5 Free Google Docs Alternatives That Work Without an Account

Google Docs is a fine word processor. The problem isn't the product — it's the gate in front of it. To create a document, you need a Google account. To share it with someone who doesn't have one, things get complicated fast. And if you're on a borrowed laptop, a work machine, or just don't want another service tied to your Google identity, you're stuck.

The alternative isn't to install LibreOffice or fire up Microsoft Word. There are browser-based tools that let you start typing in seconds — no account, no login required, and no registration form in your way. Some support real-time collaboration. Some encrypt your content end-to-end. All of them open instantly in any modern browser.

This post covers five tools that actually work for different writing needs. Each has a distinct use case, and none of them want your email address.

Why "No Account" Matters More Than It Sounds

The account requirement isn't just a minor inconvenience. Google's account system links your documents to your identity, which means your writing is part of your Google profile. If you use Google Docs for work, personal projects, and sensitive notes all under the same account, everything is searchable and attributable to you.

There's also the access problem. You can view a publicly shared Google Doc without signing in, but you cannot create one. That asymmetry is intentional — Google's value is in keeping authenticated users in its ecosystem, not in making it easy to use their tools without an account.

For many people, this is fine. For others — people using shared computers, people in high-privacy contexts, or people who just want to draft something quickly without the overhead — it's a genuine barrier. The tools below exist precisely because that barrier doesn't need to exist.

Etherpad: Real-Time Collaboration Without Any Login

When two or more people need to write together without creating accounts, Etherpad is the original answer. It's open-source software that's been around since 2008, and dozens of organizations run public instances where anyone can create a pad immediately.

Riseup's instance at pad.riseup.net is one of the most reliable public servers. Wikimedia runs one at etherpad.wikimedia.org. You navigate to either, click "Create New Pad," and get a unique URL. Share that URL with anyone and they can edit the document simultaneously — no accounts on either end.

Each participant's edits show up in a distinct color, and you can set a display name without creating an account. The timeline slider at the bottom lets you replay the document's edit history, which is genuinely useful for understanding how a piece came together.

The formatting is minimal: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, ordered and unordered lists, and indentation. There's no table support, no image insertion, and no embedded spreadsheet. The interface hasn't changed much in fifteen years. None of that matters if your goal is fast collaborative note-taking, meeting minutes, or drafting something jointly before moving it to a proper destination.

One practical detail: pads on public instances don't live forever. Riseup deletes pads inactive for 60 days. If your document matters, export it or copy it out — Etherpad lets you export to plain text, HTML, and PDF, and some instances support ODT format as well.

CryptPad: Collaboration with End-to-End Encryption

CryptPad is what you'd get if someone built a Google Docs alternative and then asked "but what if the server couldn't read your documents?" That's not a marketing claim — the encryption is built into the architecture. Your content is encrypted in the browser before it reaches CryptPad's servers, which means even the people running CryptPad can't see what you're writing.

You can use it without an account. Go to cryptpad.fr, create a Rich Text document, and start writing. The no-account experience gives you real-time collaboration, proper rich text formatting (paragraph styles, tables, images, comments, track changes), and a shareable link. Anonymous documents expire after 90 days if you don't create a free account, but for temporary documents that's more than enough time.

The rich text editor is the most Google Docs-like of anything in this list — not because it copies the interface, but because it offers comparable formatting depth. You get proper heading styles, table creation, image embedding, and comment threads. Collaboration works well, with each user shown in a distinct color.

CryptPad is a European organization (XWiki SAS, based in France) operating under GDPR. The encryption model means your data isn't available for advertising analysis, user profiling, or algorithmic processing — the server literally can't do any of those things with encrypted blobs.

The performance is slower than Google Docs for large files, and the mobile experience is workable but not great. Also: don't lose the document URL. For anonymous documents, the URL is the only way to access or share the document. There's no account recovery for anonymous users, because there's no account.

StackEdit: The Markdown Writer's Choice

If you write in Markdown — or want to — StackEdit is one of the cleanest browser-based editors available. It's a no-login-required tool that runs entirely in your browser, storing documents in local storage by default.

The interface is a two-panel layout: Markdown source on the left, rendered preview on the right. Syntax highlighting makes the source panel readable, and the preview updates in real time. StackEdit handles standard Markdown, plus tables, footnotes, task lists, and LaTeX math notation if you need that for scientific writing.

