4 free apps I’d use before paying for Microsoft 365 again – Charm

Microsoft 365 is a good subscription, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But $100 a year for the Personal tier is a hard sell for anyone who’s on a tight budget or simply doesn’t use everything it offers. The good news is that you’re not out of options. There are plenty of free alternatives that can fill the gap, and they’re good enough that you won’t miss Microsoft 365 at all.

LibreOffice can cover all your document needs

A full Office suite that works offline

LibreOffice has been around long enough that anyone who’s ever looked for Office alternatives probably already knows about it. It’s a full suite with a word processor, spreadsheet tool, and a presentation maker that costs exactly nothing. Yes, that’s the big appeal, but not the only one.

Writer is a Word alternative for documents, and it has everything you’ll ever need to create tables, format pages, or even track changes. Calc is for anyone who wants to crunch numbers and work with formulas. Impress is a PowerPoint alternative for creating presentations. There’s also LibreOffice Draw, which is technically for vector graphics, but I personally find it more useful as a PDF editor.

LibreOffice is also open-source and works completely offline. It’s not for everyone, though. The biggest catch is cloud integration, or rather the lack of it. If you love switching between devices or want to collaborate on something with your teammates in real time, it’ll frustrate you fast. The mobile situation isn’t great either. You only get LibreOffice Viewer, which does little beyond letting you read documents. But yes, if all you want to do is work on documents on your PC for personal use, LibreOffice is a no-brainer.

OS: Linux, Android, Windows, macOS
Developer: LibreOffice
Price model: Free (open-source)

The primary open-source alternative for offline work. LibreOffice handles complex, long-form documents and massive spreadsheets without requiring an internet connection or a cloud login.

Google Workspace is hard to beat for collaboration

Real-time collaboration without the Microsoft tax

LibreOffice is a great offline-friendly Office alternative, but if you need something that syncs over the cloud and offers real-time collaboration tools, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are hard to beat. They all run entirely in the browser, so there’s nothing to install. You can open them on a Windows, Mac, Chromebook, or even a Linux computer, and the experience will be the same.

Docs handles your writing and formatting needs, Sheets take care of spreadsheets, and Slides cover presentations. I’ll be honest, none of them are as feature-rich as their Microsoft 365 counterparts, but that’s part of the appeal. They offer almost everything you need and nothing you don’t. I’ve written enough articles, built invoices, and put together decks without ever missing any feature from Office.

The mobile apps are solid too. Unlike LibreOffice, you can actually pick up your phone or tablet and edit documents without it feeling like a compromise. And while it’s a cloud-based platform, you can make it work offline too.

OS: Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, Linux, Android, iOS
Developer(s): Google
Price model: Free

Google Workspace is a cloud-based productivity platform that brings together tools like Gmail, Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, and Calendar. It’s designed for both individuals and businesses to create, collaborate, and communicate in real time. Everything is connected through your Google account, so your files, emails, and conversations stay synced across devices and are easily accessible from anywhere.

Thunderbird is everything I want in an email client

Ad-free Outlook alternative

Outlook is a major part of the Microsoft 365 subscription, but there’s an open-source alternative that’s free and just as good. Thunderbird is developed by Mozilla Foundation, the same people behind Firefox. It works with Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and pretty much any email provider that supports IMAP or POP3. There’s a built-in calendar too, much like Outlook.

My favorite thing about Thunderbird is the unified inbox that pulls emails from all the email accounts in one place. And the app isn’t barebones either. You get customization options, search tools, spam filters, a multi-tab interface, and support for keyboard shortcuts.

You can make Thunderbird even better with add-ons, so if there’s something the base app doesn’t do out of the box, there’s a good chance someone’s already built a fix for it. Thunderbird is also available on mobile, and it’s just as good there. The only thing is that it’s not available on iOS yet, but it’s in the works.

OS: Android, Windows, Linux & Mac
Developer: MZLA Technologies Corporation
Price model: Free (open-source)

A free, open-source desktop email client that stores your mail locally and works even when the web doesn’t.

Google Drive is a better cloud storage

15GB and a better deal on paid plans too

Google Drive app viewed through a magnifying glass on a Windows desktop — Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOf

I know what you’re thinking — Google Drive isn’t exactly free. But if you’re planning to ditch Microsoft 365, you’ll miss out on OneDrive too since you can’t buy it separately. Thankfully, there’s no need because Google Drive is a genuinely good alternative, and its free tier gives you 15GB right off the bat. That’s three times what OneDrive offers for free.

Even on paid plans, Google Drive comes ahead. Google One’s Premium tier gets you 2TB of storage for $99.99 a year, while Microsoft 365 Personal offers half the storage for the same price. To be fair, Microsoft bundles Office apps in the same subscription, but 1TB is a lot of storage to give up.

The biggest win, though, is Google Photos, which doesn’t need any introduction really. It’s available on Android, iOS, and the web and is way better than OneDrive. And you can even add Google Drive to File Explorer to manage your cloud files without opening the browser.