LibreOffice Marks 40th Year With Browser-Based Overhaul

LibreOffice, the open-source office suite that began as StarOffice in 1985, has marked its 40th anniversary with new features that it says could transform how users interact with the software. At the FOSDEM 2025 conference, developers unveiled LibreOffice 25.2, which introduces browser-based functionality and real-time collaboration capabilities through a technology called conflict-free replicated data types.

A key development is ZetaOffice, a version built for the WebAssembly runtime that enables the full office suite to run inside web browsers across operating systems and CPU architectures. The project, which entered public beta last November, allows websites to embed LibreOffice applications with complete user interfaces for editing documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

While the browser-based version currently requires about a gigabyte of code and additional memory to run, developers at Allotropia are working to modularize the codebase for faster loading times. The software, released under the MIT license, can be controlled via JavaScript and operates without requiring an internet connection, unlike Google Docs or LibreOffice's existing Collabora Online version.

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