source standards in much of their code, but also proprietary code in sections. This seemingly small difference may not appear to be significant to some end users, but if the aim of the game is full openness and accountability, this point has to go to Collabora Online.
Interoperability
So what about interoperability? Most people want to know if their new office package is going to function with the ‘industry standards’. But as anyone who has tried to open a document with custom styles or edit columns in Office 365 will tell you, the industry standards are not especially, well, standard. And unfortunately again for OnlyOffice users, and even Microsoft Office and Office 365 users, this is again an unresolvable issue due to the nature of running programmes in-browser, vs on the server.
Taking Microsoft Office as an example, there are many documented interoperability issues between their desktop app, and Office 365. While the browser-based application and the desktop program appear to be the same from the outside, they’re two completely different animals underneath, running completely different programming languages. More mutton dressed as lamb then wolves in sheep’s clothing, but sometimes that Javascript mutton has sharp teeth. All of this goes to say, Microsoft has been entirely unable to produce any truly standardised standards, themselves being unable to maintain interoperability within their own ecosystem, and some serious issues with legacy files.
For many Office 365 or OnlyOffice users this may not be a serious issue, but the chances are, if you’re ever going to run into serious interoperability issues, it’ll be due to the limitations of a browser-based application.
On the other hand, since Collabora Online runs on a server’s operating system natively, unconstrained by the four walls of the browser, there are no interoperability issues with regards to the online and offline versions of the program – they are one and the same. As far as interoperability with Microsoft Office goes, Collabora Online maintains at least as much interoperability as Microsoft internally between their browser-based and offline applications, and in many examples will open and display correctly Microsoft Office files that Office 365 is unable to process. For this reason, open-source file formats are strongly encouraged precisely to avoid this type of vendor lock-in issue, but Collabora Online is very at home in the Microsoft .docx and .xlsx world.
Conclusion
So what’s the conclusion? Firstly, in terms of openness, Collabora Online takes the lead. It is fully open-source, whilst OnlyOffice incorporates both open-source and proprietary code. Finally regarding interoperability, whilst OnlyOffice maintains strong levels of functionality, Collabora Online’s server-based nature allows seamless integration between its online and offline versions, maintaining at least as much compatibility with Microsoft Office applications as they do internally, without any of the limitations inherent in Office 365/OnlyOffice browser-based solutions.
In this quick showdown, we find Collabora Online to be the winner, why not find out more for yourself at www.collaboraoffice.com.
