If your Microsoft 365 renewal went up this year, you're not imagining it. Business plans got a price rise on 1 July, home plans went up last year when Copilot was bundled in, and Adobe moved its main plan up too. At the same time, the free and open-source alternatives have got noticeably better.
Here's a straight look at what you could swap, what you probably shouldn't, and the bit nobody mentions: free software still costs something.
OFFICE SUITE · 5 USERS · 1 YEAR
Why prices keep going up
Microsoft's home plans jumped in January 2025 when Copilot AI was added: Personal went from €69 to €99 a year and Family from €99 to €129. Business plans followed on 1 July 2026, with list prices up roughly 9 to 25%, and the "with Copilot" bundles are now the standard products. You can't keep the old price by saying no to the AI.
Adobe renamed its All Apps plan Creative Cloud Pro and raised it at renewals from August 2025; in the US it went from $59.99 to $69.99 a month. Even Bitwarden, the password manager I usually recommend, nearly doubled its Premium price this year, though its free version is still excellent.
What you can swap
The dots are my rough take on how close each one gets for a typical small business. Five is "you won't notice", three is "it'll do the job but you'll need to adjust".
| Instead of | Try | How close |
|---|---|---|
| Word, Excel, PowerPoint | LibreOffice 26.8Free, opens Office files, no AI bolted on. ONLYOFFICE looks more like Microsoft's layout. | ●●●● |
| Outlook | ThunderbirdVersion 153 now talks to Microsoft Exchange natively. | ●●●● |
| OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams | Nextcloud Hub 26Files, calendars, chat, video and team workspaces, with built-in document editors. Needs hosting. | ●●● |
| Photoshop | GIMP 3.2 or Krita 5.3GIMP finally has non-destructive layers. Krita is brilliant for drawing. | ●●● |
| Lightroom | darktable 5.4Powerful raw editing. Steeper to learn. | ●●● |
| Illustrator | InkscapeLogos, signage and vector work for most small jobs. | ●●●● |
| Premiere | KdenliveGood for social clips and simple edits. DaVinci Resolve is free too, though not open source. | ●●● |
| 1Password, LastPass | Bitwarden or KeePassXCBitwarden's free plan covers most people. KeePassXC keeps everything on your own device. | ●●●●● |
| Salesforce, HubSpot | Odoo Community, Dolibarr, TwentyReal options, but expect to set them up properly. | ●●● |
What "free" really costs
What you save
Licence fees, every year, for every user. No forced AI add-ons. Your files stay in open formats you can always open. And with self-hosted tools, your data sits where you choose, not on a US company's servers.
What you still pay for
Someone to set it up and look after it. Hosting for anything shared, like Nextcloud. A bit of retraining. And time to sort out the awkward files: big Excel workbooks full of macros are where switching hurts most.
That second box is why some big switches have gone wrong in the past. Munich famously moved to Linux and LibreOffice and later moved back, partly over compatibility headaches. I wouldn't take that as a reason not to switch. Test with your real files first, and don't move everyone over on a Monday.
Europe is already moving
Denmark's digital ministry
Announces it is replacing Microsoft Office with LibreOffice.
Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Finishes moving over 40,000 email accounts from Microsoft to open-source tools. Office replacement is next, with over €15 million a year in savings expected.
Austria's armed forces
16,000 workstations moved to LibreOffice, for sovereignty rather than cost.
International Criminal Court
Confirms it is replacing Microsoft Office with Germany's openDesk on about 1,800 workstations.
European Commission
Publishes an Open Source Strategy that favours open source in public tenders.
Ireland
The Office of Government Procurement cancels a planned Microsoft framework worth up to €1 billion, with a revised tender to follow.
It's not only governments. In the 2026 State of Open Source survey, 55% of organisations said avoiding vendor lock-in was a reason they use open source, rising to 63% in the EU and UK.
What I'd actually do
- Home users: if you only use Word and Excel a few times a month, cancel Microsoft 365 and install LibreOffice. Use Bitwarden's free plan for passwords.
- Small businesses: don't rip anything out. Check who actually uses which apps. Many staff only need email and the web versions, which are on the cheapest Business Basic plan.
- Creative work: try GIMP, Krita and Inkscape on a real job before cancelling Adobe. If you send files to printers or agencies who expect Adobe formats, you may need to keep one licence.
- Shared files: Nextcloud is a great Microsoft 365 alternative, but it needs proper hosting, backups and updates. That's work, not a download.
Summary
The open-source alternatives are good enough now that paying for a full Microsoft 365 or Adobe subscription is now optional for a lot of people. LibreOffice, Thunderbird and Bitwarden cover most people. Nextcloud can replace OneDrive and Teams if it's hosted and looked after properly. Free means no licence fee, not no cost, so budget for setup and support, test with your real files, and switch gradually.
Sources: Microsoft Ireland business prices (Oct 2026) · heise: Microsoft 365 home price rise (Jan 2025) · heise: business price rise from July 2026 · Adobe: Creative Cloud Pro changes · Bitwarden pricing · LibreOffice 26.8 · Thunderbird 153 · Nextcloud Hub 26 · GIMP 3.2 · Denmark · Schleswig-Holstein · International Criminal Court · European Commission (Jun 2026) · Ireland's Microsoft tender · 2026 State of Open Source
