Best Excel Alternatives 2023 (Top 11 Similar Competitors)

Microsoft 365’s spreadsheet system called Excel is quite a well-known app, but sometimes, people want to know if there are any worthy Excel competitors.

Well, this text has got the answer with a detailed comparison of the best Excel alternatives on the market today. We’ve got 11 vendors with substitute platforms for spreadsheets, data visualization and data analysis.

Ready to get wise on all the spreadsheet options that can replace MS 365 Excel? So are we.

Top 10 Excel competitors with similar products

Here are the apps like Excel that we think are the best Excel alternatives. Although they are all fairly similar, some Microsoft Excel competitors will be better suited to your circumstances than others so read more about the Excel competition below.

Now, obviously not all spreadsheet software is identical, with some platforms being simple, easy and free, while others offering advanced features at heavier costs. We hope this article shows you a variety of systems so you find one that suits your needs.

Here’s our full list of the best Excel alternatives 2023:

Now that you’ve seen a  quick overview of the best Excel alternatives, it’s time to look at each one of these top spreadsheet systems individually, including both free and paid applications. We won’t go deeply into a Microsoft Excel review in this article, but you know where to find one.

Here are 11 good alternatives to Excel:

1. Airtable (Best Excel alternative overall)

The award for number one overall best alternative to Excel goes to Airtable. The truth is, Airtable is so much more than a spreadsheet tool with data visualization but can be used as a more thorough project management solution. And this is what makes it better than Excel. Nonetheless, when it comes to spreadsheet programs with great chart and graph views and sophisticated data analysis, Airtable is a winner.

To find out more differences between Excel vs Airtable, make sure to check out our comparison article.

Airtable is best for:

• Startups

• Small business

• Medium to large business

• Excel alternative

• Project management

Features

As a spreadsheet application, Airtable offers many ways to organize your data and includes advanced functions for displaying data and deriving valuable insights.

Aside from a basic view that mimics Excel spreadsheets, Airtable has other view options, like Kanban boards, Gantt charts, calendar views, grid views, and gallery views.

You also get some good automation tools that are lacking with standard Microsoft Office Excel features. Workflows are easy to build with drag and drop functionality, requiring little to no coding knowledge.

There is solid real-time collaboration with Airtable, helping team members share notes and docs, and managers can set permissions.

Pricing

• Airtable offers a free plan

• Plus plan is $10 per user per month billed annually 

• Pro plan is $20 per user per month billed annually 

• For Enterprise plan pricing, contact Airtable

Airtable Review

Visit Airtable
 

2. Apple Numbers (Best free Excel alternative)

Coming in at number two of our best MS Excel substitutes is Apple Numbers. Now, we know that any Apple app will be mainly preferred by MacOS fans, like iPhone and iPad users. Still, this is one of the best free Excel alternatives. If you want to learn more about the differences and similarities between these two, check our detailed Excel vs Numbers comparison.

Apple Numbers is best for:

• Individuals

• Small teams

• Startups

• SMBs

• Free spreadsheet tool

Features

Even though Microsoft coined the term “pivottable,” today Apple lets you create great pivot tables for advanced data analysis. Even Microsoft Excel files, or XLS, can be imported to Apple Numbers for instant pivot tables.

Apple Numbers lets its users transform their handwriting into digital text when they use a tool like Apple Scribble.

There are great radar charts that allow team members to do in-depth comparisons between two data sets.

As for export file format options, you get Microsoft Excel, CSV, and TSV, among others. Sadly, it does not seem you can create macros with Numbers.

Pricing

• Apple Numbers is free with MacOS

Visit Apple Numbers
 

3. Google Sheets (Most similar to Excel)

After covering Microsoft and Apple, it only makes sense to see Google up there as well with their own spreadsheet software. Google Sheets is the most similar to Excel out of all apps on our list.

This tool comes with Google Workspace, formerly G Suite, along with Docs, Google's word processor app, and Google Drive for file storage. It is one of the few applications like Excel that has so many excellent integrations.

Google Sheets is best for:

• Solo entrepreneurs

• Small teams

• Startups

• SMEs

• Google Workspace users

Features

As a standard spreadsheet system, Google Sheets is most similar to Excel in terms of things like tools and user interface, and therefore Excel users will find little difficulty using this platform if they need to.

There is great real-time team collaboration with Google Sheets, with simple dashboards that allow multiple users to edit simultaneously, and thorough document archiving and versioning.

Basic Google AI can offer data insights by either processing natural language or with Google’s accelerated conditional formatting. There is also a useful LibreOffice template library.

