Open-source Microsoft challenger Euro-Office launches a desktop app
Questions over its sovereignty remain.
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- Euro-Office is launching a desktop app through Nextcloud Hub 26, with downloads expected in the coming weeks.
- Nextcloud says the app runs faster and helps users find files with better filters and thumbnails.
- The project aims to offer Europeans a local open-source alternative to Microsoft Office.
- Researchers have flagged security concerns about Russian-linked code and an Android bundle from an unknown cloud source.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
An open-source European productivity suite is coming to desktops and is noticeably faster than before, its creators say.
Euro-Office, launched in June 2026, has only been available in a browser as a web editor integrated into products from participating European companies, including IONOS, Nextcloud, and Eurostack.
The productivity suite now launches as a desktop app as part of the Nextcloud Hub 26 Summer release. It will be available for download in the next few weeks.
Nextcloud says the desktop version’s introduction “closes one of the last gaps between Euro-Office and Microsoft Office,” without handing control of their data to a non-European vendor.
The updated version of the productivity suite is also “noticeably faster,” according to the company, and offers improved filtering and document thumbnails, making it quicker to find and open the right file.
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“With the Euro-Office desktop app, we’re giving people and organizations a real, sovereign alternative to Microsoft Office, not just in the browser, but exactly where many of them still work every day: on their own computer,” Frank Karlitschek, CEO and Founder of Nextcloud, said in a press release.
Is the Euro-Office truly sovereign?
The Euro-Office desktop version is being released as an increasing number of European national and federal governments replace Microsoft software with local, open-source alternatives.
The shift is part of a broader European push towards digital sovereignty, driven by data privacy concerns and the fears of losing access to critical technology amid rising tensions with the Donald Trump administration.
While Euro-Office champions European independence, it has been under scrutiny over its ties.
The software is based on the code of OnlyOffice, an open-source productivity suite owned by the Latvia-registered company, Ascensio System SIA, whose roots trace back to Russia.
OnlyOffice accused Euro-Office of violating the software’s licensing terms and the principles of international property law. Meanwhile, the creators of Euro-Office said Russia ties were one of the reasons why “the open collaboration” wasn’t possible.
While the European consortium behind the project never tried to hide forking OnlyOffice code, a Cybernews analysis from June suggests Euro-Office’s problems may go deeper than having Russian roots.
Researchers found that the vast majority of the code that Euro-Office runs on – and continues to import – appears to have been written by developers working with Russian time-zone settings.
One of the biggest issues is that the code pulls an Android bundle from an unknown cloud resource, which raises security concerns about what is in it, who owns it, and if it can be changed at any time.Cybernews research team
The growing interest in Microsoft alternatives isn’t limited to European governments; citizens are also actively seeking ways to replace American technologies.
The latest version of LibreOffice, a free, open-source productivity suite developed by the Open Document Foundation, a European tech sovereignty pioneer, was downloaded over a million times in its first week.