8 Best Microsoft Word Alternatives For 2023 (Free & Paid)

Microsoft Word is one of the top word processors and has been the go-to text editor for many for a long time.

However, while its clean interface and easy formatting options attract users looking for seamless document creation, it has some drawbacks. For starters, it comes with a premium price, isn’t compatible with many operating systems, provides no multi-user collaboration capabilities, and is mostly unusable because of its outdated UI. 

Besides, it also requires you to pay for unnecessary features you might not even require, like the AutoSummarize feature. The solution? Finding Microsoft Word alternatives that best fit your requirement. 

This article explores the eight best Microsoft Word alternatives you can try. We discuss their top features, pros, cons, pricing, and platform compatibility so you can make the right choice for your tech stack and scale your content production.

Top 8 Microsoft Word alternatives to improve your content production

If you want to explore text editors beyond Microsoft Word that justify the price, work across several operating systems, and make the writing process much faster and simpler—here are some free and paid Microsoft Word alternatives you can try instead. 

1. Jasper.ai

Jasper is all about speed. It uses the power of artificial intelligence to generate original, plagiarism-free, and SEO-optimized content from scratch in a matter of minutes. So whether you want to write product listings, website copy, long-form SEO blogs, Facebook ads, or sales emails—Jasper delivers creative and well-rounded content five times faster than Microsoft Word. 

It means you no longer need to scratch your brain for hours or let your content timeline suffer because of writer’s block. Instead, Jasper’s AI assistant does the legwork of finding and researching topics and churning original content that attracts the right set of people, thus acting as a time-efficient tool to speed up your content and marketing campaigns. 

Besides, the Jasper AI writing tool comes with 52+ writing templates for your unique content needs so you can instantly start producing content.

Pros 

• Reads and writes content in 25+ languages
• Offers SurferSEO integration to write keyword-optimized content
• Comes with pre-designed “recipes” to share instructions like an SOP or a framework for Jasper to follow and create content like eBooks from scratch

Cons 

• It could be pricier for beginners
• Requires human input for optimal AI operation and needs you to fact-check the content for outdated information and statistics

Pricing 

Starter plan at $49/mo with 35,000 words/mo, Boss Mode at $99/mo with 100,000 words/mo, and Business plan comes at custom pricing. 

Platform 

Japser AI is a web-based online tool highly compatible with major browsers and works on Mac and PC. 

2. Zoho Writer 

Zoho Writer is a web-based text editor with a user-friendly and distraction-free UI. It offers everything you can expect from a traditional processor, like Microsoft Word, and excellent team collaboration capabilities, suitable for the modern workforce. 

Zoho Writer’s minimalist design, user experience, just-the-necessary features, and basic formatting enable you to stay focused on writing. 

It also comes with a smart assistant—Zia, to polish your writing with readability, grammar, and style suggestions. 

Pros 

• Makes collaboration easy, lets you track changes and view the version history, and requires no markup editing
• Requires no manual backup, unlike Microsoft Word—auto-saving your content across all devices
• Allows you to mask or hide pieces of content you don’t want collaborators to see—making it easier to protect sensitive information

Cons 

• Comes with limited space—making it unsuitable for editing large documents after a certain point
• The mobile version needs improvement
• Doesn’t offer offline edit capability

Pricing 

Free 

Platform 

Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. 

3. LibreOffice Writer

LibreOffice Writer is an all-inclusive and full-featured word processing tool—simple enough to take notes and memos and powerful enough to write blogs and books with diagrams and indexes. 

It supports the DOC and DOCX file formats and offers a clean look—much familiar with Microsoft Word, including features like commenting, changes tracking, and auto-saving. Besides, it also facilitates importing and exporting word documents and lets you export documents as PDFs without additional software. 

So, if you want a Word alternative with almost a similar interface and appearance but features like a quick access toolbar and setting access permissions for documents—go for LibreOffice Writer. 

Pros 

• Fully compatible with MS Office
• Offers great typographical features for writing, designing, and structuring—including calculations, inserting graphics, and creating drawings
• Excellent format compatibility

Cons 

• Doesn’t offer mobile apps
• Works slowly and takes up a  huge chunk of memory because of its Java program
• Lacks real-time online collaboration and cloud integration and comes with an old-fashioned appearance and menus

Pricing 

Free 

Platform 

Windows, Linux, and macOS. 

4. AbiWord  

AbiWord is ideal if you’re looking for a word processor without the hassle of a bundled office suite. 

While it may seem like an outdated processor, AbiWord is a lightweight and compact tool that doesn’t slow down your system. In addition, it comes with all the necessary features you require with a desktop word processor, including spelling and grammar check, table and column support, headers and footers, and templates for your varying needs. 

Unlike Microsoft Word, AbiWord supports real-time team collaboration and saving documents on the web through its recently added online feature—AbiCollab. Besides, it supports numerous plugins to enhance software operations, like adding auto-translation capability. 