Finally, you can use Google Sheets to create your own macros for added streamlined actions.

Pricing

• There is a free version Google Sheets with  Google account

• Workspace Business Starter plan is $6 per user per month 

• Workspace Business Standard plan is $12 per user per month 

• Workspace Business Plus plan is $18 per user per month 

• Contact Google for Workspace Enterprise pricing

Google Sheets Review

Visit Google Sheets
 

4. Zoho Sheet (Cheaper alternative to Excel software if you’re on a budget)

Zoho is a fantastic bundle of business apps. Zoho Sheet is their answer to spreadsheets, and as a fully cloud-based system, can be a great cheap alternative to Excel. 

Zoho Sheet is best for:

• Startups

• Small businesses

• Individuals

• Budget spreadsheet tools

• Zoho bundle users

Features

Zoho Sheet is a standalone app, and with Zoho, the apps are generally part of a larger bundle. In this case, Sheet comes with Zoho Workplace, along with the Zoho Office Suite, including the word processing tool Zoho Writer and Zoho Show for presentations.

Beautifully-designed charts and graphs are included with Zoho Sheet, which also look great and are easy to navigate on mobile devices like iOS and Android. Zoho knows all about effective dashboard aesthetics.

Good compatibility with Microsoft Office Suite tools, now called 365, making it simple to import data and documents into Zoho.

You can run Zoho Sheet with simple workflow automations for more advanced tasks like data cleaning, filling in the blanks and deduplication.

Pricing

• Zoho Workplace Standard plan is $3 per user per month billed annually 

• Zoho Workplace Professional plan is $6 per user per month billed annually 

Visit Zoho Sheet or Zoho Workplace
 

5. Apache OpenOffice Calc (Best open source Excel alternative)

OpenOffice from Apache is our very first open-source workplace and spreadsheet software solution we will discuss today, and Calc is probably the best Excel alternative that is open source according to some users.

Apache OpenOffice Calc is best for:

• Open source users

• Startups

• Small businesses

Features

Apache works with ODF documents and this specifically includes the file extension ODS which is ther open source file format for spreadsheets. ODFs and ODS are not tied to one device type or operating system.

You can also work with Microsoft's XLS file format or MacOS’s XLSX format.

Apache’s DataPilot lets you do tasks like cross-tabulate, summarizing data, and converting numbers into meaningful insights.

If you don’t love complicated conditional formatting, you can also use natural language for creating formulas.

There is support for multiple users to collaborate on shared spreadsheets. This includes a mechanism that helps avoid conflicts when there is overlap[ping data imports.

Pricing

• Apache OpenOffice Calc is free to download

Visit Apache OpenOffice Calc
 

6. LibreOffice Calc (Great open source Excel substitute for charts)

LibreOffice Calc is the second open source spreadsheet application we have on our list, and surely there are some users who do prefer this to Apache’s version of Calc. If you want an open-source substitute for Excel that has nice charts and graphs. LibreOffice is a good option.

LibreOffice Calc is best for:

• Individuals

• Open source users

• Small teams

• SMBs

• Charts and graphs

Features

LibreOffice is free for everyone, but that does not mean it does not have very professional spreadsheet features, especially for graphs, charts and other data visualizations.

There are many styles to choose from for data visualization, as well as intuitive conditional formatting tools.

You can run simple scenario workflows by creating what-if automations, which is great for filtering things like sales priority levels.

Like Apache, you get a similar DataPilot feature for quicker data insights with minimal clicks.

You can do data exporting to PDF formats, as well as read files like Windows XLS and Mac XLSX and turn them into ODS.

Pricing

• LibreOffice Calc is free

Visit LibreOffice Calc
 

7. WPS Office (Top Excel replacement if you like templates)

The WPS Office software suite can easily be a replacement for Microsoft 365, formerly Microsoft Office Suite. WPS Office includes a spreadsheet tool that has amazing templates.

WP software is best for:

• Startups 

• SMEs

• Project management

• Template library

Features

As a great replacement for Excel for its templates, you get categories like project management, budgeting, calendars, inventories, sales stats and more. There are of course standards like a variety of Gantt chart Excel templates.

WPS Office can work with many different file formats, like XLS, XLSX, XLS, XLT, and CSV, and is therefore compatible with work you do on Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice Calc, or OpenOffice Calc.

WPS also offers decent mobile apps for iOS and Android.

Pricing

• WPS Standard is a free plan

• WPS Premium costs $18.99 for 6 months

• For WPS Business prices require you to contact them directly

Visit WPS Office
 

8. Quip (Good Excel alternative for team collaboration)

Quip is a sales team software solution that leverages spreadsheet functionality for better organization. It is a leading alternative to MS Excel if you want good team collaboration.

