5 ways Nextcloud beats Microsoft Office: Your modern, sovereign alternative to Microsoft Office

Are you getting tired of random price increases for your online collaboration suite? With a new round of price hikes by Microsoft for their commercial Office suites, more and more organizations are investigating other options, such as Nextcloud’s digitally sovereign platform. As Nextcloud offers a full office collaboration suite and a range of extra benefits, it might be the right time to look for a Microsoft alternative and make the switch.

1. Full data control: You own your data at all times

Do you actually know where your data is stored with Microsoft Office?

From photos to sensitive documents: with data centers worldwide, it is hard to track where Office saves your information and how it’s being used. Nextcloud’s transparent approach is fundamentally different

With Nextcloud, you self-host your data, or you work with a local provider you can trust, for complete data security. You decide:

• Where your data is hosted (on-premises or with a trusted provider)
• Who operates the infrastructure
• Which access policies apply

This type of data control goes beyond knowing the location of your data. It entails full data and access control, a critical measure for organizations handling sensitive or regulated information.

2. Full compliance, no legal uncertainty

In times of geopolitical uncertainty, legal compliance for your data can be hard to guarantee. US-based providers such as Microsoft remain subject to US legislation, regardless of where data is physically stored. This compliance issue was again highlighted during a Senate inquiry with a Microsoft executive.

With Nextcloud, there are no US providers involved. As you are in full control of your data hosting, Nextcloud offers better governance and fewer legal uncertainties. In other words, your organization’s risks are reduced greatly in an increasingly complex regulatory environment.

3. Ease of use: A modular yet flexible ecosystem

Making your digital workspace work for you can be hard when you are tied to one vendor. How can you get that personalized approach when Office pushes its own apps onto you?

With Nextcloud, you get access to a modular yet unified platform.

Choose which apps work for you, from Nextcloud Forms to Nextcloud Documents, Collectives, Tables, or more, and start setting up your own workspace. Or, have Nextcloud integrate seamlessly with your existing infrastructure. This allows your team to, for example, work with their familiar SharePoint app within Nextcloud.

4. Open source transparency at enterprise scale

Got a great idea for a new feature for your office suite? While Microsoft might work has a top-down approach, where features are decided on by the Microsoft team, Nextcloud allows for full input. As an open source company, anyone can go on GitHub and share ideas for features or do a pull request to work on exciting app enhancements. This level of participation guarantees roadmap stability and visibility. What’s more, our code isn’t hidden in a vault in Switzerland: it’s freely accessible to be audited, so you have full peace of mind.

5. Freedom from vendor lock-in

Proprietary platforms have a tendency to lock their customers into their ecosystem, making them depend on their infrastructure and support systems. This vendor lock-in approach can cause a range of control issues.

• End of support announcements: With a sudden statement, you get informed that there will be no more updates or bug fixes to your setup.
• Price hikes: Your ecosystem is completely dependent on a subscription plan, the pricing of which can change suddenly and drastically.

So, why not go for a different strategy for your digital workspace?

With Nextcloud, your organization can set up an Enterprise-ready setup without the lock-in downsides: Optimized and tested for mission-critical deployment, while ensuring true digital sovereignty with full security compliance.

Bonus: AI governance with Nextcloud’s AI solution

These days, there is no escaping the rise of AI and its impact on your organization. Have you considered how your office suite has set up its AI model and what implications it has for your organization?

Some considerations include:

• Your organization’s data might be used to train an AI system. The recent name change of Microsoft 365 (Office) to Microsoft 365 Copilot indicates that they might want to access even more sensitive data to train their AI, as does a recent quote from an interview:

• While AI is an exciting tool, it can often be overhyped and underdeliver. Is your AI delivering on its promises? In the case of Microsoft Copilot, there are some doubts about recent big claims.
• Has Copilot been silently enabled on your systems as well? Or are you being pushed onto a more expensive Copilot plan, even though you are not looking to use AI? As companies are rolling out new AI tools, they don’t always take into account their users’ permissions or needs.

At Nextcloud, we have a completely different approach to AI, based on consent, data control, and transparency. This includes clear guidance to users where AI is used, allowing opt-in and opt-out, and healthy, ethical use of AI that supports digital sovereignty.