LibreOffice Online is back

LibreOffice Online will be further developed again: The Document Foundation (TDF) has reversed the decision made in 2022 to freeze the project repository. At the beginning of February 2026, the current board, chaired by Eliane Domingos, decided to reopen the archive for contributions. The foundation now considers the concerns at the time regarding a lack of maintainers and security issues to be outdated.

The original freeze was initiated by former boards, including members with conflicts of interest from the commercial ecosystem. The main reasons cited were insufficient maintenance, known security vulnerabilities that could not be backported after a fork in October 2020, and a lack of development activity. The repository was then put into read-only mode and was to be moved to the “Attic.”

Domingos explained the now-occurred turnaround with the words, “To start the process of freeing LibreOffice Online and to start the journey that will lead to having an online version by the community and for the community.” The vote on reopening lasted 72 hours and received broad support, although there were also critical voices.

Warnings remain for now

The repository will initially be made accessible again with warnings until the TDF team deems it safe and usable. The foundation explicitly invites the community to contribute code, technologies, and other contributions. Collaboration with external partners is also sought to advance a common technical basis, quality assurance, and marketing.

LibreOffice Online is a web-based version of the well-known office suite for self-hosting. The software renders documents server-side and streams the user interface via the browser. It supports Writer, Calc, and Impress, as well as real-time collaborative editing. However, the current code base is considered outdated and insecure, and known CVEs have not been fixed. There is still a long way to go to a production-ready version.

Distinction from Collabora Online

LibreOffice Online differs fundamentally from Collabora Online: While TDF's project is designed as a community-driven upstream project, Collabora Online is a commercial fork with enterprise support, signed security updates, and LTS versions. Collabora has invested heavily in development and offers integrations for Nextcloud and ownCloud.

The Document Foundation explicitly clarifies that it will not offer any hosting service or enterprise support for LibreOffice Online itself. Consequently, for productive environments, the foundation recommends the commercial ecosystem as before. There is no concrete timeline for a production-ready version. Further development depends on community contributions, which can participate through code contributions, QA tests, and technical discussions.

The Document Foundation has published further details on future development in its blog.

(fo)