The Doc Basis (TDF) has pulled LibreOffice On-line out of its “attic” – its time period for retired tasks – and is resuming improvement.

LibreOffice Online (LOOL) is the cloud-based model of LibreOffice. You would be forgiven if you have not heard of it. Its improvement has been largely dormant since 2020. That can quickly change. Earlier this week, TDF introduced that LOOL is getting a fresh start.

The information follows a Doc Basis community vote earlier this month. Again in 2020, the organization decided to freeze improvement of LOOL, and regardless of an open letter calling for its revival in 2022, in TDF’s attic it has remained.

What makes the choice a bit stranger than it could appear, although, is that there already is an present on-line browser-based taste of LibreOffice. It is known as Collabora Online, or COOL for brief. It was announced in 2015 and has been up to date usually since: it’s extremely a lot nonetheless round, and the present model is COOL 25.04.

Collabora, founded in 2005, is a for-profit firm based mostly in Cambridge, UK, and as The Register reported six years ago it offers nearly all of the full-time paid builders engaged on the LibreOffice codebase. As we reported from the FOSDEM conference in 2025, it’s nonetheless actively engaged on each the native, standalone model of LibreOffice, in addition to by itself collaborative on-line version.

In addition to the paid-for COOL suite, Collabora affords a free version, the Collabora Online Development Edition or CODE for brief. Across the time of the final try and revive TDF’s LOOL, we mentioned CODE 22.05, and a month later, we looked at its new features.

We weren’t capable of run it for ourselves, as a result of though you may obtain packages and set up them, COOL and CODE may solely run when hosted on an internet server. It is designed to combine with some type of on-line file storage akin to Nextcloud. What with having a day job and all, The Reg FOSS desk does not run its personal net server – though we have been looking into it.

We use the previous tense as a result of that modified late final yr. In November 2025, Collabora released Collabora Office for Desktop. Generally known as CODA, this runs regionally on Home windows, Linux or macOS, however just like the cloud model, its UI is rendered utilizing net expertise – the announcement says it has an…

This is similar method that Ascensio’s OnlyOffice suite works. We looked at OnlyOffice 7.3 a number of years in the past. We might revisit it quickly: version 9.3 appeared this week.

In addition to particulars of how they’re carried out, each the Collabora suites and OnlyOffice share a modernized UI with a ribbon, rather more like Microsoft Workplace 365 than the extra conventional toolbar-and-menus interface present in LibreOffice by default – though LibreOffice additionally affords a ribbon-based look-and-feel if you would like it.

Each the LibreOffice and Collabora suites are open supply. The important thing distinction is that TDF affords solely the free-of-charge LibreOffice, nothing else. Collabora primarily affords paid assist and providers, though it does additionally provide free downloads of each the server and native variations.

Though TDF does suggest LibreOffice in business, it doesn’t provide industrial assist – for this, it has a Professional Support web page. This does embrace Collabora, however the listing seems in a unique order each time the web page is refreshed.

The demarcation was once pretty clear. TDF provided solely a neighborhood model, and Collabora provided a paid-for cloud-based model, with the free CODE version for analysis. Since November 2025, although, Collabora now additionally affords a neighborhood model.

The choice to “de-atticize” LOOL has been controversial. It is arduous to not see TDF restarting improvement of the cloudy LOOL as a tit-for-tat transfer. Collabora’s Michael Meeks voted and commented in opposition to the proposal. He advised The Register:

We put this to TDF’s public relations and advertising consultant, Italo Vignoli, who final yr retired from the group’s board of administrators. He advised us:

We additionally spoke with Paolo Vecchi and Mike Saunders from TDF’s board of directors. Vecchi advised us:

The choice to revive LibreOffice On-line is an even bigger deal than it sounds. Though TDF administrators don’t see it this fashion, some may interpret it as TDF selecting to enter competitors with its greatest industrial improvement associate, which has been earning money from its cloud-hosted variations of LibreOffice for over a decade.

LibreOffice On-line isn’t a product but, and you’ll’t obtain it. It might not be for months, and even years. However if you wish to assist it to turn into one, the supply code is on GitHub. ®


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