Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace run a large share of the world's documents, and for most organizations that means the files the business depends on sit on American servers. That may be perfectly acceptable for you. It may not be. Either way, it deserves a deliberate decision rather than a default.
This post is part of a series on moving off American software. It covers two different kinds of replacement: desktop office suites that run on your own machine and work offline, and online collaboration services where teams edit documents together in the browser. Both categories have credible European options, catalogued on European Alternatives.
One thing up front, honestly: compatibility with Microsoft file formats is the make-or-break question for most people. Everything else follows from it.
Desktop suites that work offline
SoftMaker Office comes from Germany. It is a full-featured suite with a stated commitment to data protection: TextMaker for documents, PlanMaker for spreadsheets, Presentations for slides. It runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android, and it is compatible with the Microsoft Office file formats — which is exactly the claim you need a suite to make.
Ashampoo Office 9 bundles a text processor, a spreadsheet module and a presentation module, and supports Microsoft Office's default document formats. The listing on European Alternatives describes it as a genuine alternative to Microsoft Office.
A desktop suite fits when documents are mostly yours: you write, edit and exchange files, but you don't need several people typing in the same document at once. The trade-off is coordination — no live co-editing while a colleague watches the cursor move.
Before committing to either suite, test compatibility with your own worst files. Open and re-save the documents with the heaviest formatting, the longest tables, the most history. Compatibility claims hold up better on straightforward documents than on pathological ones, and your archive is the only valid test.
Online collaboration suites
If co-editing is central to how your team works, look at browser-based services instead:
- Infomaniak kDrive — the file hosting and collaborative document editing service of the Swiss cloud provider Infomaniak. The document editing is based on the open source OnlyOffice.
- Proton Docs and Proton Sheets — real-time collaboration with comments and photos, designed to store documents securely. Both are part of the bigger Proton Drive product.
- Nuclino — a collaborative document editing service from Germany.
- Nextcloud Office — the document collaboration service of the Nextcloud suite, based on the open source Collabora Online.
- XWiki — an open source platform for knowledge management and collaboration, built in Europe with a focus on digital sovereignty. It offers a browser-based WYSIWYG editor, nested pages, version history, granular permissions, templates and multilingual content, deployed self-hosted or in the cloud.
- CryptPad — open source and zero-knowledge: the operator of the instance cannot read the content written on it. It can be self-hosted, and cryptpad.fr is the best-known instance, run by the main developers.
The trade-off here flips: strong collaboration, but Microsoft format handling varies by tool and by document. Check how each service opens and exports your real files, both directions.
Self-hosting options
If you want the data physically under your own control, two names come up repeatedly. Collabora Online is an open source collaboration suite with editors for text (Writer), spreadsheets (Calc), presentations (Impress) and vector graphics (Draw). It powers many cloud solutions, including Nextcloud Office, and you can run it yourself. CryptPad is also self-hostable, and its zero-knowledge design means content is encrypted even against whoever operates the instance — a meaningful property if you serve clients or members who care about that distinction.
Self-hosting buys control and costs you operations: updates, backups, uptime. Concede that honestly before choosing it.
What to check before you switch
- Round-trip your real documents through a trial, both directions, before deciding.
- Decide whether co-editing is a daily need or an occasional one; it changes which category you shop in.
- If you self-host, budget for the maintenance, not just the install.
None of these tools will feel identical to what you use now. The question is whether the differences matter more to you than where your documents live.
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