Office for Nextcloud: Euro-Office, Collabora Online and ONLYOFFICE Docs Compared, with the Licence Dispute

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Nextcloud does not edit office documents itself but through a connected office server. The choices are Euro-Office (since Nextcloud Hub 26 Spring), Collabora Online and the ONLYOFFICE app. This comparison summarises licences, editions, prices, formats, operation and the licence dispute around Euro-Office with sources. Statements by a party to the dispute are marked as such, and we make no legal assessment. As of: 10 November 2026.

Table of contents

• In brief
• How do Euro-Office, Collabora Online and ONLYOFFICE Docs differ at a glance?
• What is Euro-Office, and who is behind it?
• What is the licence dispute between ONLYOFFICE and Euro-Office about?
• What applies to the ONLYOFFICE app in Nextcloud?
• Which licence and editions do the components have?
• What do the office components cost?
• ODF or OOXML: which formats do the editors handle?
• What does the Deutschland-Stack require for document formats?
• What does the choice mean for operation, updates and security?
• Which misconceptions are common?
• Status and methodology
• Our approach at WZ-IT
• Further guides
• Sources

In brief

The assignment is our assessment based on the differences documented below, not a vendor statement.

How do Euro-Office, Collabora Online and ONLYOFFICE Docs differ at a glance?

The version numbers belong to different edition classes and are not a comparison of supported enterprise releases. The statements on processing are vendor descriptions without a comparative measurement. Whether documents leave the server also depends on the configuration, for example download restrictions and Secure View.

What is Euro-Office, and who is behind it?

According to its own project description, Euro-Office is built on the open-source AGPL code of ONLYOFFICE. The ATTRIBUTION file names Ascensio System SIA as the original developer. The project page lists Abilian, BTactic, EuroStack, IONOS, Nextcloud, Office.EU, Open-Xchange, OpenProject, Proton, Soverin, Tuta and XWiki as supporters. According to the project page, governance is being set up, and until then "who codes, decides" applies.

The reasoning for the fork comes from the Euro-Office project (project page) and is a statement by a party that we have not verified. According to the project, contributing to ONLYOFFICE is hardly possible and build instructions are unreliable, features of the mobile apps such as editing are locked and an administrator panel has been removed. The project also gives reasons concerning the corporate origin of ONLYOFFICE, which we do not reproduce here.

Euro-Office comes in two builds from the same source code: Nextcloud Office with signed desktop packages for Windows and macOS, package repositories and tested Nextcloud integration, and Euro-Office as community builds whose desktop packages are not signed. The documentation does not recommend the Euro-Office builds for regulated environments or managed device rollouts.

What is the licence dispute between ONLYOFFICE and Euro-Office about?

ONLYOFFICE distributes its code under the AGPL v3 with additional terms. On 27 March 2026 Euro-Office removed parts of these from the source headers. According to the commit text, which Nextcloud also reproduces, this concerned the logo clause (section 7(b)), the trademark clause (7(e)), the postal address of Ascensio System SIA and a note on the Appropriate Legal Notices. The warranty disclaimer under 7(a) and the CC BY-SA 4.0 notice for GUI elements were kept. ONLYOFFICE, by contrast, writes that Euro-Office removed "all references to our brand/attribute as required by our license" (CEO interview) and sees a licence violation in this. The counter-positions of Nextcloud, IONOS and the FSF are in the table below. We found no court clarification. This section reproduces the positions and is not legal advice.

The licence text

The positions

Timeline

Status in November 2026

According to the source code (GitHub, retrieved 10 November 2026), Euro-Office contains an About dialog with the text "Euro-Office is a modified version of ONLYOFFICE, originally developed by Ascensio System SIA", a note that the version has been modified since 15 March 2026, and a reference to AGPL-3.0-only (about.json). We do not assess whether this satisfies all additional terms of ONLYOFFICE, nor the implementation of the Nextcloud announcement of 18 August 2026. We found no court proceedings, no settlement and no public response from ONLYOFFICE to the Nextcloud update of 18 August 2026.

What this means for operators (assessment)

The subject of the documented dispute is licence and attribution terms. That says nothing on whether distribution, updates or operation are affected. In our assessment, operators should record where their packages come from (Nextcloud Office builds or community builds), archive the licence texts of the version in use and follow developments. According to Nextcloud the integration can be switched: in Nextcloud AIO the two office options can be toggled.

What applies to the ONLYOFFICE app in Nextcloud?

ONLYOFFICE writes that the suspension concerns only the partnership with Nextcloud, that "ongoing services" are unaffected, and that it will "support and develop the ONLYOFFICE connector for Nextcloud" (ONLYOFFICE, 31 Mar 2026). The connector needs a reachable ONLYOFFICE Document Server, self-operated or as Docs Cloud (README). Version 10.2.1 is published in the App Store with declared compatibility for Nextcloud 33 to 35, and we did not run a functional test. These apps are published there:

The administration manual names two solutions: Nextcloud Office (powered by Euro-Office) as the "default office solution" and Collabora Online as a "fully supported alternative". The page nextcloud.com/office additionally lists Thinkfree Office. ONLYOFFICE is not listed as a selectable solution in either, the app is an offering of Ascensio System SIA.

