OnlyOffice or Collabora?

Hi

Looking for an alternative at Google Drive I installed a docker with Collabora and so far it works great :wink: Is OnlyOffice more powerful and efficient than Collabora or is it similar in functionalities ?

Thanks

VincĂšn

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Onlyoffice is more advanced and looks like Libreoffice in a browser, but needs 4-6 Gig Ram by itself, and has no mobile support.

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OnlyOffice looks more like MS Office 2013 (a bit like the ribbons) in a browser and is also somewhat more compatible to .docx etc. as it uses that format internally and not .odt.
It recently got better mobile support for its webinterface and a mobile app (besides the one existing for iOS) is in the works for Android. It also has a fully functional Desktop-editor that can be linked to the server.
But development is much more closed, it has some freemium features (Collabora less so) and the Libreoffice backend from Collabora is ultimately more feature-full, but that is not fully exposed through the webinterface for now AFAIK.

Overall it is more a matter of taste and if your users prefer a more MS Office like experience. Capabilities are not that different, but I think for now OnlyOffice has a slight edge and is quite a bit more polished.

If you need really good Office Open XML support outside Microsoft Office, then you should go with OnlyOffice. Be aware that it does not support encrypted storages for now.

I installed both containers (CODE/OnlyOffice) on a Docker Host and connected them to my cloud. You can run both plugins in Nextcloud so you can try both without a problem. This is especially useful if one document does not display properly in one of them.

Memory consumption also depends on how many users/documents you want to open up at the same time. If your load is rather small, a Docker host with around 4GB RAM for both of them will suffice. If you have more users/documents open at the same time, you will definitely need more.

Thanks guys for your so fast feedback about this :wink:

So few additional points:

  • ÉlĂ©ment
    I don’t really care about compatibility with MS Office :wink: The most important is compatibility with existing Google Docs documents that have been converted in Libre Office format for export !

  • ÉlĂ©ment
    Memory use is also not a big deal but mobile compatibility is a big plus :wink:

  • ÉlĂ©ment
    What about way files are recorded ? I need real time save as Google Docs and also what about history of modifications ? Does it keep it in same way as Google drive ? be able to see who modified what when you open a file in edition.

  • ÉlĂ©ment
    @alfred thanks for info you can install both engines but how do you select which one to use ? NextCloud asks you each time you try to open a file ?

Thanks for all your answers :wink:

Well, if you install both connector apps into Nextcloud and set them up correctly you get the following:

  • A new app “Office” for Collabora CODE which shows all compatible documents
  • A “open with OnlyOffice” in the “
” menu for each compatible document in the files app

Also, you can create a new document with either if you click on the “+” symbol at the top left of the files app. Beware that you have “Spreadsheet/Document/Presentation” twice (one which opens in CODE and the other opens in OnlyOffice). The only difference at the moment is the slightly different icon which is a bit misleading.

Thats interesting that you can use both at the same time, I thought it screws everything up.
But the main culprit is if person A is editing a specific document in collabora and person B edits the same file with onlyoffice.
This will surely lead to a loss of data.
So I recommend just enabling one, or the other plugin at the same time.

Yeah, I only use it for myself. But it shouldn’t be a problem for non-shared documents that only a single user can access. For shared documents some kind of locking mechanism would be good if multiple users need to edit documents.

Maybe something for a new feature request?

Did you see that PR from Collabora today ? https://www.collaboraoffice.com/releases-en/collabora-online-2-1-released/ D you think it changes the comparison you made between Collabora and OnlyOffice ?

Side note: both are in all matters unusable safely on current NextCloud due to a nasty bug in the apps in NextCloud making revision of files and versioning not working :frowning:

Hi @Krischan

You wrote:

Can you please let me know, how you achieved that? I was pretty disappointed by the Onlyoffice Editor when I wasn’t able to open the files from my Nextcloud server without downloading the file to my desktop first. But then I must have missed something.

I see the option to login to a portal, but that seems to only work with portals that have been created with Onlyoffice servers directly, but not my own server. Any hint is highly appreciated.

No, onlyoffice, doesn’t have the files_version issue, because its only the collabora-plugin for nextcloud.

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I have both installed at the same time. I think Onlyoffice is far more feature rich and the direct support of MS Office documents is a big plus. I also think their interface is much slicker. But it has already been mentioned here that Collabora is more open and the integration with nextcloud is deeper and better maintained. It also features collaboration. I think Onlyoffice supports simultaneous editing of documents but the nextcloud plugin of it does not. Right now there is no real winner IMHO, which one you should choose depends on your individual needs.

Onlyoffice does indeed support collaboration, even with nextcloud.
As I see onlyoffice seems to be finished developing, they mostly maintain it.
Collabora is still in heavy developing, perhaps they will get par with the features.
But you can’t edit odt files with onlyoffice, it’s always converts them to docx.
Mailny if you have not much RAM, you are better off with Collabora.

I have the exact same question – collabora or onlyoffice. My question is: Which one of these apps is available to users who only have access to the cloud with a shared link? As far as I know, these users can not even use the simple text editor, but in my case it would be important, that these users can also edit via shared directories with a shared link


Within Collabora you’r able to do this in a certain way.
First you have to create a folder and copy all your files here.
Then allow upload and editing on that folder and share the link to that folder.

For everyone who is curious about technological differences that bring comparative advantages and disadvantages of ONLYOFFICE and Collabora we have published a detailed comparison in our blog on Medium.

There we described how both suites work behind the surface and likely answered many arising questions. The discussion is warmly welcome!

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that reads very biased, so the collabora guys should do that too, the truth often lies in the middle.

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Hi,

I don’t understand why this article is headlined “a critical comparison”.
It is actually very far from critical in my opinion. Although I prefer Onlyoffice over Collabora, especially when used with Nextcloud, the big advantage for Collabora is the option to co-edit files that are publicly shared.

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and that “1,5GB” part “forgot” to mention that OO needs 4 GB from the start.

Hi!
I accept this: we covered only the ‘core’ technological aspect, not every single possible point that could be discussed. But we indeed believe (and have tested) that this is the root of major usage drawbacks, even if not seen right away by an average user.