For Windows users and IT admins, ONLYOFFICE has long been one of the more credible alternatives to Microsoft Office, especially where people care about DOCX/XLSX/PPTX compatibility or self-hosting. Version 10.0 pushes it into the same AI fight that Microsoft is having with Copilot, but with a different pitch: you pick the AI model, and you can keep it on your own servers.
Where 10.0 fits
This is a big version jump, not a point release. Before today, Wikipedia listed the stable release as 9.4.0 / 19 May 2026. The suite is described as a platform that provides editors for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDFs, and the desktop client uses the Chromium Embedded Framework.
The release had been coming for a while. WindowsForum reported last week that ONLYOFFICE's September 10 preview listed four reworked apps, about 50 new features, at least seven user-requested features, around 1,000 bug fixes, more than 30 security enhancements, new AI providers and new format support. At that point the company said the final figures were not yet in. The final numbers roughly match the preview: about 50 features, more than 1,000 fixes, and 35 vulnerabilities patched, up from the "more than 30 security enhancements" in the preview.
Section summary: 10.0 follows 9.4.0 from May, and the shipped figures line up with what the vendor promised in September.
AI in every editor
The main change is that ONLYOFFICE 10.0 puts context-aware AI inside the document, spreadsheet, presentation, and PDF editors. A dedicated AI tab with built-in chat lets teams draft, summarize, translate, clean and format without leaving the file or copying content into a separate tool.
The company's own examples are that legal teams can summarize contracts, analysts can generate forecasts or pivot tables, and managers can turn ideas into structured presentations. These are vendor scenarios, not benchmarks. Nobody has yet tested how accurate the Pivot Tables are or how good the contract summaries are, and that depends heavily on which model you connect. The announcement also lists ready-made prompts, custom AI actions, assistants and saved prompts for repeated tasks.
ONLYOFFICE's own GitHub roadmap for Document Server 10.0 backs this up with plainer wording. It lists AI plugin support for document, spreadsheet, presentation and PDF content, plus support for MCP and web search. The roadmap says it is a plan that may change, so it confirms what was intended rather than proving every detail shipped.
Model choice
This is where ONLYOFFICE differs most from Microsoft 365 Copilot. According to the announcement:
- Cloud users can turn on ONLYOFFICE AI through OpenRouter.
- Server deployments can connect any model, including local ones.
- Organizations choose models based on quality, speed and cost.
The release also states that sensitive data remains within infrastructure. Read that claim carefully. It only holds if you actually run a local or self-hosted model. Connect a self-hosted ONLYOFFICE server to a commercial cloud API and your prompts and document content go to that provider. The announcement doesn't describe data flows or configurations, so treat "your data stays home" as something your setup has to make true, not something the product guarantees.
Some history helps here. ONLYOFFICE's July 2026 anniversary blog post already said its AI features supported providers including OpenAI, Mistral, Anthropic, Google Gemini, xAI, Ollama, DeepSeek, Together AI and Groq, and that users could connect local models. So bring-your-own-model isn't new in 10.0. What's new is AI that works with the content of the open document across all four editors, plus the new AI tab and chat.
Section summary: AI now lives in every editor and can use the open document as context. The privacy benefit only applies if you host the model yourself.
Four new Apps
The release introduces four free Apps that extend ONLYOFFICE Docs (under AGPL v3).
| App | What ONLYOFFICE says it does |
|---|---|
| AI Agents | Automate the workspace, with intelligent search, personalized knowledge base, extended reasoning, powered by MCP servers |
| Forms | Streamlines data collection and analyze responses |
| Files | Centralizes document storage with access controls |
| Rooms | Supports secure collaboration, including Virtual Data Rooms for confidential content |
How you get them depends on deployment. In the cloud, the Apps are on by default. On servers, a single command installs them. The announcement doesn't give that command, the server prerequisites, or whether every App works in every edition. Self-hosting admins should check the official installation documentation before planning a rollout. Don't treat "one command" as a promise of zero side effects on a production server.
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the open standard many AI tools now use to connect to outside data and services. ONLYOFFICE building its agents on it is a reasonable bet, since the same plumbing increasingly shows up across the industry, including Microsoft's developer and Copilot tooling.
