Bored of using Excel? 6 better options are waiting for you

Excel is no longer the only choice as these 6 spreadsheet applications offer a better experience at a lower cost or completely free.

Anyone who has ever had to calculate, organize, visualize or classify large sets of numerical data has probably relied on Microsoft Excel to handle much of the heavy lifting. As one of the first popular digital spreadsheet programs on the PC, Excel has become an indispensable tool in the productivity field.

Over the years, Microsoft has continually enhanced Excel’s capabilities, while expanding to competing platforms like Mac, iPadOS, and Android. However, the traditional version of Excel has become increasingly bloated due to feature bloat, while Microsoft’s subscription business model has become increasingly less user-friendly.

Luckily, the market now has many excellent spreadsheet options – some completely free and open source, others focused on cleaner user interfaces or superior online collaboration capabilities. Here are six alternatives that really put a competitive spin on Microsoft’s iconic spreadsheet app.

LibreOffice Calc

LibreOffice is a free and open source suite of programs that provides everything needed to build an efficient office workflow. Calc – the spreadsheet app in this package – offers powerful capabilities without a correspondingly hefty price tag.

Calc is fully featured with a wide range of styling options, a rich repository of custom templates, a Scenario Manager for data analysis, and a solver component for determining optimal values ​​in a data set. In terms of interface, Calc is somewhat outdated with a somewhat cluttered toolbar, but still arranges essential tools in a scientific and accessible way.

Apache OpenOffice Calc

Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice have many similarities because of their common roots in the world of digital productivity. Both office suites are free and open source – OpenOffice is maintained by the Apache Software Foundation and LibreOffice belongs to The Document Foundation.

OpenOffice’s Calc program is excellently compatible with spreadsheet file formats, and its straightforward approach to number crunching is commendable. The app interface is quite dated, with icons that look like they haven’t been updated in years, but the strip of options along the top makes for a convenient and robust overall setup.

WPS Office Spreadsheet

Set WPS Office It’s quite well-known cross-platform, often pre-installed on most Amazon Fire tablets. The app’s Spreadsheet component is modern and accessible, with a Microsoft Office-style ribbon interface near the top that can be collapsed to increase vertical screen space.

Spreadsheet itself is free to download and install, although a subscription fee is required to unlock advanced editing features. A basic alternative to Excel, Spreadsheet is very reliable with broad file format compatibility and is available on almost every PC and smartphone platform.

Polaris Office Sheet

Polaris Office is another popular office productivity suite, available on both PC and mobile. The Sheet component is a solid alternative to Excel, with a mobile interface that’s well optimized for the small screens users carry every day.

Sheet is fully compatible with Microsoft Office file formats, packaged in a lightweight and resource-saving package. The built-in NOVA AI Assistant can tap into a variety of major language models, including from OpenAI, Perplexity, and other leaders in the field. Sheet is free to start, and offers a paid subscription option to unlock additional features and cloud storage.

Google Sheets

IIn many ways, Google Sheets is the counterpart of Microsoft Excel. While Excel was born in the era of the local PC program model, Sheets is a component of Google Workspace (formerly GSuite), designed from the ground up for the modern internet age.

As a result, Sheets is primarily accessible over the web and through a dedicated mobile app, with online features tightly integrated and optimized toward real-time collaboration. Sheets also benefits from Gemini AI integration, which puts it ahead of other spreadsheet programs in terms of advanced technology.

Although Microsoft also offers a web-based Excel variant with AI Copilot integration, Google Sheets remains the de facto standard for many office workers globally.

Apple Numbers

If you own an Apple device, you will have ready access to the exclusive iWork office suite. NumbersApple’s Excel equivalent, focuses on providing an intuitive user interface that fits seamlessly within its ecosystem.

Numbers has dozens of templates to choose from, data filtering options, Smart Categories to quickly organize your numbers, and a convenient table summary widget. Even though the app has its own file format, exporting spreadsheets for viewing and editing on PC, Linux, Android, and other platforms is easy.