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OnlyOffice ticks a lot of boxes, and is built for collaboration and teamwork. If youre looking for a powerful Microsoft Office alternative for your business, this may be it. Read through our OnlyOffice review to see why we were so impressed with this cloud and server-based office suite.

We tested macOS and web versions, and had a streamlined experience on both. A main landing page presents you with your folders and documents, collaborative folders and tools, and cloud accounts, all with a sleek design.

Like many suites, OnlyOffice will look very familiar to those who have experience with Microsoft Office. You can easily edit text and add elements with the ribbon at the top, while a sidebar supports more advanced features like editing embedded chart data and customizing tables.

The interface is well-organized, and the HTML5 web app is impressively responsive: it really felt like using an on-disk program. The only notable limit we found regarded trackpad zooming: it doesnt work in Safari and is overly sensitive and slow to respond in Chrome.

Some plans (see below) enable business to customize the appearance, interface and function of the software at a deep level.

Before diving in, wed like to note that OnlyOffice supports the addition of premade and homemade plugins, which means that if a feature doesnt exist, you can create it yourself. Its compatible with all Office and OpenDocument filetypes.

Documents

OnlyOffice supports some of the richest text formatting weve seen, in addition to style creation and customization. Page layout options are comprehensive, with margins, custom page sizes, and even personalized watermarks. Columns are supported, but must all be the same size.

Lists creation is exemplary: hyphens and asterisks result in new lists; a huge range of icons is available; indents cycle through list styles; multilevel lists are supported and customizable; and formatting changes carry through list levels.

A references tab supports automatic Table of Contents creation and customizable footnotes. While OnlyOffice lacks any kind of citation manager, an EasyBib plugin exists, so subscribers can enjoy full integration. Find & Replace supports Replace All, but not finding styles.

Spreadsheets

Our opinion of the Spreadsheets app was mixed. On the one hand, its certainly powerful: there are lots of built-in formulas, plus support for filtering, Text to Columns and pivot tables. Cell formatting is rich, with customizable number, date, and currency formats. Finally, charts and graphs are easy to create from data and customize.

On the other hand, we found formula input limited. Suggestions appear as you type, but descriptions are available only on hover, and they disappear once the formula is selected. Similarly, argument hints could be clearer or provide examples. Next, error parsing fails to indicate specific problem elements, making it hard to tell whats gone wrong. Finally, #NAME and #VALUE errors give no information when selected, and error tracing is unsupported.

Presentations are straightforward and easy to use. Adding slides and elements and choosing highly customizable transitions worked intuitively, as did presenter mode. We did notice that its impossible to record the timing of a rehearsed slideshow, a feature which MS Office supports.

OnlyOffice is first and foremost a web app, and works incredibly well as such. We did find, however, that the iOS app is a bit cumbersome. This was surprising, given the polished look and smooth interface of the desktop and web app versions. None of the features are easily accessible, as they are with the ribbon, but rather hidden behind icons and menus that dont make their function immediately obvious. There is also no hand-writing support.

That being said, most of the functions are present, if a little difficult to find. For example, we were happy to see that embedded graphs worked just fine in word documents, even if editing data takes you to another screen.

Collaboration features are deeply integrated and one of the core functions of OnlyOffice, which is marketed primarily towards businesses looking for a streamlined company-wide solution. Files can be edited by multiple collaborators in real time or by syncing changes, and you can easily invite users or groups from within your network. The web and desktop app support version history, though this feature is regrettably absent from the iOS app.

Finally, cloud sharing is available with services like Google Drive and DropBox.

OnlyOffice offers four productsCloud Service, Enterprise, Integration, and Developerand the pricing scheme is complex.

Cloud Service provides cloud storage and access to the OnlyOffice suite for $5/user/month ($3 billed annually/$2 triennially). Storage starts at 20GB for 12 users and increases up to 500GB for 50 users. For teams of over 50, you must contact OnlyOffice for custom pricing.

Meanwhile, Enterprise gives you access to the office suite, plus other collaborative tools like email and calendars, on a private server. You also get enhanced security options and help with installation. There are three tiers, with the lowest priced starting at $1200/year for up to 50 simultaneous connections.

Integration is built to work with cloud services your company already uses, like Jira or Moodle. The Home Server edition costs a one-time payment of $99 for up to 10 users, while the Single Server edition costs $1100 for 50 users, and can be scaled according to need.

Finally, Developer enables you to build OnlyOffice into your own software or SaaS from the ground up, customizing it at the most basic level to fit your needs and your companys brand. For $1500 per server, you get 20 connections, with the price increasing depending on the number of connections.

If youre looking for the best office suite for your business, OnlyOffice ticks almost all the boxes. It already includes most office features and is highly customizable with powerful plug-in support. Thus, while we lamented certain missing functions, like intuitive error parsing or advanced find & replace, its theoretically possible to add these. Finally, at $40/month for 10 users with 100GB cloud storage, its reasonably priced. All in all, this is a great solution for business of all sizes.

OnlyOffice is highly customizable and great for businesses, but does require some setting up. If youre looking for a quicker, plug-and-play solution, iWork and OfficeSuite are both good options.

If your business is Mac-based, iWork is the way to go. Its free and supports collaboration and handwriting out-of-the-box. For smaller teams, OfficeSuites $49.99 Group plan supports up to five users, with highly functional spreadsheets for data analysis.

To see how OnlyOffice fares against the competition, check out our guide to the Best Microsoft Office alternatives.

Read more:
OnlyOffice review: create and collaborate with this feature-rich office solution review - TechRadar