Section summary: Four free Apps (AI Agents, Forms, Files and Rooms) are on by default in the cloud and installed by command on servers. Check the deployment details before you count on them.
Editor changes
Beyond AI, there's plenty for people who just want to edit files:
- PDF Editor: metadata removal, customizable annotations, automatic table recognition, and reusable signatures. Metadata removal matters for anyone who has accidentally sent a PDF with an author name or internal file path in it.
- Document Editor: co-authors can follow each other's cursor in real time, new "Keep with next" keeps related content together, and RTL support is more reliable.
- Spreadsheet Editor: Spreadsheets run faster, with optimized functions, formula hints and an animated copy marquee. If you've used Excel, you know the marquee as the "marching ants" border around copied cells.
- Presentation Editor: Presentations gain new view modes and extended print settings, GIF or video export for slides. The GitHub roadmap names the planned display modes as outline, sorter, notes page, handout master and notes master, which will sound familiar to PowerPoint users.
Format support grows too. The suite can now open .ofd files, save spreadsheets as legacy .xls, convert SVGs into editable shapes, and add Data Tables to charts. Saving to .xls is useful in mixed environments where an old line-of-business app or a partner still insists on the pre-2007 Excel format. A redesigned Plugin Manager adds Antidote and Curly plugins plus a Salesforce plugin. The announcement's wording about the Salesforce plugin is unclear, so check its exact scope before relying on it.
Section summary: Practical improvements across all four editors, with PDF privacy tools, Office-style presentation views and .xls saving standing out for Windows shops.
Security: 35 fixes, few details
The announcement says security improvements resolve 35 vulnerabilities, and presents this as protection for organizations handling sensitive data. That's a meaningful number. What's missing is just as important: no CVE identifiers, no severity ratings, no affected version ranges, and nothing on whether any of the flaws were exploited in the wild.
So don't read this as "35 critical holes." Do treat it as a solid reason to upgrade, especially for internet-facing Document Server instances, which have the most attack surface. Before you write a risk assessment, check ONLYOFFICE's official changelog and security advisories for specifics.
Desktop and mobile
On the desktop side, which covers Windows, macOS and Linux, the Desktop Editors get a refreshed homepage, redesigned Templates and Clouds sections, Odoo integration, and visual improvements on Linux. In Desktop Community, AI tools are an optional add-on, not built in. That will suit anyone who wants a free Word alternative without an AI tab staring at them.
The free iOS and Android apps get an AI assistant with new providers including Grok and DeepSeek, AI AutoFill for forms, and voice input. The announcement doesn't give minimum OS versions or say whether the mobile AI features need your own provider keys.
What admins should do
- Self-hosted Document Server: plan an upgrade, mainly for the 35 security fixes. Test in staging first, because 10.0 is a major version with a lot of changes.
- Before turning on AI, decide where the model runs. If data sovereignty is the reason you chose ONLYOFFICE, connect a local model. If you use a cloud provider, document that data leaves your environment.
- Treat the Apps as a separate rollout. Read the install documentation before running the one-command installer on production.
- Desktop Community users: the AI add-on is opt-in, so you can update for the fixes and skip the AI.
- Test file fidelity. Open your own complex DOCX, XLSX and PPTX files in the new build before deploying it widely, as you would with any major release.
The bigger picture
The timing makes sense. Microsoft is pushing Copilot deeper into Microsoft 365, and ONLYOFFICE is betting that some organizations want the same in-document AI without being tied to one AI vendor. The model-choice approach is the strongest part of the pitch. It's also the part that depends most on your configuration.
There are fair caveats. Almost all the detail here comes from the vendor's own announcement, including the "sensitive data remains within infrastructure" claim and the AI use cases. Its company boilerplate claims more than 21 million users, which hasn't been independently verified. AI quality will depend on whichever model you plug in, and the security section is short on detail.
Still, a major release with 35 security fixes, Office-style presentation views, .xls export and a self-hostable AI layer is a real update. Whether it makes you rethink your Microsoft 365 licensing, or just gives you a better fallback for the users who never needed Copilot, is up to you.