An engineer is cloning Microsoft Office with AI

WordCraft, GridCraft, and DeckCraft are free, open-source desktop clones of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, built for macOS, Windows, and Linux.

What they do

These apps look and feel practically identical to Microsoft's native Office apps. Users get familiar interfaces for drafting documents, building spreadsheets, and designing presentations without paying for a Microsoft 365 subscription.

Developer Brandon Thomas, who previously used AI to rebuild Adobe Creative Suite apps like Photoshop and Premiere, created these office tools using Anthropic’s Opus 5.5 model. Prompted by users in his ArtCraft Discord who were fed up with software recurring fees, Thomas quickly expanded his reverse-engineering efforts to office productivity.

How it works and the pricing model

All three core applications are open source and completely free to download for desktop operating systems.

However, in-app generative AI features require a paid subscription. For example, the ArtCraft Max plan, priced at roughly $48 per month after an initial 20% launch discount, grants access to features like generating roughly 220 4K Nano Banana Pro images or 413 seconds of video inside Seedance 2.0.

Pushing back against critics on X who accused him of pumping out AI slop, Thomas argued that he is a seasoned coder using AI to operate with the capacity of an entire company, claiming his revenue per employee exceeds Google's by four times. Beyond the Office clones, he is actively developing an AutoCAD clone and a studio-grade audio mixer named SoundCraft.

Installers and project updates are currently shared through the ArtCraft community and open repositories.

Why it matters

If you are suffering from subscription fatigue and find traditional alternatives like LibreOffice visually dated, these clones offer an immediate, slick replacement for everyday tasks.

Still, decades of subtle edge-case handling, complex macro support, and enterprise file compatibility are hard to replicate overnight, and near-identical clones always face potential trademark friction. We see these as great tools for casual document editing, but advise against moving mission-critical workflows over just yet.