Both LibreOffice and Microsoft Office are excellent office suites, but which one is more suited to you? Yes, these two might appear very similar on the surface, but actually, there are some important distinctions between the two that you should keep in mind while making a decision.
Price Comparison
You can download and use LibreOffice for free, even for commercial purposes and as it is open-source software, you can download and edit the source code as you wish. Thus it is a no-strings-attached software where you can make some alterations to the code.
Programs comparison
The programs on offer are one of the key considerations when you are choosing between LibreOffice and Microsoft Office.
On LibreOffice, you get Writer (word processing), Impress (presentations), Calc (spreadsheets), Base (databases), Math (editing formulas), and Draw (vector graphics).
And a subscription to Microsoft Office 365 gives you Word, PowePoint, Excel, OneDrive, and Outlook. If you are a PC user you will also get Publisher and Access but here the Mac users will miss out.
File compatibility
LibreOffice provides the best file compatibility of all the free office suites available. All the most common file formats, including Microsoft DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX can be imported and exported and it also supports a wider range of non-Microsoft file formats than Office 365.
But, you need to keep one thing in mind, the documents would look different in LibreOffice than what they do in Microsoft Office programs. The reason for this could be the difference in the way data is interpreted and rendered on-screen and also Microsoft uses its own fonts.
But this wouldn't actually be a problem for most purposes, except if you share files with people you might want to be working on the same office suite or it might get a little messy.
User support
You are also paying for customer support if you choose Microsoft Office. You are provided with a help app that can lend a hand with common problems and there is also a chatbox that can provide answers to your queries. If that doesn't help, you also have real Microsoft technicians at your disposal, whom you can call or get support from the live chat feature.
Also, along with the subscription you get a Microsoft Office guide which can be enormously helpful.
On the other hand, if you choose LibreOffice, you will have to rely a lot on the goodwill of Community Assistance - but yes you will find a lot of it. A great deal of information can be found on LibreOffice Wiki, Ask LibreOffice, etc.
One thing that you need to keep in mind is that, although LibreOffice has excellent support, it is mostly dependent on volunteers donating their time and expertise. So the Document Foundation is under no obligation to provide support and there can be times when you have to wait a long time for their reply, more than if you were using Microsoft Office.
Collaboration
Multiple users can share files and collaborate on the same document with real-time chat on the Microsoft Office 365 suite.
LibreOffice doesn't have any feature that is equivalent to that.
Cloud services
You will have to piece together your own system if you want to opt for LibreOffice and want to store your documents in the cloud at the same time. Having a server like Dropbox makes it easy to sync files to the cloud by saving them in a dedicated folder on your PC or Mac.
Also, you can subscribe to Microsoft OneDrive without being an Office subscriber, or you could also check out some of the other free cloud storage providers.
Things are a lot more straightforward if you opt for a Microsoft Office subscription, as Microsoft OneDrive is built right into each program and is the default place where everything is saved. Also, a Microsoft Office 365 subscription gives you more OneDrive space than a free one.
You can get Microsoft Office 365 for Mac and Windows along with mobile apps for Android and iOS. You also get Microsoft Office Online, which has some pared-down versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in any modern web browser.
You can get LibreOffice on Mac, Linux, and Windows with an additional version that is portable and can be installed on a removable storage device. But you will not find any apps for working on smartphones or tablets, except for the LibreOffice Viewer for Android, which uses the same engine as the desktop software to let you read documents. You also get a remote app for controlling slideshows made with LibreOffice Impress.
