Conclusions

In practice, the two groupware offerings, EGroupware and OnlyOffice, were particularly successful. Both succeed in adding groupware functions to the office suites almost seamlessly. OnlyOffice is ahead by a narrow margin: The suite looks like an ergonomic all-in-one solution. In addition, the applications are more completely localized in other languages, than those of the duo EGroupware and Collabora.

EGroupware, on the other hand, offers much better documentation in other languages and – together with Collabora – the best support in the test field. In the case of cloud-based services, EGroupware also stands out because the servers run completely in German data centers and users benefit from strict German data protection guidelines.

The purely cloud-based service from Google is also available for slower online access, but only provides basic functions. In addition, it is firmly integrated into the Google universe with non-transparent data protection according to US standards.

One of the drawbacks of all participants is the rather moderate quality of the conversion filters: In EGroupware, Collabora Online sometimes formats incorrectly even simple ODF documents created with OpenOffice. OnlyOffice also sometimes fails on simple ODF documents.

All of the reviewed applications are now functionally mature and fit for productive use (see Table 1). If you want to work cross-platform as part of a team, you will often find that they offer real added value compared to local single-user systems. Nevertheless, a practice-oriented evaluation is recommended before introducing a solution. Otherwise, there may be an additional workload if you have to adapt infrastructure and documents.