Microsoft Office alternative Euro-Office launches for the public on June 9th

Euro-Office, marketed as a European alternative to Microsoft Office and Google Docs, will be released to the public on June 9th, promising independence from American technologies.

The project is the result of a collaboration between European companies and organizations, including IONOS, Nextcloud, Eurostack, XWiki, OpenProject, Soverin, Abilian, BTactic, OpenXchange, and Office.eu.

Euro-Office will be released as a web editor integrated within products from participating companies from the outset, rather than as a stand-alone productivity suite.

According to its GitHub profile, it will allow real-time viewing and editing of spreadsheets, presentations, and documents in various formats, including DOCX, PPTX, PDF, and TXT.

IONOS Managed Nextcloud customers will be able to install Euro-Office after launch, while the French knowledge management system XWiki is expected to integrate the solution at the end of 2026.

Frank Karlitschek, CEO of Nextcloud, says providing a version users could actually work with is the priority after the code was cleaned up and security updates were implemented.

“The next step is to work on the desktop and mobile apps and integration features. For a truly sovereign solution, it is also important to fully support open standards such as ODF formats, and this will be on top of the agenda for the next release,” Karlitschek says.

Tuta, an email and calendar app, announced on June 2nd that it was joining the Euro-Office initiative, stating the company sees the potential for the project to become “a truly sovereign alternative” to Microsoft Office with “great usability and data protection.”

Questions over Russia ties

The industry initiative launched on March 27th attracted significant interest but also became a subject of controversy because Euro-Office is based on the code of OnlyOffice, an open-source productivity suite.

OnlyOffice issued a statement on March 30th accusing Euro-Office of violating the software’s licensing terms and principles of international property law.

The company said that the software is distributed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3 (AGPL v3), which requires preserving OnlyOffice branding in derivative works and providing proper attribution to the original technology, among other requirements.

Euro-Office creators said open collaboration with OnlyOffice wasn’t possible for several reasons, including the company’s controversial decisions, such as closing off features in its mobile apps, a lack of transparency, and ties with Russia.

OnlyOffice, which is currently owned by Latvia-registered company Ascensio System SIA, says its Russian business segment was sold to investors in Russia in 2019, where its forked version is available under the name R7-Office.

According to the company’s website, OnlyOffice and R7-Office have operated as fully independent products since 2023 with no shared codebase, ownership, or ongoing cooperation.

Russia-ties allegations have prompted some organizations to move away from OpenOffice. For example, in 2023, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz announced it would switch from the office suite, citing sanctions against Russia.

Europeans are saying goodbye to Microsoft

Euro-Office publicly launches as European countries are seeking alternatives to American technologies amid deteriorating relations with the Donald Trump administration.

National and local governments in France, Germany, and Austria have already moved or pledged to move away from Microsoft software.

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The transition is fueled by concerns over data privacy. US laws, such as the Cloud Act, compel American companies to hand over data stored upon request of US law enforcement, regardless of where it is stored.

Microsoft has recently been accused of leaking the data of Dutch civil servants who work on implementing the EU digital regulations, which are widely criticized by the American government, to the US House of Representatives.

However, it is yet to be seen if Euro-Office and other open-source software increasingly adopted across Europe can become a viable alternative to Microsoft.

A recent study found that the German open-source project OpenDesk cannot yet fully replace Microsoft 365 and its many integrated functionalities in the City of Zurich administration.

While OpenDesk meets most requirements for chat and essential requirements for a file manager, as well as all core email and calendar functions, the study found some flaws.

For example, OpenDesk relies on apps from individual components, which can be inconvenient for the administration that uses mobile applications heavily.

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