Quip is best for:

• Startups 

• Small teams

• Remote teams

• Communication and collaboration

Features

First off, for Salesforce users, Quip is a top choice because it is programmed to work with Salesforce data. This makes it a top spreadsheet platform for sales.

You can always embed spreadsheets and spreadsheet data into other documents. Quip then makes it simple to tease out the data insights.

Quip is fully cloud-based so your data is safe and secure, which also makes this a top tool for team collaboration. You can even have chats and messages embedded in your Quip files.

Pricing

• Quip Starter plan is $10 per user per month billed annually 

• Quip Plus plan is $25 per user per month billed annually 

• Quip Advanced plan is $100 per user per month billed annually 

Visit Quip
 

9. Hancom Office fka ThinkFree (Great replacement to Excel for Windows users)

Hancom Office is the new name for the free office app collection previously called ThinkFree. The spreadsheet platform is called Cell and comes with apps called Word, Show and PDF.

Hancom Office is best for:

• Startups 

• Korean users

• Chinese users

• Russian users

• Spanish users

• French users

Features

As mentioned above, Hancom Office works in many great international languages, as this is a Korean company.

Written in Java and C++, Hancom Office Cell for spreadsheets is a leading alternative for Excel Online for Windows and PC users who do not want a Microsoft product.

Cell is a very user-friendly and straightforward spreadsheet app with clean dashboards and intuitive formatting.

Overall, this is freeware and you’ll have to endure some ads, unless you sign up for a Hancom Docs plan.

Pricing

• Hancom Office with Cell (formerly ThinkFree) is free

• Hancom Docs Personal is $39.99 per year

• Hancom Docs Business is $76.99 per year

Visit Hancom Office
 

10. FreeOffice PlanMaker (Top Excel equivalent for Mac)

FreeOffice is made by Softmaker. They have apps for Mac, Linux and Windows, but many like to think of FreeOffice as a good Excel alternative for Mac. The spreadsheet tool is called PlanMaker.

FreeOffice PlanMaker is best for:

• Startups 

• SMBs

• Macbook Excel equivalent

Features

This Macbook Excel equivalent makes it quite easy to import data, create worksheets and timetables, apply simple calculations and create nice charts. 

FreeOffice PlanMaker is compatible with Microsoft Excel, even with graphic features like pictures, text frames, and impressive charts.

You got tools like pivot tables and more than 400 conditional formatting options. There is also data grouping, advanced sorting, auto-filling in, and other database functionality like averages, total sums, and variances.

Export to PDF or work with other file formats like XLS and XLSX. There are also apps for iOS and Android.

Pricing

• FreeOffice has free downloads for Mac, Windows and Linux.

Visit FreeOffice PlanMaker
 

11. Gnumeric (Good MS Excel substitute for large data sets)

Gnumeric is another open source business software suite that promises to be fast and accurate and to always provide its source code as well as to be open to community bug patch submissions.

Gnumeric is best for:

• Open source software

• Startups

• Individuals

• SMEs

• Large data sets

Features

With Gnumeric, distributed on the GNU license, you can easily import and export large amounts of data using a variety of formats like  CSV, XLS, HTML, LaTeX, Lotus 1-2-3, OpenDocument and more.

Useful Gnumeric tools can help with things like statistical analysis which is what makes it a good Excel replacement.

There is a very intuitive interface for editing graphs and charts, even when they were created using different software. Unfortunately, there is as of yet no pivot tables, nor does it support VBA macros.

Pricing

• Gnumeric is open source and always free

Visit Gnumeric

Which of the alternatives to Excel is a good choice for you?

At this point, you should no longer be wondering if there are indeed any programs like Excel that do not come from Microsoft Corporation. So, which Excel substitute is your best bet?

Well, if you need spreadsheets as part of a larger project management set of tools, check out Airtable, but also Zoho Sheet as part of Zoho Workspace, or perhaps even WPS office.

If, however, free plans and open-source software are more your thing, then Gnumeric, Apache OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or FreeOffice are worthy of checking out at no cost.

For those enthusiastic about all things Apple, MacOS, and iOS, you’ve got Apple Numbers. On the other hand, for Google heads who love Gmail and Drive, then Google Sheets might be the way to go. And, if you’re curious how these two compare, make sure to check out our Apple Numbers vs Google Sheets review.

Ultimately, the choice is yours, and many of you will no doubt decide to stick with Excel, especially if you are already using Excel online for free.