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What's the deal with ONLYOFFICE? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 days ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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I've been testing it and it seems like a good solution for general productivity and a great option for people migrating from MS. It's open source and cross-platform, but I just don't see it in any conversations about office software.

For me, it's so far leagues beyond LibreOffice. I really need something that works on my phone and syncs across devices, and allows collaboration. OnlyOffice seems to fit the bill. It's also far more intuitive to my preferences.

I am sure that some people wouldn't like the fact that the interface runs as a webapp, or use of Java, but it's strange to me that it's not usually even in the conversation.

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[-] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago

It works ok, I don't use it much because its a web app, so doing stuff like opening a 6000 line CSV file when I was migrating our CRM software caused it to crash/hang, or large word documents can cause it to slow down a ton.

But as a basic editor for small documents it works fine, if a bit laggy feeling for my tastes.

[-] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 day ago

I use it, and it works fine. OpenOffice had a massive following before the LibreOffice fork so realistically most people moved there as a default option. Doesn't mean Only office is bad, just that many FOSS users are more likely to use its competitors.

[-] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago

It's similar to only fans but instead of naked people you watch pros do excel

[-] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

youtube.com/watch?v=QwNoFOUiSiE

[-] cindy 4 points 1 day ago

I see that there are a lot of cookies from their website, which is not good from a privacy perspective.

[-] digger@lemmy.ca 118 points 3 days ago

Back in 2020, those of us who had been using the community document server were greeted with a notification stating that mobile editing was no longer supported and that we'd have to buy their commercial product.

Some folks quickly figured out a patch. Others, like myself, left with a bad taste in our mouths.

In the end, I can only speak for myself, but I chose LibreOffice and The Document Foundation for philosophical reasons.

https://github.com/nextcloud/documentserver_community/issues/94

[-] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 29 points 3 days ago

Thanks, this is really helpful in understanding the history of the community.

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago

Wait, is it a web app or does it use Java? Those are two distinctly different technologies.

[-] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I don't really know anything about computers, and it seems like I'm not the only one who finds the entire app suite a little confusing. The Github says this, which is where I got the understanding that it involves both:

ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors contain the following components:

desktop-apps - the frontend for ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors which is used to build the program interface for the operating system selected.

desktop-sdk - SDK which is a core part of ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors.

core - server core components for ONLYOFFICE Document Server which is a part of ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors and is used to enable the conversion between the most popular office document formats (DOC, DOCX, ODT, RTF, TXT, PDF, HTML, EPUB, XPS, DjVu, XLS, XLSX, ODS, CSV, PPT, PPTX, ODP).

sdkjs - JavaScript SDK for the ONLYOFFICE Document Server which is a part of ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors and contains API for all the included components client-side interaction.

web-apps - the frontend for ONLYOFFICE Document Server which is a part of ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors that allows the user to create, edit, save and export text, spreadsheet and presentation documents using the common interface of a document editor.

dictionaries - the dictionaries of various languages used for spellchecking in ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors.

Hopefully you can explain what that means.

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

Ah, I think it uses JavaScript, not Java, so yeah it looks like it is a web app.

It's quite impressive IMO that you are into open-source software even though you say you don't know anything about computers, I'd say that counts as something, plus you know about Lemmy too. We all love open-source software here :)

[-] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Well, "nothing" may be a slight exaggeration. But I know little enough that wasn't aware Java and JavaScript are two different things.

Open source requires SOME understanding of computers, but really, you don't have to understand economic theory to see the benefits of joining a union. I don't know much, but I value privacy and I am old enough to see how tragically profiteers have broken the web. People smarter than me assure me that Open Source tends to be more secure, more private, harder to abuse and that all seems like a good idea to me. I've helped out with lots of Community contribution projects like Wikipedia, Open Street Maps, Open Clip Art, etc. and I see the good that Creative commons does, which is a philosophical cousin of Open Source. So, yeah, I understand Open source insofar as I understand its importance, even though I really don't know enough to contribute much other than cheerleading :)

[-] PanArab@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

I use it and like it, but don’t see a need to evangelize. LibreOffice is good too.

[-] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 50 points 3 days ago

It’s developed by a Russian owned company (Ascensio System SIA).

