Microsoft has a new competitor, and it's not a big name like Google or Apple. A developer named Brandon Thomas has created open-source replications of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint using AI. Thomas made headlines recently for using AI to replicate the Adobe suite, and he has now pointed his AI agents at Microsoft 365.
GridCraft (Excel clone), DeckCraft (PowerPoint clone), and WordCraft (Word clone) are made using Claude. They're free to download and you can read more about their development through the ArtCraft GitHub page.
Thomas now has a growing suite of app clones that aim to replicate the functionality and design of the popular suites from Adobe and Microsoft. The situation was summed up brilliantly by Reddit user "EngFL92" who said, "Begun, the clone wars have."
Windows Central take: Proving a point
The concept of replicating apps is nothing new. LibreOffice has been available for years and there are a plethora of apps similar to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and other Microsoft 365 applications.
WordCraft and other applications made by Thomas are important because they ask the question, "Can AI be used to replace paid industry-leading software suites."
At the moment, I'd say the answer to that question is "no." But the replica Office apps are in the alpha stage of development. We could see the feature gap close and bugs get squashed before general release, assuming Thomas decides to continue the project.
Shut your yap.Open Office / Libre Office sucks.It ate my 40 page essay during finals week.I'm paying back a grudge that has been years in the making.Stop dragging along shitty OSS software and venerating it like it's some holy relic. Let it die.October 13, 2026
Projects like this often gain notoriety quickly as they get shared online. Microsoft and Adobe are tech giants that charge a lot of money to access software. They're easy targets and I believe some of the passion against the companies is justified.
Thomas said on X that they're "paying back a grudge that has been years in the making," so there seems to be some history there.
Quite the media frenzy has formed around these apps. I suppose I'm a part of that, but I think some outlets have gone too far and argued that the AI-coded clones of the Adobe and Microsoft 365 suites are further along than they really are.
I appreciate the dedication to create apps that compete with some of the best-known software around. Projects like this can demonstrate that some people don't need to pay monthly subscriptions for their entire lives to get work done. But I'd suggest pumping the brakes on narratives along the lines of "vibe coding takes down tech giants in a month."
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