Pros 

• Available in multiple languages
• Saves documents automatically—without requiring you to save them manually
• Offers an expandable plugin architecture—allowing you to install plugins of your choice 

Cons 

• Doesn’t support PDF file export
• Has outdated UI and design and isn’t as modern-looking as some other tools 

Pricing 

Free 

Platform 

Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. 

5. iWork Pages 

If you need a Microsoft Word alternative with various document templates for books, reports, resumes, or newsletters—iWork Pages is the right choice. It offers over 90 Apple-designed templates with seamless customization for fonts, graphics, and text styles. 

You can work and edit documents from any Apple device, such as Mac, iPhone, iPad, or PC. iWork Pages offers over 700 customizable shapes to add photos, galleries, math equations, videos, charts, and audio clips, allowing you to create stunning pages full of images and color gradients easily. 

You can also use your Apple Pencil to sketch drawings or scribble hand-written notes on your iPad and convert it to typed text. 

Pros 

• Intuitive and user-friendly interface
• Comes with limitless document creation options with new templates
• Offers Microsoft Word compatibility—allowing you to import and edit word documents in Pages

Cons 

• Only compatible with Apple platforms, like macOS and iOS
• Comes with a different interface than Microsoft Word, so users might take time to adapt to Pages
• Has file format errors, especially while saving or exporting a Pages document into its corresponding Word document 

Pricing 

$0.99/month for 50 GB, $2.99/month for 200 GB, and $9.99/month for 2 TB. 

Platform 

iOS and macOS. 

6. Write Monkey 

Write Monkey is a productivity-focused, light, and fast writing tool with a user-friendly interface. It makes word processing easier with its quick shortcuts compared to Microsoft Word for tasks such as viewing, zooming, scrolling, and navigating. 

Moreover, it offers markdown support for Textile, Markdown, Extra, and WikiCreole markdown standards. For instance, adding two slashes “//” will consider the paragraph or the line as a comment—excluded from the actual content’s word count. 

You can also add extensible plugins like Namely, Quick Search, Pomodoro timer, and Auto indent to leverage more features—only if you donate to the Write Monkey tool. 

Pros 

• Requires no installation—simply copy directories and files in any folder on your local machine
• Provides an intuitive visual progress bar—allowing you to track your work progress if required
• Comes with handy keyboard shortcuts—making navigating easier without using a mouse

Cons 

• Unsuitable for writing and creating large documents, letters, or CVs
• Only compatible with TXT files and requires you to convert the file into different formats
• Doesn’t allow you to add any images or hypertext of your choice

Pricing 

Free 

Platform 

Windows 

7. Microsoft 365 Online 

Microsoft 365 Online is an ideal Word alternative that allows you to create Office documents on your Windows Chrome browser and also offers special versions for Android and iOS mobile platforms. 

It comes with a familiar user experience being part of the Office suite—hence, you don’t have to learn anything new. It’s also popular for its connectivity tools, like OneDrive, Calendar, and Skype, and the real-time collaboration capability—making editing and modifying files together hassle-free. 

Pros 

• Offers free file storage
• Promotes additional security with features, such as multi-factor authentication
• Offers regular and automatic updates—freeing your time and allowing you to continue working without hindrance or being held back by outdated and slow software

Cons 

• Doesn’t support offline editing and always requires an internet connection for up-to-date files
• It isn’t fully compatible with macOS as the UI is different and doesn’t offer OneDrive integration
• The mail merge features have bugs and issues, such as email freezing and emails automatically going to the trash

Pricing 

Free 

Platform 

Windows, iOS, macOS, and Android. 

8. WPS Office Writer

If you require a word processor with similar features as Microsoft Word but don’t wish to pay the premium price or work with the complexity—WPS Office Writer is the right choice. 

This tool lets you work with multiple file formats, including PDF, Google Docs, and the current MS Word versions. It also offers native cloud support—making storing documents online a breeze. Besides, it provides over 100,000 free professional and customizable templates for documents, like reports, resumes, and project plans. 

Pros 

• Provides free cloud storage
• Comes with password and encryption protection—securing your data
• Promotes synchronization and seamless team collaboration across all platforms

Cons 

• Comes with complicated installation
• The free version comprises pop-up ads, which affect the user experience and slow down the processor

Pricing 

WPS Standard for free, WPS Premium at $18.99 for 6 months and $29.99 for 1 year, and contact sales for WPS Business. 

Platform 

Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android. 

Generate search-optimized content with Jasper

We’ve no complaints against Microsoft Word—it’s an intuitive editor with grammar checks, and customizable formatting and styling options. However, its premium price and outdated UI make it undesirable for many. 

So, if Microsoft Word doesn’t fit your needs, you can try the Word alternatives mentioned in this article to get high-quality features, including seamless collaboration and a wide range of templates. 

If you need a unique solution that speeds up content generation with artificial intelligence—Jasper can help you generate search-optimized content in minutes. Sign Up today.