Writing and content

Lex alternatives

2 open-source projects that already do this job. Free to use - not free to run, which is what the numbers on the right are for.

The full assessment →

The projects

ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer6,794AGPL-3.0A full-featured collaborative online office editor providing real-time rich-text, spreadsheet, and presentation editing.Open on GitHub ether/etherpad18,478Apache-2.0A real-time collaborative plain-text editor with OT-based live cursors, presence, and plugin extension points.Open on GitHub

What you give up either way

Access to enterprise-model contracts and privacy protections Lex claims via their vendor relationships
Priority email support / vendor-run support channel
Polished cross-device UX (early-access iOS app / mobile polish)
Any proprietary hosting, backups, and data retention policies Lex provides

An open-source project doing the core job proves a replacement is possible. It does not prove it matches Lex, and it does not prove anyone has run it for a month. How we decide.