Online office suite based on LibreOffice
Collabora Online is an open source online office suite based on LibreOffice, enabling web-based collaborative real-time editing of word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and vector graphics. Optional apps are available for desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and Chromebooks.
Collabora Online is developed by Collabora Productivity, a division of Collabora, which is a commercial partner of LibreOffice's parent organization, The Document Foundation (TDF). TDF states that a majority of the LibreOffice software development is done by its commercial partners, Collabora, Red Hat, CIB, and Allotropia.
Features.
Collabora Online can be accessed from modern web browsers without plug-ins or add-ons. Documents, spreadsheets, presentations and vector graphics can be edited collaboratively.
Collaborative functions include comments which other users can respond to, document version history which enables the comparison of documents and restoring, etc. Collaborative functions may also include integrated video calls or chat whilst collaboratively editing documents, features like these are possible with integrations with enterprise cloud solutions such as Nextcloud, ownCloud, Seafile, EGroupware and others. Collabora Online can be integrated with any application.
Device support.
Client apps are not required to access Collabora Online which only needs a web browser; However, optional apps are available for most devices that run the following operating systems: Android, ChromeOS, iOS, iPadOS, Windows, macOS and Linux.
These optional apps share the same core LibreOffice Technology software with Collabora Online, resulting in document consistency between them. Software development of the LibreOffice core therefore normally benefits the source code of Collabora Online server and all of the client apps simultaneously. The apps work offline without the need for a connection to a local server or the cloud, support for integrations with cloud storage services is still possible. The mobile apps have touch-optimized interfaces that scale across varying screen sizes. The ChromeOS app which is used in Chromebooks, Chromeboxes and tablets, edits documents in the Play files folders.
File formats.
Collabora Online supports ISO/IEC international standard ISO/IEC 26300 Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF – odt, odp, ods, odg). It also supports Microsoft's XML formats (docx, pptx, xlsx) and Microsoft's legacy binary formats (doc, ppt, xls). Other formats supported include pdf, png, csv, rtf, and epub. Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Publisher, Apple Keynote, Numbers, Pages, and other file formats can be imported, the same as LibreOffice supported file formats.
Applications.
The following applications are included in online and the apps for desktops, laptops and mobile (tablets, smartphones and Chromebooks).
Server.
Collabora Online allows collaborative real-time editing of word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and vector graphics. The server or servers can be hosted locally or with a provider, privately hosted cloud services allow applications and data to remain under the control of the respective users. Collabora Productivity supports Collabora Online server instances for Debian, Ubuntu CentOS, openSUSE, Univention Virtual Machines and Docker images. It is often integrated with file sharing and collaboration cloud platforms, such as Nextcloud, ownCloud, Seafile and EGroupware, which are functionally similar to Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft 365, these typically include email, contacts, calendar, file synchronization and sharing, calls, chat and video, with apps stores. Close integrations are possible, enabling things like the possibility to edit documents within a chatroom or a video call, as with Nextcloud's built-in video-conferencing tool Nextcloud Talk. Collabora Online server can integrate simultaneously with several cloud solutions such as aforementioned and also Alfresco, Kolab, Mattermost, Moodle, Nuxeo, SharePoint and others.
The server can be installed from packages, or during development, for simplicity, from a docker image. The Docker website indicates that the Collabora Online Development Edition (CODE) Docker image has been downloaded 50 million times. A software development kit (SDK) including API specifications and integration instructions is available, along with sample integration code snippets for several programming languages.
Collaborative functions include comments which other users can respond to and document version history enabling the comparison of documents and their restoration, and other things.
In 2021 a remote work solution was made available by Canonical, Collabora, and Nextcloud which includes the Collabora Online office suite, it installs on Intel NUCs or ARM based Raspberry Pi 4s, it is preconfigured and automatically updates itself, it is called Nextcloud Ubuntu Appliance.
In 2022 support for the OpenPOWER architecture was added, complementing existing support for x86-64 and ARM64, this was the result of a partnership with IT service provider 21unity who offer a Nextcloud Enterprise solution called 21unity CLOUD.
Digital sovereignty.
Collabora Online is fully auditable open source software, uses open standards, is self-hostable and does not require an account from a third party provider to edit files. In July 2020, the European parliament published a briefing titled Digital sovereignty for Europe, detailing concerns that citizens, businesses and Member States of the European Union (EU) are losing control over their data, it explains the economic model used by Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft is largely based on the collection and exploitation of online users' data. Judgements such as “Schrems II” show that it is delicate to rely on solutions from the large cloud providers when it comes to processing and storing sensitive personal data. Digital sovereignty has been an increasing concern in the EU for several reasons since the Patriot Act enacted in October 2001, the continuing legal privacy conflicts between the US CLOUD Act enacted March 2018, and the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) implemented May 2018.
The French Ministry's IT infrastructure director stated safety of the data of their citizens and employees as a reason for deploying Nextcloud-based private cloud for the French Ministry of Interior. The Dutch Ministry of Education, the German federal government, and the Swedish federal government agencies are deploying Nextcloud-based private cloud for similar reasons and to increase competition.
Technology.
The core of Collabora Online is written in C++. It uses the LibreOfficeKit, a programming interface that allows the reuse of most of the existing LibreOffice code and the saving, loading and rendering of documents. The basic principle of Collabora Online is that documents never leave the server. The parties working on the documents see tile-rendered images of the document and send their changes back to the server. The visible user interface of Collabora Online is written in JavaScript. For file access and authentication with a file hosting services, Collabora Online uses the WOPI protocol developed by Microsoft. This means that Collabora Online can – in theory – be used with any instance allowing a Microsoft 365 integration.
Reviews.
Various online and print publications have discussed Collabora Online. In December 2016 the technology website Softpedia mentioned the availability of collaborative editing in version 2.0 and the integration with ownCloud, Nextcloud, and other FSS solutions. The technology website ZDNET reported in June 2020 that Collabora Online from version 19 of Nextcloud will be delivered as a standard office package and that within the native video conferencing software Talk direct editing of documents is now possible. The technology blog OMG! Ubuntu! covered the release of the Android and iOS apps pointing out the possibility to use them in offline mode. In September 2020 Linux Magazine compared Collabora Online with OnlyOffice, mentioning the flexibility and platform independence of both tools and pointing out the large set of features Collabora Online draws from LibreOffice.
History.
The former LibreOffice development team from SUSE joined Collabora in September 2013, forming the subsidiary Collabora Productivity. In 2015 Collabora and IceWarp announced the development of an enterprise-ready version of LibreOffice Online to compete with Google Docs and Office 365 (now called Microsoft 365). In December 2015, the company's partnership with ownCloud and release of "CODE" (Collabora Online Development Edition) was announced on Joinup. In November 2016, Nextcloud announced their work and integration with v2.0 of CODE and their future work plans for improving performance, scalability, security and capabilities with Collabora Online. In October 2020, Collabora announced the move of its work on Collabora Online from The Document Foundation infrastructure to GitHub. A development version of Collabora Online is available called Collabora Online Development Edition (CODE).
References.
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