Export options include Markdown, HTML, Styled HTML, and PDF. The PDF export uses a clean typographic layout. If you connect optional services like GitHub, Blogger, or Google Drive, you can publish directly from StackEdit — but none of that is required. For pure writing with no external connections, it works offline via browser storage.

StackEdit doesn't do real-time collaboration. It's a single-user tool. If you need to write with someone else, Etherpad or CryptPad are better. But for individual writing sessions — drafting a blog post, taking technical notes, writing documentation — StackEdit's Markdown workflow is faster and more portable than Google Docs' proprietary format.

Dillinger: Simpler Markdown, Solid Export Options

Dillinger covers similar territory to StackEdit but with a simpler approach. It's a Markdown editor with an optional cloud sync to Dropbox, GitHub, Google Drive, and OneDrive — none of which you need to connect. Without connecting anything, it works as a capable browser-based Markdown editor with no account required.

The export options are the highlight: Styled HTML, plain HTML, Markdown, and PDF. The Styled HTML export in particular produces a readable, formatted document that looks professional in any browser — useful if you need to send formatted content to someone who doesn't know Markdown. The PDF export is clean and prints well.

Dillinger doesn't save automatically unless you connect a cloud service. Close the tab and your content is gone. That's an important limitation to know. But for single-document writing sessions — finishing a draft, editing a technical README, composing a long email before sending — it's a low-friction workspace that requires nothing from you.

There's no file management, no folders, no document history. One editor, one document at a time. For people who find the overhead of document organization distracting, that's actually a feature.

ZenPen: A Blank Page, Nothing More

ZenPen is as minimal as document tools get. It's a distraction-free writing environment — a clean white rectangle that fills most of your browser window, with a small toolbar that appears when you select text. The toolbar offers bold, italic, a blockquote, and link insertion. That's the complete feature list.

ZenPen has no save function. It creates no URL. It doesn't sync to anything. When you close the tab, your text is gone unless you've copied it. To people accustomed to auto-save everywhere, that sounds alarming. For certain use cases, it's liberating — you're forced to think of ZenPen as a temporary scratchpad, not a document system.

The tool is genuinely useful for drafting long emails, clearing a writing block, or working out the structure of a piece before moving it to a permanent editor. The full-screen white space removes every possible source of distraction. No tabs, no menus, no document list. Just typing.

ZenPen runs entirely in the browser with no login required. Nothing is uploaded anywhere. No registration, no tracking, no storage. It's the fastest way to get to a blank page in a browser.

Comparing the Options Side by Side

Before picking a tool, it helps to see what each one actually supports:

The right choice depends entirely on what you're doing. Collaborative meeting notes: Etherpad. Sensitive collaborative writing: CryptPad. Individual Markdown drafting: StackEdit. Quick formatted export: Dillinger. Pure focused writing: ZenPen.

What About Everything Else Google Docs Does?

These five tools cover the core writing and collaboration use cases. But Google Docs also has spreadsheets, presentations, forms, and tight integration with Gmail and Calendar. For those, you'd need different tools — and no single no-login alternative covers all of it.

CryptPad actually comes closest to a suite: it includes a spreadsheet editor, a kanban board, a presentation tool, and a code editor, all under the same no-account-required model with end-to-end encryption. It's not as polished as Google Workspace, but it's functional for each task.

For writing that you want to publish rather than just share, Write.as lets you write and post to the web with no account at all — useful for blog posts or public-facing content. The approach is different from a document editor (it's more of a publishing tool), but the core idea is the same: write something, share it, no registration needed.

If Notion is your current tool and you're looking for alternatives to that rather than Google Docs, the comparison post on Notion alternatives that work without an account covers some overlap in structured note-taking tools.

Getting Started Without Google

The easiest way to test any of these: open two browser tabs and check whether you can create and edit from both simultaneously. For Etherpad and CryptPad, that's the collaboration model working correctly. For the single-user tools, you're just checking that the no-account experience works as advertised.

None of these tools require you to commit to anything. No account means no account — no free trial that expires, no credit card on file for later. You use them when you need them and close the tab when you're done. That's how software used to work, and it's good to see tools that still operate that way.

The nologin.tools directory lists more tools organized by category if you're looking for no-login-required options in other areas. The writing category has grown considerably — people have clearly had enough of signing up for things they just want to use.