Open-source business productivity
Your business. Your data. Your rules.
Office Unbound is an open-source platform that brings business email, office documents, file storage and sync, team messaging, meetings and administration into one connected environment. It is being built as a comprehensive alternative to Microsoft 365 and Teams, with planned migration from Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
Phase 1 Architecture and evaluation. Nothing is available to install yet; the roadmap says what is planned and in what order.
01 — The platform
One connected workplace
Not a bundle of separate applications with separate logins. One identity, one navigation, integrated workflows and one place to administer them.
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Email & calendar
Mailboxes, shared mailboxes, calendars, contacts and resource booking behind an Outlook-style webmail.
In place of Exchange Online, Outlook on the web, Gmail
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Documents & spreadsheets
Word processing, spreadsheets and presentations edited together in the browser.
In place of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Docs, Sheets, Slides
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File storage & sync
Personal and shared storage, versioning and a desktop client with offline access.
In place of OneDrive, SharePoint libraries, Google Drive
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Chat & collaboration
Direct and group chat, channels and team workspaces on an open messaging standard.
In place of Teams chat, Google Chat
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Meetings & voice
Video meetings, screen sharing and SIP-based business calling with queues and voicemail.
In place of Teams meetings and Phone, Google Meet
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Identity & security
Single sign-on, MFA, directory, groups, roles and authentication policy for every service.
In place of Entra ID for these services
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Administration & automation
Central policies, audit logs, update control, a management API and multi-tenant provisioning.
In place of the Microsoft 365 and Google admin consoles
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Migration
Assessment, mapping, staged transfer and verification for organizations already on another platform.
From Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
Every capability is Planned or Under evaluation today. Each product page shows the status of each feature.
02 — Why build it
Business productivity shouldn’t come with permanent vendor dependency.
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are mature, capable platforms with security, compliance and export tooling of their own. The case for an alternative is not that they are bad. It is that every organization using them accepts the same architecture: someone else’s infrastructure, someone else’s release schedule, and a license that has to be renewed to keep working.
For many organizations that trade is the right one. For others it creates problems they cannot solve from inside the subscription:
- Licensing that keeps movingPer-user prices, bundle changes and renewal terms are set by the vendor, not the customer.
- Bundles you have to decodeWhich plan includes which feature is a recurring research project for IT.
- Dependence on one ecosystemIdentity, mail, files and chat all tie back to the same provider and its account model.
- Outages you cannot act onWhen a shared cloud service degrades, the customer waits; there is no system of its own to fix.
- Limited choice of infrastructureData location and network design are chosen from the provider’s options.
- Changing provider is hardMoving mail, files, permissions and identities is a project, and it is designed as one.
- Data portability in practiceExport exists, but in formats and shapes that do not always map cleanly to anything else.
- Software you cannot inspectCustomers rely on the vendor’s assurance about code they cannot read.
- Inherited security dependenciesEvery third party the vendor relies on becomes one the customer relies on too.
- Updates on someone else’s scheduleFeatures change and interfaces move when the vendor ships, not when the business is ready.
- One size for every customerTailoring services to an individual business is limited to what the admin console exposes.
- Fragmented administrationSeparate consoles, separate role models, separate audit trails across services.
03 — Scope
A replacement, not another point product.
Office Unbound is not a hosted email service, a document editor or a chat app. The goal is to cover the main business functions an organization currently buys as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, under one identity and one administration model.
| Business function | Microsoft 365 | Google Workspace | Office Unbound target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mail, calendar, contacts | Exchange Online, Outlook | Gmail, Calendar, Contacts | Planned — Email & calendar |
| Office documents | Word, Excel, PowerPoint | Docs, Sheets, Slides | Planned — Documents |
| Files and sync | OneDrive, SharePoint | Drive, Shared Drives | Planned — Files & sync |
| Chat and channels | Teams | Google Chat | Planned — Chat |
| Meetings and calling | Teams meetings, Teams Phone | Google Meet | Planned — Meetings & calling |
| Identity and access | Entra ID | Cloud Identity | Planned — Identity |
| Administration | Microsoft 365 admin center | Admin console | Planned — Controls |
The right-hand column is a target, not a claim of equivalence. Where features differ, and where compatibility has yet to be proven, each product page says so.