[-] adarza@lemmy.ca 42 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

they're trying harder to hide that now. as of last year, a sg-based holding company owns a uk-based company which owns the original developer, the software, and numerous regional branch offices.

kinda sucks, because it is a nice program. doesn't have feature parity with microsoft office, but it's got pretty much everything that most users need or would want. it's also horribly slow on lower-spec hardware.

[-] MoonlightFox@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago

Yeah, I was not able to convince my wife to use LibreOffice instead of Office365, but OnlyOffice was an easy sell. I really enjoy it myself as well.

[-] Tundra@lemmy.ml 23 points 3 days ago

the app version also has facebook & google trackers embedded into it:

https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.onlyoffice.documents/latest/#trackers

[-] MoonlightFox@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago

On their page it says: "## Ascensio System SIA - home of the ONLYOFFICE

ONLYOFFICE is a project developed by experienced IT experts from Ascensio System SIA, leading IT company with headquarters in Riga, Latvia. Originally ONLYOFFICE was designed for internal team collaboration.

An attempt to introduce it to a wider audience proved to be successful: ONLYOFFICE received very positive feedback from the Internet community. As a result, its functionality was considerably revised and expanded that brought about a high and stable growth of users from different countries.

Nowadays, ONLYOFFICE is an international, open source project with employees and contributors in more than 30 countries. The holding company in Singapore unites our offices around the world under the ONLYOFFICE brand. For now, we have departments in Riga, Singapore, London, Dallas, Belgrade, Yerevan and Tashkent. Would like to join our big open source family? Check how to become a contributor or discover job openings."

https://www.onlyoffice.com/about.aspx

Hmm..you seem to be at least partially right.

"In 2009, a group of software developers from Ascensio System SIA (Latvian-based) and New Communication Technologies (Russian-based) launched a project called TeamLab, a platform for internal team collaboration.[32]" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnlyOffice

[-] datendefekt@feddit.org 15 points 3 days ago

My hot take: of it's open source and they don't receive money from me, I don't really care.

[-] harcesz@szmer.info 10 points 3 days ago

Until you work with anything that might be of interest to Russian services (Ukrainian refugees in EU in my case).

[-] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 days ago

Or you work in a field where national security is of any concern.

[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

This is a moot point for me, same as "It's developed by China!"
Remove networking permissions from the Flatpak, run it in Firejail, hell, could even put it into a container if you really wanted to be sure.

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[-] chobeat@lemmy.ml 21 points 2 days ago

I am sure that some people wouldn’t like the fact that the interface runs as a webapp, or use of Java, but it’s strange to me that it’s not usually even in the conversation.

A point about conversations, rather than the software itself. I think it's not really at the forefront of the discussion because this kind of software caters kinda to "legacy" organizational environments that want a 1 to 1 replacement for Google Docs or Microsoft 365, which is not the sexiest problem. In the community of adopters of NextCloud (poor souls...) the discussion between onlyoffice and collabora, together with their integration with NC, is a quite common topic but again, most of these deal with orgs and not individual adoption and I would say that's a very distinct crowd from most "hackerinos" who populate the FOSS online communities.

That said, a lot of the discourse is now focused on moving away entirely from document-based (and even document-oriented) software, because there's a shared understanding that the problem is in the approach itself, and what IBM, Apple and Microsoft considered a reasonable way to handle information in the '80s, is not necessarily the best way now.

[-] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

Can you expand on your last point? Where do we move to from document based software? That seems like a bigger change than the change from typewriter to word processor.

[-] chobeat@lemmy.ml 26 points 2 days ago

Well, Obsidian, Notion, Anytype, Affine can give you a hint of possible directions in this transition. While they still retain document-oriented features, like the concept of Page, they also try to really go for a much richer experience that does away with the limitations inherited from paper-based solutions. Double-linking, composability, fractal properties of pages and nesting (especially in Notion and Anytype), block-based UI, seamless integration of text, databases, and embeds, heavy use of transclusion and other stuff like that.

I would say this alternative system is far from cohesive and mature, but it's clear some software is emancipating itself from whatever Onlyoffice represents.

Maybe you would find this video interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXiQlLHuK7g

[-] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Cool thanks. I get the distinction now. I use Joplin for some of the features mentioned and do like it. Notion sounds pretty neat too.

