Apache OpenOffice

Apache OpenOffice is a free and open productivity suite maintained under the Apache Software Foundation, covering documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, databases and formulas in one download.

Its most visible strength is reach. The project is presented in more than forty languages, from Asturian and Esperanto through Khmer, Tamil and Armenian, which is a level of localisation no commercial vendor attempts because the audiences are too small to be commercially interesting. For users in those languages it is often the only office suite available at all.

The project is genuinely international, made with help from people all over the world and openly welcoming contribution, with focus areas and native language communities organised separately. Extensions, templates and clipart extend the base installation, and help is provided through community channels rather than a support contract.

Prospective users should understand the project's pace before adopting it. Development is slower than the alternatives, with releases arriving infrequently and each documented through release notes covering bug fixes, improvements and language additions. That is a fair trade for some situations and not for others, and it is the main practical difference between OpenOffice and LibreOffice, which forked from the same codebase and now moves considerably faster. The software is free with no licence to buy, under the Apache licence.