A coalition of eight European technology companies announced Euro-Office on March 27, an open-source office suite designed to give organizations a sovereign alternative to Microsoft 365 and Google Docs.
The initiative brings together IONOS, Nextcloud, Eurostack, XWiki, OpenProject, Soverin, Abilian, and BTactic. A technical preview is available now on GitHub, with the first stable release planned for summer 2026.
Why Europe Built Its Own Office Suite
The timing is deliberate. With geopolitical tensions reshaping technology supply chains and governments reconsidering their reliance on American cloud providers, European organizations need productivity tools they can actually control.
”With the geo-political developments we have seen in the last year, there is a clear need for a reliable, fully Microsoft-compatible and easy-to-use sovereign office solution in Europe,” said Achim Weiss, CEO of IONOS.
Euro-Office edits documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with full support for Microsoft formats (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX) alongside OpenDocument standards. The goal: let organizations switch without retraining staff or losing compatibility with partners who use Microsoft.
Built on OnlyOffice, Governed by Europe
Rather than starting from scratch, the coalition forked OnlyOffice’s open-source codebase. According to Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek, the decision came down to architecture—LibreOffice is 35 years old and shows its age in browser performance, while OnlyOffice offers a more modern foundation.
But there’s more to it. OnlyOffice is developed by a team based in Russia, raising trust concerns for European institutions. The Euro-Office team audited the code, rebuilt proprietary components, and structured the project under transparent, European-led governance.
”Europe has had the technical building blocks for years. What was missing until now was an initiative to bring them together into a meaningful, comprehensive solution,” Karlitschek said. “With Euro-Office, we’re taking responsibility for vital digital infrastructure.”
What This Means for Privacy-Conscious Users
Euro-Office will integrate directly into Nextcloud Hub and IONOS Workspace, eventually replacing the current Collabora-based document editing. For users already running privacy-respecting cloud infrastructure, this adds a native office suite that:
- Runs entirely on European servers under European jurisdiction
- Uses open-source code that anyone can audit
- Avoids the data collection that comes with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
- Eliminates trademark licensing complications that affect other alternatives
The web-based editor can also be embedded in other platforms like XWiki, OpenProject, and Proton.
The Bigger Picture
This launch is part of a broader European push for digital sovereignty. Governments and enterprises are increasingly wary of storing sensitive data with American providers subject to laws like the CLOUD Act, which can compel US companies to hand over data stored anywhere in the world.
Euro-Office isn’t just about office software—it’s a signal that European tech companies can collaborate to build alternatives to Big Tech infrastructure. Whether that translates into mainstream adoption depends on execution, but the foundations look solid.
What You Can Do Now
The technical preview is available at github.com/Euro-Office/DocumentServer. If you’re running Nextcloud, expect native integration once the stable version ships this summer.
For those already using privacy-respecting cloud services, this is worth watching. A truly sovereign office suite—one that handles Microsoft formats well enough for real-world use—has been a missing piece for years. Euro-Office might finally fill that gap.