Proton Docs Review (2026): Swiss, End-to-End Encrypted, Free with 5 GB

What is Proton Docs?

Who is behind Proton Docs

Proton Docs is an end-to-end encrypted online document editor from Proton AG in Geneva, Switzerland – the company behind Proton Mail, Proton VPN and Proton Drive. Proton was founded in 2014, and its main shareholder is the non-profit Proton Foundation. The service is financed by subscriptions, not advertising.

Proton announced Docs on 3 July 2024 and built it as a joint project with the team from Standard Notes. Docs is not a separate app: it lives inside Proton Drive, where you click New to create a document. Proton has since added Proton Sheets, a collaborative spreadsheet editor, which Proton’s site still labels as new. There is no presentation app.

Where Proton Docs hosts your data

Docs and Sheets run inside Proton Drive at drive.proton.me, which resolves to Proton’s own network (Proton AG, AS62371) in Switzerland, not to a US cloud. Proton says your documents are protected by Swiss privacy law and that, because of end-to-end encryption, not even Proton can access them.

Checked 25 Oct 2026. Hosting can change – report a change.

Proton Docs pricing

Proton Docs has no price of its own – it comes with Proton Drive. The free Proton Free plan gives you 5 GB of storage and includes the online document and spreadsheet editors, and Proton says a free plan will always be offered. Drive Plus costs $4.99 a month for 200 GB and 10 years of file version history. Proton Unlimited costs $12.99 a month for 500 GB and adds Mail, Calendar, VPN and Pass; Proton Duo ($19.99, 2 TB, 2 users) and Proton Family ($29.99, 3 TB, up to 6 users) cover households. These are the monthly prices Proton showed in US dollars on 25 October 2026; yearly billing is cheaper, and the page can also show EUR and CHF. Paid plans have a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Compared with Google Docs, the free plan is smaller (5 GB against Google’s 15 GB), and Google charges less per gigabyte – Google One Basic is $1.99 a month for 100 GB. What you pay Proton for is encryption, not storage.

Features and encryption

Proton Docs works the way Google Docs users expect. You see who else is in a document and follow their cursors live, leave threaded comments, and switch to suggestions so that collaborators can propose edits that you accept or reject. You can insert images, and you can invite people by email or by secure link as viewers or editors – they do not need a Proton account – and revoke access at any time. Documents can be edited on desktop, tablet and phone through the browser or the Proton Drive apps.

The difference to Google is that everything is end-to-end encrypted. Proton says even keystrokes and cursor movements are encrypted and that it cannot see document content or metadata such as file names. Proton also says your documents will not be used to train AI models.

Files: according to Proton’s help pages, Docs opens DOCX, TXT, MD and HTML files and downloads documents as DOCX, PDF, HTML, TXT and MD. Opening a Word file creates a new copy in Proton’s own format with the same name. Proton Sheets supports formulas, charts and tables, and imports Excel and Google Sheets files. Offline editing is not mentioned on Proton’s Docs pages, and Proton does not say whether the Docs editor itself is open source.

What users say about Proton Docs

There is no Trustpilot profile for Docs. Proton’s main Trustpilot profile, titled Proton Mail but covering other Proton products too, has 2.1/5 from 1,802 reviews (checked 25 October 2026). Reviewers praise the privacy and the clean apps; the most frequent complaints are slow support and accounts being locked.

Pros and cons

Verdict on Proton Docs

Verdict: Proton Docs is the closest thing to Google Docs where the provider genuinely cannot read your work: live cursors, comments, suggestions and link sharing, all end-to-end encrypted and run by a Swiss company. It is free to start inside Proton Drive. The trade-off is depth – no presentations and simpler editors – so it suits everyday writing and simple sheets rather than heavy office work. Best for: writers, freelancers and small teams who share sensitive documents. Not for: people who need slides or advanced spreadsheets.

Proton Docs is ranked #2 in Best European alternatives to Google Docs and #6 in Best European alternatives to Microsoft Office and in Best European office suites.

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