[-] kata1yst@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

I'll also toss out Zettlr, which is ideal for technical/scientific writing and publishing. Massive displacement in the scientific/technical community pushing out the incumbent Google, Microsoft, and (gasp) raw LaTeX.

[-] rutrum@lm.paradisus.day 3 points 2 days ago

Glancing through zettlr's website and docs, Im not sure I understand it. Is it just notetaking software, that utilizes pandoc to build professional documents (via pdflatex)? Whats an example use case?

[-] kata1yst@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago

The general idea is that you use it to take notes on research papers or websites (optionally though it's Zotero integration), then when the time comes to write a technical paper, you can research from the comfort of your Zettelkasten, directly cite the research you took notes on and automate proper citations with BibTex, write in raw markdown if preferred, create tables natively, embed charts and graphs directly and properly track them using figure notation, do full layout templates in LaTeX, support LaTeX math equations, and a lot more.

Basically it solves the fragmentation problem researchers have had for a long time by integrating all the standards instead of trying to centrally replace them or declare them unnecessary.

[-] abekonge@lemmy.ml 18 points 3 days ago

I like it, but am super confused about their different models of selfhosting, docspace , integrations with a million different platforms, user limitations in community version etc.

[-] Bali@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

It won't run on Wayland, and instead using X that makes entire onlyoffice interface blurry. I use onlyoffice only when i need 1:1 compatibility with Microsoft format. I'm Still thankful it is existed.

[-] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I guess by libre office you're not referring to Collabora?

Collabora is the online version of Libre, and absolutely integrates with mobile, nextcloud, web browsers, collaboration, etc.

I initially used OnlyOffice with my Nextcloud instance, but switched to Collabora with my own CODE server once I realized it was MUCH more thoroughly integrated into nextcloud.

[-] klangcola@reddthat.com 11 points 3 days ago

OnlyOffice is also available as a (offline) desktop office suite, so as a user it's more like LibreOffice than Collabora.

My wife prefers OnlyOffice over LibreOffice, as it's feels closer to MS Office. Also it's compatibility with MS Office formats is better than LibreOffice.

I still use LibreOffice for desktop, but I'm not a heavy user. Haven't tried out Collabora or hosted OnlyOffice for NextCloud yet.

[-] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 7 points 3 days ago

Both are perfectly serviceable, but for the self-hosted storage/office suite combo, Collabora simply fits into Nextcloud better. Which is likely why you don't see OnlyOffice discussed much.

Collabora is just more integrated. The NC and Collabora developers actually directly collaborate on integrating it into NC as the "official" office suite.

And AFAIK the backend of Collabora is simply LibreOffice, meaning the "desktop" version is: LibreOffice. The UI is the same, too, though they might've diverged since I last used LibreOffice on desktop.

Personally I'm not really concerned with formats, as long as I can finish documents as PDFs, and Collabora has brought a google-drive-like experience to my nextcloud instance that OnlyOffice didn't manage. Either way I was able to do a google takeout of my drive storage, and just plop that into my nextcloud. But with Collabora, actually interacting with the resulting files within the nextcloud UI has been nicer.

[-] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 2 points 2 days ago

OnlyOffice is super easy to integrate with Nextcloud, and was their original office selection prior to the commercial opportunities with Collabora.

Also, OnlyOffice is built specifically for web rending, while Collabora is a pseudo VNC session. There are advantages and disadvantages to this, but they are very different systems under the hood.

[-] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 4 points 2 days ago

I feel exactly the same way. The whole mobile editing patch thing was a huge mistake (you've seen the other comments so I won't rehash).

That being said, I still run it alongside Nextcloud. I only use LibreOffice for Draw and REALLY large spreadsheets now.

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Where are these conversations happening? I could see a lot of enterprise-focused groups potentially getting behind OnlyOffice, but individual home users? Not so much.

EDIT: My mistake! I didn't realize that there are standalone versions of OnlyOffice in addition to the web app version.

[-] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 3 points 2 days ago

You're proving OP's point. Why not? It's great.

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I apologize, because between OP's post and looking at the OnlyOffice website, I got the impression that it was only a web app, requiring a web server to run. After reading another comment here I looked harder on the website and found the download links for the standalone versions.

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