Workspace Frequently Asked Questions

ONLYOFFICE Workspace Community Server (also known as Community Server) is a free open-source collaboration platform that provides document management, project management, CRM, calendars, mail aggregation, and integrated office editors for self-hosted team productivity.

🚀 Overview

ONLYOFFICE Workspace Community Server is the open-source edition of the ONLYOFFICE collaboration suite. It bundles powerful tools like collaborative document editors (for docs, spreadsheets, presentations, forms, PDFs), project management with Gantt charts and reports, customizable CRM, shared calendars, mail aggregator with spam protection (SpamAssassin, ClamAV), blogs, forums, wiki, and people management—all accessible via an intuitive control panel.

What problem does this project solve? It addresses data privacy concerns, vendor lock-in, and high costs of proprietary cloud suites like Microsoft 365 by offering a fully self-hosted, customizable open-source alternative with excellent MS Office compatibility and real-time co-editing.

Who is it built for? Businesses, teams, organizations, and self-hosters needing a complete office and collaboration suite on their own servers.

Why did you build it? Developed by Ascensio System SIA to provide a secure, ad-free, open-source platform empowering users to control their data and collaborate efficiently without subscriptions.

✨ Key Features

Collaborative HTML5 editors for text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, fillable forms, and PDFs with real-time co-editing, track changes, comments, chat, high MS Office (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) compatibility, and integrations via WebDAV/connectors (Nextcloud, ownCloud, Alfresco, SharePoint, etc.)
Document management with sharing, access permissions, embedding, and storage sync (Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive)
Project management tools including Gantt charts, milestones, task dependencies, time tracking, automated reports
CRM with web-to-lead forms, invoicing; Mail Server with spam/antivirus; Calendars, People module, Blogs/Forums/Wiki/Polls
Optional: AI features in newer Docs versions (content generation, translation); Mobile web editors (Enterprise upgrade)

🛠 Tech Stack

Frontend: JavaScript, HTML5, CSS, Less
Backend: C# / ASP.NET (Community Server), Node.js (Document Server core)
Database: PostgreSQL (primary), Redis (sessions/caching), MongoDB (some components), RabbitMQ (messaging)
Auth: Built-in user management with access rights
Hosting: Docker (recommended), self-hosted on Linux (Ubuntu/Debian), Windows; Cloud providers like Vultr

👥 Who Is This For?

This project is useful for:

Developers who want to integrate open-source office editors and collaboration into custom platforms
Teams looking for self-hosted alternatives to MS365/Google Workspace with full control and no vendor lock-in
Indie makers building secure, private productivity suites for small businesses or non-profits