Difference between Microsoft Office and Libreoffice

Key Difference: Microsoft Office is a proprietary office suite by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X operating systems . It comprises desktop applications, servers and various services. On the other hand, Libreoffice is also an office suite, but it is developed by the Document Foundation. It is a free and open source suite. Microsoft Office and Libreoffice are similar in the basic functionality, but at the same time they differ in many of the features.

Microsoft Office is an office suite by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X operating systems. It comprises desktop applications, servers and various services. It was introduced in 1990. Most importantly, it includes Word, Access, Excel and PowerPoint applications. Its other desktop applications include Microsoft Access, Microsoft InfoPath, Microsoft Project, etc. Numerous versions of this office suite have been released. It also has a version customized to be used by Android phones, iPhones and Windows phones. Its server applications include Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Lync Server. In context to web services, it offers Office Web Apps, Microsoft Update, etc.

Libreoffice is also an office suite, but it is developed by the Document Foundation. It is a free and open source office suite. It has been developed on the soure code of Microsoft Office 2010, but has been independently developed. It consists of many tools to meet the demands for a word processor to an equation editor. The word processor of this suite is known as LibreOffice Writer. The suite can be easily downloaded from the official website of LibreOffice. To use this software, one needs to have Java Runtime Environment as a prerequisite. LibreOffice 4.1 is already in the market as the current version, and its 4.2 version release has been scheduled for Feb 2014.

Both the Office suits provide the same type of functionalities, however they still differ from each other in many contexts. Some of the features are present in Microsoft Office which are absent in LibreOffice and vice-versa. The biggest advantage of using Libreoffice is that it is free, and therefore one can easily test and use it. On the other hand, many believe that the quality of Microsoft Office is still better than that of the LibreOffice.

Comparison between Microsoft Office and Libreoffice (Based on the recent version):

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