Microsoft is ending support for Office 2021 on October 13. After that date, the company will stop issuing security patches, bug fixes, and technical help, and it will no longer update the product's online support pages. The software itself will remain usable, but it will be exposed to any future vulnerabilities.
The five-year support window is shorter than the ten years that older one-time-purchase versions enjoyed. Microsoft has been tightening support periods for its perpetual-license Office products, a shift that pushes users toward the subscription-based Microsoft 365.
For Office 2021 users, the options are to keep running the software without support, buy Office 2024, subscribe to Microsoft 365, use the free web version of Office, or switch to a different suite such as Google Docs, LibreOffice, Collabora, or OnlyOffice. The free web version lacks many advanced features, and the alternative suites may not cover every Microsoft-specific need.