Which licence and editions do the components have?

According to the vendor, the feature limits of ONLYOFFICE Community lie in the admin panel, cluster operation and mobile web editors, which the vendor comparisons list for Enterprise and Developer, not Community (we did not check further plans such as Home). The vendor page gives no numeric limits for CODE. According to a reply in the Collabora forum of 10 September 2026 on CODE 26.04.2.4, the default mode has no document or connection limit, and the welcome screen and feedback dialog then cannot be switched off. An optional Home Mode disables both and limits use to 20 concurrent connections and 10 concurrently open documents. We did not check this for other versions.

What do the office components cost?

The Collabora page states neither net nor gross prices and no billing interval. The English ONLYOFFICE page shows the amounts in US dollars, the German page the same figures in euros. The arithmetic lower bound for Enterprise results from 50 connections at 33 US dollars, which is 1,650 US dollars per year, derived from the advertised figures. A concrete entry price is not confirmed.

ODF or OOXML: which formats do the editors handle?

The Nextcloud ratings come from the platform vendor and are not a measurement. Further functions according to the vendor pages:

Tests with real files remain necessary: templates with fields, spreadsheets with formulas and macros, presentations with master slides. This recommendation is our assessment. That an editor supports macros says nothing about whether existing macros will run.

What does the Deutschland-Stack require for document formats?

On 18 March 2026, in its 49th meeting (B-2026/03-IT), the IT Planning Council decided to adopt the standards shown in the annex "Standards" "as the binding basis for solutions of the Deutschland-Stack" (our translation, decision). In the technology field "Semantische Technologien" (semantic technologies) the annex lists, among others, "Open-Document Format (ODF), Portable Document Format Universal Accessibility (PDF/UA)", and the overall picture names them "as document formats" (our translation). 2028 stands there for something else: "By 2028, concrete offers are to be provided for the federal government, the states and municipalities" (our translation).

We found, in the two decision annexes, neither an ODF deadline "from 2028", nor a ban on OOXML, nor wording that ODF is the only permitted format. In our assessment, ODF capability becomes a selection criterion for public bodies that follow the Deutschland-Stack.

What does the choice mean for operation, updates and security?

The statements on security reports are not a security comparison: published advisories of an organisation and the fixed defects of a product version counted by the vendor measure different things. The Nextcloud manual recommends a dedicated Collabora server instead of the Built-in CODE Server for better performance. For Euro-Office, the statement that security fixes are applied to the latest version determines the update rhythm. Our assessment: app version, Nextcloud version and office server are planned together and tested with representative documents before being applied.

Which misconceptions are common?

Status and methodology

As of: 10 November 2026. The basis is licence files, changelogs, release pages, pricing pages, the Nextcloud App Store (via API) and GitHub (via API), retrieved on 10 November 2026, each linked in the text. The ratings on ODF and performance and the statements on processing on the client or the server come from vendors and are not a measurement. The search for court proceedings or a settlement on 10 November 2026 consisted of German and English web searches on Euro-Office, ONLYOFFICE, lawsuit, court and settlement, plus a review of the blogs of ONLYOFFICE and Nextcloud and of the GitHub organisations. The date of CODE 26.04.6.1 comes from the release notes (retrieved 10 November 2026). "Not found" means we did not find something in the stated source, not that it is absent. Open points: court proceedings or a settlement between ONLYOFFICE and Euro-Office, a response from ONLYOFFICE to the Nextcloud update of 18 August 2026, an IONOS primary source, hardware requirements for own Collabora servers (the README of the Built-in CODE Server gives values, the SDK sizing page could not be evaluated because of bot protection), and whether the CODE limits from the forum apply to versions other than 26.04.2.4, and whether the Euro-Office About dialog satisfies all additional terms of ONLYOFFICE. Prices are vendor list prices without information on taxes. We mark our own assessments as such. Later changes are not included.

Our approach at WZ-IT

For Nextcloud we operate the platform with migration, SSO, office, backups, monitoring and upgrades. For Collabora Online we handle deployment, TLS, resource limits, monitoring and controlled updates as well as the WOPI connection to the platform. We test representative files; layout, macros and practical usability are assessed by the customer. We operate ONLYOFFICE Docs in the edition licensed under AGPL-3.0. The Enterprise and Developer editions are not part of the offering, and we support the purchase of a vendor licence on request.

