In February, LibreOffice announced plans to expand beyond a traditional desktop office suite. Since then, The Document Foundation has introduced a new strategy to bring its offering to web browsers, mobile devices, and collaborative editing, following its decision to reopen the LibreOffice Online project with a renewed community focus.
Above all, The Document Foundation will continue desktop development, releasing two major updates per year and ongoing work on the Android Viewer. At the same time, however, the foundation also recognizes ongoing demand for web and mobile versions.
The most significant change is the new web strategy. Rather than reverting to the previous LibreOffice Online model, The Document Foundation is developing a prototype using Qt 6 and WebAssembly. This aims to run LibreOffice directly in the browser, minimizing server-side processing.
For mobile, the 2026 plan prioritizes improvements to the graphical user interface and testing on Android and iOS emulators. Collaborative editing is also included in the plan.
Initial tests will use a stable client-server architecture over direct TCP/IP connections before exploring peer-to-peer collaboration. This means the foundation will begin with a conventional model before considering a more complex decentralized system.
Beyond web and mobile development, the strategy outlines broader priorities: enhancing the LibreOffice user interface and usability, maintaining quality and security, supporting the Open Document Format, improving development documentation, and continuing involvement in open-source and digital sovereignty initiatives.
Finally, to make it clear, LibreOffice’s web and mobile initiatives remain part of the development strategy rather than product releases. There is no new public LibreOffice Web version, hosted TDF cloud service, or completed mobile office suite at this time. At the time, this was framed as renewed upstream/community development, not as TDF launching its own hosted LibreOffice Online service.
For additional details, see the TDF’s announcement.
Image credits: TDF
