Apache OpenOffice

Apache OpenOffice

Price: $

Many people use office suite programs on a daily basis and there are users who almost exclusively use such programs apart from all other PC features. That being said, paying for Microsoft Office is not a viable option for everyone and people were looking for a competent alternative until OpenOffice arrived.

OpenOffice was actually the first legitimate contestant in the office product race and it was completely free from the start. The suite includes a word processor (Writer), a spreadsheet editor (Calc), presentation creator (Impress), database manager (Base), math equation creator (Math), and a drawing app (Draw) which can be used to create pamphlets, birthday cards, invitations, etc.

It can be used for free on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's compatible with most Microsoft Office file formats including DOCX, XLS, PPT, and XML. It's user interface is pretty much similar to the older versions of Microsoft Office. It doesn't implement its modern ribbons and it uses the old fashioned drop-down menus.

It doesn't incorporate an innate way of sharing and backing up documents as Microsoft Office does with OneDrive and Outlook. Also, there is no mobile app available at the moment to enable you to sync even when on the go.

It has all of the most important features an office suite should contain and it's almost as good as Microsoft Office, except when it comes to creating technical documents with plenty of formulae, as the integrated equation editor in Writer is quite complex to use. Of course, there is the Math program, but its complexity is the same.