The Collaboration and office package combines Nextcloud, Collabora Online CODE and an identity service. On office, the package page states: CODE is the development edition and ships as a rolling release without vendor support and without Long Term Support, and the supported edition is a separate subscription product from the vendor and is not part of the estimate. In the Collaboration selection, demo instances of Collabora Online and ONLYOFFICE Docs are provided, and we check editions, licence costs and the limits of the free editions according to vendor information. In the package we check every version of Collabora, the Nextcloud app and Nextcloud for compatibility before it is applied. Monitoring runs 24/7, and P1 incidents are handled according to the service level. More on ongoing operation: Managed Operations and CVE monitoring.

Are you weighing Euro-Office, Collabora Online and ONLYOFFICE Docs for your Nextcloud? We discuss formats, licence limits, updates and operation with you. View Nextcloud operations · View Collaboration selection · Book an intro call (free and non-binding)

Further guides

• Self-Hosted Microsoft 365 Alternative for Businesses: Which Open-Source Building Blocks Replace Files, Office, Chat, Video and Mail
• Nextcloud 35 Upgrade: Path from 32, PHP and Database Requirements
• Nextcloud, Seafile, OpenCloud or ownCloud: who owns your file storage
• Nextcloud vs. SharePoint: Comparison for Businesses and Public Sector, with Costs, Data Protection and Migration
• Nextcloud Built-in CODE Server: Unauthenticated Command Injection (CVE-2026-110447), Update to 26.4.303 or Remove the App
• Nextcloud Managed Hosting

Sources

• Nextcloud: press release on the launch of Euro-Office (27 Mar 2026)
• Nextcloud: Euro-Office, general availability set for June 9
• Nextcloud: Hub 26 Spring
• Nextcloud: Hub 26 Summer
• Nextcloud: Freedom of choice in Nextcloud Office
• Nextcloud: Euro-Office, License compliance and what open source means (statement by a party)
• Nextcloud Office powered by Euro-Office
• Nextcloud: Collabora Online
• Nextcloud: Pricing
• Nextcloud administration manual: Office
• Nextcloud administration manual: installing Euro-Office
• Nextcloud administration manual: configuring Euro-Office
• Nextcloud administration manual: installing Collabora
• Nextcloud administration manual: configuring Collabora
• Nextcloud App Store: Nextcloud Office (eurooffice)
• Nextcloud App Store: Nextcloud Office (Collabora, richdocuments)
• Nextcloud App Store: Built-in CODE Server (richdocumentscode)
• Nextcloud App Store: ONLYOFFICE
• Euro-Office: project page (GitHub organisation)
• Euro-Office DocumentServer: LICENSE
• Euro-Office DocumentServer: ATTRIBUTION
• Euro-Office DocumentServer: SECURITY.md
• Euro-Office DocumentServer: releases
• Euro-Office DesktopEditors: releases
• Euro-Office: commit removing the additional sections (core)
• Euro-Office: About dialog (about.json)
• Euro-Office documentation: choosing a build
• ONLYOFFICE DocumentServer: LICENSE
• ONLYOFFICE DocumentServer: LICENSE.txt in v9.3.1
• ONLYOFFICE DocumentServer: LICENSE in v9.4.0
• ONLYOFFICE DocumentServer: commit of the LICENSE rewrite (May 2026)
• ONLYOFFICE DocumentServer: commit of the logo clause (2021)
• ONLYOFFICE DocumentServer: changelog
• ONLYOFFICE DocumentServer: README
• ONLYOFFICE DocumentServer: releases
• ONLYOFFICE: edition comparison
• ONLYOFFICE: pricing (English, US dollars)
• ONLYOFFICE: pricing (German, euros)
• ONLYOFFICE Help Center: system requirements
• ONLYOFFICE blog: licence violations (30 Mar 2026, statement by a party)
• ONLYOFFICE blog: interview with the CEO (statement by a party)
• ONLYOFFICE blog: partnership with Nextcloud suspended
• ONLYOFFICE blog: open letter to the Euro-Office team (statement by a party)
• ONLYOFFICE blog: guide to licence and trademark policy
• ONLYOFFICE: connector for Nextcloud (GitHub)
• FSF: You cannot use the GNU (A)GPL to take software freedom away (15 Apr 2026)
• heise online: Euro-Office, OnlyOffice accuses of license violations
• Collabora: Development Edition CODE
• Collabora: subscriptions
• Collabora: Collabora Online
• Collabora: CODE 26.04 release notes
• Collabora: blog "A European Office Suite?" (competitor)
• Collabora: comparison with ONLYOFFICE (vendor page of a competitor)
• Collabora forum: CODE 26.04.2.4, user and connection limits (10 Sep 2026)
• Collabora SDK: hardware provisioning (bot protection, not evaluated)
• ONLYOFFICE Help Center: Docker installation
• CollaboraOnline/richdocumentscode: README (system requirements Built-in CODE)
• CollaboraOnline/online.mirror: README
• IT Planning Council: decision B-2026/03-IT, Deutschland-Stack
• IT Planning Council: annex Standards (PDF, German)
• Deutschland-Stack: overall picture (German)
• ONLYOFFICE Help Center: Docs Community Edition Licensing FAQ