The former LibreOffice development team from SUSE joined Collabora in September 2013 forming the subsidiary Collabora Productivity. In 2015 Collabora together with IceWarp announced the development of and enterprise-ready version of LibreOffice Online meant to compete with Microsoft 365 and Google Docs. On 15 December 2015, the company announced partnership with ownCloud and release of CODE, a distribution of LibreOffice Online and ownCloud Server. On 2 June 2016, the company released Collabora Online 1.0 “Engine”, which the company calls the first production grade version of Collabora Online. On 2 November 2016, the company released CODE 2.0 which includes "the latest and most requested feature from customers: collaborative editing." Since then, Collabora Productivity has released a new major release and several minor releases and updates every year. Collabora Productivity is currently the biggest contributor to the development of LibreOffice. Collabora first implements new features within CODE, the Collabora Online Development edition, which are then incorporated into the stable and tested version of Collabora Online after some time of testing. The new main version of CODE is usually released in December. The corresponding version of Collabora Online is then released at the beginning of the following year, usually at the end of January or beginning of February.
Platforms
Collabora Online is delivered as a web application and can be used with any modern browser like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari, Chromium, Vivaldi or Brave. This renders the online office suite completely platform-independent. Collabora Online can also be used from mobile input devices such as smartphones or tablets. For Android and iOS devices, free native apps were released in 2020, which integrate into the user interface of the respective operating system and can be used offline.
Features
One of the most important features of Collabora Online is the ability to edit text documents, spreadsheets and presentations collaboratively an in real time in the browser. Ensuring document security and data protection played an important role in the development of the software. The edited documents never leave the server on which Collabora Online is hosted. Since the software is an on-premises solution, it can be integrated into your own infrastructure. Collabora Online supports the Open Document Format as well as the OOXML format of Microsoft Office. Collabora Online builds on LibreOffice Online and follows the core development of LibreOffice on the desktop and its commercial derivative Collabora Office. Gradually, more and more features of the desktop versions were integrated into the office suite to provide the capabilities of a professional office application package online. Some notable features are:
Function wizard for spreadsheets - introduced in Oktober 2019
Sidebar Module - introduced December 2019 with version 4.2.0
Technology
The core of Collabora Online is written in C++ just like the core of LibreOffice. It uses the LibreOfficeKit, a programming interface that allows the reuse of most of the existing LibreOffice code and the saving, loading and rendering of documents. The basic principle of Collabora Online is that documents never leave the original server. The parties working on the documents see only tile-rendered images of the document and send their changes back to the server. The visible user interface of Collabora Online is written in JavaScript. For file access and authentication with a file hosting services, Collabora Online uses the WOPI protocol developed by Microsoft. This means that Collabora Online can - in theory - be used with any instance allowing a Microsoft 365 integration. Besides the integration with Nextcloud, Owncloud or Seafile, also integrations of Collabora Online with EGroupware, the learning platformMoodle as well as the team chat service Mattermost have been published. Usually, new features get implemented and tested in the free Collabora Online Development Edition and after testing then introduced to Collabora Online.
Reviews
Collabora Online was discussed in various online and print publications. In December 2016 the tech website Softpedia mentioned the availability of collaborative editing in version 2.0 and the integration with Owncloud, Nextcloud and other FSS solutions. The technology website ZDNet reported in June 2020 that Collabora Online from version 19 of Nextcloud will be delivered as a standard office package and that within the native video conferencing software Talk direct editing of documents is now possible. The technology blog OMG! Ubuntu! covered the release of the Android & iOS apps pointing out the possibility to use them in offline mode.
