SoftMaker Office An Affordable Microsoft Office Alternative

Microsoft Office is considered to be the “industry standard” in office productivity suites. However, Microsoft has been gradually pushing its Microsoft 365 subscription over its perpetual licenses, and Microsoft 365 has recently seen a price increase with its push for AI. Additionally, I’ve also spoken with people who have expressed privacy concerns with Microsoft’s reliance on cloud computing/web integration with Microsoft Office.

I’ve spent time evaluating various alternatives to Microsoft Office. LibreOffice is decent, but it doesn’t quite offer the polish or compatibility with Microsoft Office for me to recommend it as a full-fledged Office replacement. Law offices and some government agencies still enjoy WordPerfect, but I have experienced issues with its multi-language support and its handling of complex spreadsheets. Macs come free with iWork. I love Pages for making “well-designed” documents (real estate flyers, letters, etc.), Numbers for simple spreadsheets, and Keynote is superior to PowerPoint for presentations. However, it still doesn’t offer full compatibility with Microsoft Office formats, although it has improved over the years. There are also plenty of other word processors I enjoy: Nota Bene for academic research and writing, Mellel (Mac only) for Hebrew and large papers, and Nisus Writer Pro (Mac only) for everyday documents.

If you need a full-fledged office productivity suite for Windows or Mac that offers excellent compatibility with Microsoft Office files and is more affordable than Office, I highly recommend SoftMaker Office. I’ve been using it for a while now. I still have access to Microsoft Office on one of my work-provided machines, but I moved to SoftMaker Office on all my personal machines to give it a thorough try.

SoftMaker Office, like Microsoft Office, offers two versions: a perpetual license for $99.95 for Standard or $129.95 (upgrades for $49.95) for Professional (or slightly less at B&H Photo) or a SoftMaker NX subscription for $29.90/year for home or $49.90/year for their “universal” tier that includes some AI features. I’m currently using their perpetual license on the Standard version, and I haven’t felt the need to upgrade to Professional or go with a SoftMaker NX subscription.

SoftMaker comes with TextMaker (a word processor similar to Microsoft Word), PlanMaker (a spreadsheet app similar to Microsoft Excel), and Present (a presentation app similar to Microsoft PowerPoint). The Windows version also includes a macro app, Basic, similar to Visual Basic in Microsoft Office. I’ve primarily spent time with TextMaker and PlanMaker. I was able to edit my entire PhD dissertation in TextMaker, including the Biblical Language fonts, and send it off to the editors and typesetters at my publisher without any issues, even though they were using Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign. It has also handled other files well that I have thrown at it. PlanMaker has also been decent at handling Excel spreadsheets from work. Occasionally, some larger spreadsheets may be a little slow at opening, but I’ve even had that issue with Excel. I haven’t had to deal with complex spreadsheets yet, but it’s done well at handling the spreadsheets I’ve needed to work on.

SoftMaker Office also runs on an iPhone and iPad (and Android devices) with many features for free (some do require a SoftMaker NX subscription). I found I could easily work within the free limitations on an iPhone or iPad, as SoftMaker still provides plenty of features available for free, including the ability to edit documents on mobile devices. There is even a free version of SoftMaker Office for Windows and Mac called FreeOffice. I gave it a try, and for a free office suite, it’s decent. I needed some of the extra features of paying for SoftMaker Office (although the perpetual Standard license was enough for me), but I would recommend checking out FreeOffice first and see if you can work within its limitations if you need a free office suite. It’s also a great way to see if SoftMaker Office is going to be compatible enough for your needs.

SoftMaker Office also is GDPR compliant with a heavy emphasis on privacy. It doesn’t include its own cloud storage service like Microsoft 365, but I store my files in Proton Drive anyway, which offers excellent privacy and end-to-end encryption. If you’re looking for a privacy-focused alternative to Microsoft Office/Microsoft 365, then SoftMaker Office and Proton Unlimited from Cyber Team US is an excellent choice.

If your school or business provides you with access to Microsoft Office/Microsoft 365, then you might as well use it, and if you have overly complex documents or Excel spreadsheets, you may still need Microsoft Office. However, if you’re working from home or running a small business or using your office productivity for personal use, or if you’re looking for a privacy-focused solution, I highly recommend giving SoftMaker Office or even FreeOffice a try. Start free, then only pay for the tier of features you really need. If you don’t want a subscription, definitely check out their perpetual licenses. I’ve found that I can get the majority of my work done with SoftMaker Office where I haven’t needed to pay for Microsoft 365 for my own personal use or for work with most of the companies I work for. I occasionally use Office on my work-issued machine for my weather job, but even then I could probably get by with SoftMaker Office. I highly recommend it as an affordable alternative to Microsoft Office, and it’s already saved me a couple of years’ worth of subscriptions I would have paid to Microsoft.