Collabora Online vs Polaris Office Comparison: Everything You Need to Know Before Choosing

Collabora Online is a collaborative office suite developed by Collabora Productivity, a UK-based company and major contributor to LibreOffice. It allows organisations to create and edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations in a web browser, with real-time co-editing, while keeping data on infrastructure they control. Many organisations are wary of relying on proprietary, US-hosted cloud office suites because of data sovereignty, regulatory and cost concerns. Collabora Online addresses this by providing a LibreOffice-based suite that can be self-hosted or run by trusted partners, integrating with existing file-sharing and collaboration platforms. Its approach combines open-source transparency with enterprise support, offering strong compatibility with Microsoft Office formats as well as native OpenDocument support. The suite includes Writer for word processing, Calc for spreadsheets, Impress for presentations and Draw for diagrams, supporting all major file formats including DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, ODT, ODS and ODP. Real-time collaborative editing lets multiple users work on the same file simultaneously, with comments, tracked changes and version history. Because rendering occurs on the server, documents look consistent across browsers and devices, and sensitive content does not need to be stored on client machines. Collabora Online integrates with platforms such as Nextcloud, ownCloud, Seafile, Moodle, Alfresco, EGroupware and many others via the WOPI protocol, allowing users to open and edit documents directly from their existing storage. Mobile apps for Android and iOS and a desktop application extend access beyond the browser. Deployment options include on-premises installation using Docker or packages, private cloud hosting and partner-hosted services, with enterprise subscriptions providing long-term support, security updates and service-level agreements. Collabora Online is widely used by public sector bodies, education institutions, healthcare organisations and enterprises across Europe seeking digital sovereignty, as well as hosting providers building their own productivity services. Pricing starts from around EUR 20, typically per user per year for business subscriptions, with a free trial available; the source code is open, although no free version is indicated in this listing.