June 11, 2026
Spreadsheet Wars: EU Edition
Euro-Office: First version of the open-source web office is here
Europe’s new online Office is here, and the comments are already throwing punches
TLDR: Euro-Office, a new European online office suite, has launched to reduce reliance on Microsoft and Google, starting inside partner platforms like Nextcloud. Commenters instantly pounced on the irony, from privacy complaints about the article site to jokes that even bureaucrat software might beat Microsoft’s current mess.
Europe has launched Euro-Office, a new open-source online office tool meant to help companies and governments write documents, build spreadsheets, and make presentations without leaning on Microsoft Office or Google Docs. On paper, it’s a big sovereignty play: keep work in European hands, plug it into services like Nextcloud, and eventually add full support for open formats and mobile apps. But in the comments, the rollout instantly turned into a glorious mix of side-eye, confusion, and meme energy.
The loudest reaction? Pure irony overload. One commenter mocked the article site itself for demanding users accept data collection or pay, which felt hilariously off-message for a story about digital independence. Another zeroed in on the project’s roots as a fork of OnlyOffice and called out the geopolitical weirdness: despite all the political chest-thumping, they argued, open-source code means European and Russian developers can still end up benefiting from each other’s work. That hot take gave the thread its biggest "wait... wow" moment.
Then came the comedy relief. One user declared Euro-Office "can’t possibly be a worse user experience" than today’s bloated Microsoft Copilot Teams Office 365 mess, basically saying, sure, let the eurocrats cook. Others were less spicy and more puzzled, asking what it actually means if the software isn’t really meant to be used on its own but inside partner platforms like Nextcloud and Ionos. So yes, Euro-Office launched as a serious bid for independence — but the crowd immediately turned it into a referendum on privacy hypocrisy, open-source politics, and whether anything could be worse than modern Microsoft.
Key Points
- •Nextcloud and Ionos announced the first stable release of Euro-Office, an open-source web office suite for collaborative editing.
- •The initial release focuses on usability, code cleanup, security updates, and integration into existing partner platforms rather than standalone desktop or mobile apps.
- •Nextcloud Hub 26 Spring is the first announced integration, while Ionos, XWiki, and Office.eu also outlined deployment plans.
- •Euro-Office is a fork of OnlyOffice, chosen by Nextcloud and Ionos over LibreOffice and Collabora because of its more modern architecture and codebase.
- •According to Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek, earlier license-violation allegations from OnlyOffice were resolved after adding source and brand notices.