This is the page to read before the demo impresses you: Excel VBA macros do not run in ONLYOFFICE at all. Here is why, what happens to your macro files, and the three honest ways forward.
One sentence first, with no decoration: if your office runs on Excel VBA macros, ONLYOFFICE cannot run them. The company says it plainly on its own blog - VBA macros "won't be compatible with ONLYOFFICE because we use a different scripting language." ONLYOFFICE macros exist, but they are written in JavaScript. This page explains what that means for your existing files, what the JavaScript macros genuinely can do, and how offices with macro history should plan.
Your data is safe in a macro file - it is the automation inside it that ONLYOFFICE cannot execute.
VBA is Visual Basic for Applications, the language Microsoft built into Office. ONLYOFFICE never adopted it. Its macro engine is JavaScript, driven through the ONLYOFFICE Document Builder API - the same web technology style as its plugins. Two engines, two languages, zero overlap at runtime: a VBA macro inside your workbook is, to ONLYOFFICE, just text it cannot execute. No setting, plugin or paid edition changes this.
The reasoning is defensible: JavaScript is cross-platform, so the same macro runs identically on Windows, Mac and Linux and inside the browser-based server editors - VBA never escaped Windows and Mac Office properly. JavaScript is also the language of their plugin system, so one skill covers both. The cost of that clean design lands on one group only: offices carrying years of accumulated VBA. If that is you, the next sections matter more than any feature list.
The file opens. Your numbers, formulas and formatting are there, and you can edit and save like any other workbook - ONLYOFFICE will not damage the file. What never happens is execution: buttons wired to macros do nothing, worksheet-change automations stay silent, and the one-click "prepare report" routine your office depends on is simply absent. The danger is not an error message; it is a quiet workbook that looks complete while its engine is missing.
JavaScript macros are real automation, not a toy: highlight duplicates, clean and reformat ranges, pull values across sheets, generate standard text, apply house styles - the everyday repetitive work of an office. ONLYOFFICE publishes sample macros side by side with their VBA equivalents, and simple VBA logic usually translates line-for-line concepts into the JavaScript API. What does not exist is an automatic converter: their own guide states there is no direct conversion, so each macro is a manual rewrite using the old code as the reference.
Offices with macro history pick one of these, and all three are respectable:
The mistake is switching first and discovering macros later. Spend one hour: search your shared folders for .xlsm and .xlsb files, ask each department which buttons they actually press, and list every automation whose absence would stop work on Monday morning. That list - not a feature comparison - decides your migration. If it is empty, switch freely. If it has five names on it, price the rewrites or keep one Excel seat, and the decision makes itself.
The video shows the suite at its best - this page exists so the one thing it cannot do never surprises you at work.
Watch Full VideoNo. ONLYOFFICE itself states there is no direct conversion from VBA to its JavaScript macros. You use the VBA code as a reference and rewrite the macro against the JavaScript API. Simple macros rewrite quickly; complex ones with forms and dialogs are real projects.
Your data, formulas and formatting save normally. The practical risk is different: the workbook stops being "alive" for your workflow because its automation never runs while you are in ONLYOFFICE, and colleagues in Excel may receive a file whose values went stale.
ONLYOFFICE has answered this in its community for years with no plans to implement VBA. Plan on the JavaScript reality as permanent: rewrite, keep an Excel seat, or stay - do not switch while hoping for a future update.