https://www.collaboraonline.com/case-studies/differences-bet...
If you don't give an email address, it doesn't even prompt you to ttry again. It just bugs out and redirects to a home page with a broken URL attempting to inject HTML from client side.
That's strange because the only reason for a user to use OpenOffice/Collabra is because they don't want to deal with an annoying company that makes a far superior product. If the inferior product is also run by an annoying company, why bother?
I'd still probably put Collabra above Google Docs, but definitely a step below even MS Office Online, err 365, err CoPilot App or whatever the hell they're calling it now... (naming issues not withstanding). Though MS has been enshitifying the offline versions of office a lot, not to mention Outlook in particular.
Aside: Why MS hasn't done a version of "Microsoft Access Online" with a WASM port of VBA in order to lift/shift Access apps into a hosted environment that's backed by Azure SQL under the covers is kind of beyond me. I mean, it shouldn't take too much effort at this point with the level of tooling MS has been capable of.
Access was the distilled VB + Database apps kind of thing that a lot of SOHO really thrived on, and they could totally (re)capture that market with a bit of legacy uplift/support along with a newer model/design. Displacing the winforms models with webforms and a dedicated server/service system. 3 versions to start, a legacy/support, a bridge and a new model where it's TS/JS and monaco for editing instead of VBA/wasm/webforms in a browser/canvas. People are running older versions of Windows in wasm/x86 emulation... making that pretty and wrapping hosted access runtimes should be somewhat reasonable. Shouldn't it?
I converted it to TXT and pulled out the only bit of interest here:
Collabora Office Collabora Office Classic
Fresh, modern UX Classic, established UX
Javascript & CSS UI to match Collabora Online VCL-based classic UI
Simpler settings / streamlined defaults Very extensive options, menus & dialogs
No Java Java used for some features/wizards/DB drivers
No built-in Base app Includes Base UI
Runs macros Full macro editor & advanced BASIC/Python/UNO
Modern web tech (Canvas, WebGL, CSS) Custom toolkit (VCL)
Fast to iterate (edit JS, fewer recompiles) Core/C++ changes typically require recompiles
Initial release – Enterprise Support is coming Long term Enterprise Supported
Quick Start Guides and video tutorials Extensive manuals & booksI really, really want them to be successful, but I cannot pretend it's a pleasure to use at all.
Typing in a word processor should not have input lag in 2025. It wasn't just a little lag, but the type and watch it catch up kind of lag.
It took basically a corporate control for Audacity to make its' difficult transition to a better design from its' mediocre one. That said, I'd love to see something modern transformed from The Gimp's core in a similar way. That doesn't even begin to cover what you might want in terms of inter-app collaboration...
KdenLive, Blender, Gimp, Krita, InkScape, Audacity and other tooling, as an example, all use different UI/UX base libraries, and no clean way to cross-integrate features between them if someone wanted to assemble an open-source Adobe alternative. There's no baseline equivalent to even MS/Office's use of COM/DCOM for interoperability.
karel-3d•1h ago
How is this project related to LibreOffice and also to what used to be called LibreOffice Online? (And Collabora Office Classic. And Collabora Online)
aaron_oxenrider•1h ago
"We love LibreOffice. We are privileged to be the largest code contributors to the codebase, Collabora employs several founders of The Document Foundation, and many of the top committers. We offer a Long Term supported product based on LibreOffice, branded as Collabora Office Classic, and are deeply grateful for and acknowledge many skilled community contributors we work alongside, as well as the incredible range of features that LibreOffice code enables."
karel-3d•1h ago
* Collabora Online is rebranded, and hosted, LibreOffice Online
* or rather - LibreOffice Online never really existed and it was always Collabora Online Development Edition (I cannot find any LibreOffice Online that's not just Collabora Online Development Edition)
* Collabora Office for Desktop is Collabora Online, packaged as a desktop app
* Collabora Office Classic is just rebranded LibreOffice
* Collabora (the company) is one of the biggest contributors to LibreOffice
abdullahkhalids•9m ago
> Ecosystem partner Collabora uses LibreOffice as upstream code to provide a web-based suite branded as Collabora Online, along with apps for platforms not officially supported by LibreOffice, including Android, ChromeOS, iOS and iPadOS.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice#History