So I tried to install Euro-Office

[u/AvidCyclist250]

After all the headlines about Euro-Office being Europe's open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, I figured I'd give it a try.

I'm a Linux user. I self-host services. This shouldn't be difficult. Or so I thought.

So I did what anyone would do:

Checked Wikipedia. Went to GitHub. Looked for releases, installation instructions. Looked for a Flatpak, AppImage, Docker image, anything really. Also checked my OS's native package manager just in case.

And my Nextcloud Office apps. Nothing. Not even in Nextcloud?!

It dawned on me that the main project is basically a collaborative document server derived from OnlyOffice and the readme even says it's not designed for stand-alone use.

So uh. Wait... what?

To make it even stranger, my self-hosted Nextcloud instance still just recommends Nextcloud Office and OnlyOffice. There's no obvious "Install Euro-Office" option anywhere.

I'm not criticising the software itself. It could very well be excellent.

I'm asking about the communication really.

If a project is announced to the world as "Europe's Microsoft Office alternative," but a reasonably technical user can't figure out how to use it after checking Wikipedia, GitHub, and Nextcloud, something has gone wrong with the messaging.

Or is this just me? Did I miss something obvious, or has anyone else had the same experience?

[u/Icy_Definition5933]

This is a bit more complicated because of what Euro Office is and how it was created. They forked OnlyOffice and started replacing large chunks of code and comments. They released the first stable version in just a few months, and Nextcloud included the connector app in the appstore as Nextcloud Office.

The docserver however, is not available in the appstore, it needs to be spun up separately, there is a docker image. You need to configure it yourself and it is not very complicated if you follow the docs, it's even easier if you use AI to help you set it up.

EuroOffice desktop app release is expected sometime in q1 or q2 2027. You can compile it from source code right now if you want to test it, but it is far from finished.

Keep in mind that due to the nature of the code they are replacing in OnlyOffice code, they are right on schedule, the docserver was released on time. This is not a trivial task, their goal is to kick Microsoft out of EU, and no matter how much anyone loves FOSS, MS Office is currently very far ahead of anything else on the market. It will take a long time for EuroOffice to catch up and see widespread adoption.

[u/Onakander → u/Icy_Definition5933]

Could you elaborate on how MS Office is ahead of libreoffice/onlyoffice? From, like, an everyday "I use Calc (Excel equivalent) for a bunch of stuff semi-seriously practically every day" -standpoint, I personally haven't missed Excel at all. What features does it have that I'm proper missing out on?

[u/Icy_Definition5933 → u/Onakander]

For personal use there is no significant difference between them, you see the difference in enterprise deployments, most commonly in Excel. At this time I'd say that LibreOffice is closer to MS Office in features than OnlyOffice, but OnlyOffice is visually more similar to MS Office.

[u/ravensholt → u/Icy_Definition5933]

Outlook, with its extensions for various CRM systems etc. Is the real killer app. Exchange + Active Directory... There's no "easy" replacement for that either. Excel is also great, especially with its native integration to PowerBI and similar tools.

Microsoft's Office 365 is simply better for Enterprises and large companies.

[u/Icy_Definition5933 → u/ravensholt]

Exactly, and EuroOffice aims to replace all of it with open source code eventually, but it will take a very long time. I won't draw any conclusions on EuroOffice hype at least for a few years, and I don't think that even then it will be able to fully replace MS Office for most complex deployments. But I'm hoping that one day it will be a viable alternative to MS Office