04 — Migration
Move your business. Keep your data.
Most organizations that could use Office Unbound already run on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Migration is therefore being designed as a core part of the product, not left as an exercise for the customer.
The plan is a guided process for mailboxes, calendars, contacts, users, files and the collaboration content that source APIs make available. It starts with an assessment of what exists and what will and will not transfer, and moves in measured, verifiable stages rather than one blind bulk import.
Assess
Inventory users, mailboxes, files and workloads; identify what is supported, partial or unsupported.
Map
Match users, groups, aliases and permissions to the destination.
Pilot
Move a small group first and check the result with real people.
Transfer in stages
Move workloads in batches, then synchronize what changed.
Verify and cut over
Compare counts and content, change DNS, report what remains.
Planned capability. Know what you’re moving before you move it — the Migration Assessment & Readiness Engine.
05 — Deployment
Choose where it runs.
The same platform is intended to run in several operating models. Each moves responsibility to a different place, and the hosting page is explicit about who does what.
On-premises
On servers you own, in a building you control. Full control, and full responsibility for power, hardware and recovery.
PlannedPrivate infrastructure
On rented or colocated hardware, or a private cloud you administer. Your network policies, someone else’s building.
PlannedMSP-hosted
Operated for you by a managed service provider, with customer-specific plans and delegated administration.
PlannedManaged hosting
A possible future commercial option through approved providers. Nothing is offered today.
Under evaluation06 — Security
Security you can inspect.
Open source does not make software secure on its own. What it does is make the claims checkable. Office Unbound intends to publish its source, its dependency inventory and its security advisories, and to give customers and their providers control over when updates are applied, with clear guidance on the risks of delaying critical patches.
Public source
The code that runs the platform, readable by anyone evaluating it.
Bills of materials
A published list of every component and version in each release.
Customer-controlled updates
Maintenance windows, staging and approval, with emergency-patch paths.
Tenant isolation
Authorization boundaries designed and tested between customers.
07 — Managed service providers
Built for businesses. Designed with MSPs in mind.
A large share of small and midsize businesses buy productivity services through a managed service provider. Office Unbound is being designed so an MSP can deliver those services on infrastructure it chooses: provisioning customers, delegating administration, running migration projects and integrating with the tools it already uses — including planned provisioning APIs for platforms such as clientst0r.
- Multi-customer provisioning
- Delegated, per-customer administration
- Technician roles and permissions
- Customer-specific domains and policies
- Resource quotas and service plans
- Central monitoring and service health
- Patch and backup management
- Migration assessments per customer
- Audit logs and reporting
- Management and provisioning API
All planned. None of these is available yet.
08 — Open technology
Built on established open-source projects.
Mail servers, office editors, file platforms and messaging systems already exist as mature open-source projects with years of production use. Rebuilding them would waste that work. Office Unbound’s own development is the part those projects do not provide: a unified identity and interface, central administration, multi-tenant provisioning, migration tooling and a branded client experience.
| Function | Candidates | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Identity / SSO | Keycloak | Under evaluation |
| grommunio, Stalwart | Under evaluation | |
| Files | Nextcloud | Under evaluation |
| Office editing | Collabora Online, ONLYOFFICE | Under evaluation |
| Chat | Matrix, Element | Under evaluation |
| Meetings | LiveKit, MatrixRTC | Under evaluation |
| Virtualization | Proxmox VE | Initial target |
09 — Roadmap
Where development stands
Seven phases, in order of dependency. No dates are published until there is evidence to support them.
Architecture and evaluation Current phase
Technology selection, licensing review, security architecture, migration discovery design.
Core services
Identity, email, calendar, file storage, documents, administrative foundations.
Collaboration
Messaging, channels, meetings, notifications, integrated workspaces.
Client experience
Unified interface, desktop clients, mobile access, offline sync, onboarding.
Migration platform
The assessment engine, then Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace connectors.
MSP and enterprise
Multi-tenant management, delegated administration, APIs, clientst0r integration.
Hardening and expansion
Security and performance testing, high availability, telephony, governance.
Interested in what comes next?
Businesses, MSPs, contributors and early adopters can register now. We will contact you as components reach early testing, and with roadmap changes that affect what you told us you care about.