Best NON-Microsoft spreadsheet?

[Tony B2]

I have got Microsoft Office for Mac, on a single-transaction licence (i.e. no 365 subscription, and all data remaining local) but am thinking of changing OS platform.

What are the best non-Microsoft spreadsheets available, potentially for use on the Mac, but also on a Samsung tablet (i.e. start on one platform and move to the other, as and when needed)?

I have used OSF office products - probably 10 years ago - and they were very basic compared with the MS equivalents, but maybe they have progressed since then.

But I absolutely refuse to go the Office 365 route.

And I have had enough of the frequent crashes and loss of data in Excel, in spite of having "autosave" enabled.

Recommendations, please!

[bitchstewie]

Whether you refuse or not I imagine Office 365 is the best answer.

If you really don't want to go there look at Google Apps.

Then you're into the free stuff like Libre and Open Office but far as I know those are "fat" installs so the moving platform thing will be a complete PITA.

[the-norseman]

I use Google suite (docs/sheets etc) these days.

I have LibreOffice installed on my Linux machines but usually just go to docs.google.com and start there.

[Griffith4ever]

Well, if you don't want 365 (like me) then £18.99 gets you all of office for life:

https://www.cjs-cdkeys.com/products/Microsoft-Offi...

Or..

Google sheets isn't bad at all. It lacks the complexity of Excel, but it does most of the essential stuff. I use is a lot, and as its Google based, it always exists on the internet (as well as optionally local) and one of THE killer features is you can go back sifting through versions that you never knew you "saved". I've had a few "Fuuuuu......" moments, then realised I could just go back and browse each version save to see where I messed up.

[Tony B2]

Griffith4ever said:

Well, if you don't want 365 (like me) then £18.99 gets you all of office for life:

https://www.cjs-cdkeys.com/products/Microsoft-Offi...

Or..

Google sheets isn't bad at all. It lacks the complexity of Excel, but it does most of the essential stuff. I use is a lot, and as its Google based, it always exists on the internet (as well as optionally local) and one of THE killer features is you can go back sifting through versions that you never knew you "saved". I've had a few "Fuuuuu......" moments, then realised I could just go back and browse each version save to see where I messed up.

I used Google docs a few years ago, and was forever frustrated by the somewhat basic functionality.

The fact that versions are backed-up on the internet is a 100% no/no for me, as I use Excel for a lot of financial information storage.

[Mr Pointy]

I haven't lost data due to an Excel crash for years - if it does go down then it either offers to Autorecover on next startup or I can find the recovery file & recover it manually. I suspect you may not mean Autosave as that requires a 365 subscription & a Onedrive account:

https://trumpexcel.com/turn-on-autosave-excel/

Excel on Mac is known to be less than perfect so you may find your issues are Mac related but either way you have two choices: Office, either a single licence or 365/Onedrive or Google sheets. You can try Libreoffice but there's no guarantee it's as robust as Excel.

[xeny]

Tony B2 said:

The fact that versions are backed-up on the internet is a 100% no/no for me, as I use Excel for a lot of financial information storage.

You realise all your banking data is on the internet to that extent?

If you don't want internet based, you're looking at LibreOffice.

[Griffith4ever]

Tony B2 said:

I used Google docs a few years ago, and was forever frustrated by the somewhat basic functionality.

The fact that versions are backed-up on the internet is a 100% no/no for me, as I use Excel for a lot of financial information storage.

I use it for all my tax records, bank recs, stock sheets, cost calcs, personal finance and savings info that kind of stuff. No passwords, they are elsewhere.

Sounds like you might want to look at graph paper, a pen, a calculator, and an eraser :-p

[bitchstewie]

Tony B2 said:

I used Google docs a few years ago, and was forever frustrated by the somewhat basic functionality.

The fact that versions are backed-up on the internet is a 100% no/no for me, as I use Excel for a lot of financial information storage.

Do you use online banking Tony?

Because that's going to give you a scare

[vaud]

I'm running 250mb excel models right now with no crashes, with 500,000 row data sets.

(yes I know I should find a better solution for analytics but I have my reasons)

[donkmeister]

I use libre office. It's not 100% the same as Excel but close enough that the idiosyncrasies are learned fairly quickly.

I've never tried to use VBA in it, mind.

I'd say that from my user experience, going between MS Office and Libre is like going between Windows 11 and 10, rather than like going between Windows 11 and MacOS 14.

[Haltamer]

Excel is the best at being Excel.

I try to be an opensource evangelist where possible, but there's a reason for Excels market dominance, and I don't see Libreoffice Calc beating it any time soon.

Same goes for the cross device functionality you're looking for - The only thing that comes close is Google Sheets.

[C69]

Another vote for LibreOffice.

Just be aware of how it'd function on your Android tablet, though: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/android-and-i...

[xeny]

vaud said:

I'm running 250mb excel models right now with no crashes, with 500,000 row data sets.

(yes I know I should find a better solution for analytics but I have my reasons)

As an aside, I deal with similar sized sheets. Roughly how long do you find it takes for Excel to open the files?

[vaud]

xeny said:

As an aside, I deal with similar sized sheets. Roughly how long do you find it takes for Excel to open the files?

Not long, but I’m lucky in having an M3 MacBook Pro

[MikeHo]

Lotus 123 and a few floppy disks.

[eeLee]

local files on an SSD are going to be no issue and yes, it really does do more than 64k rows now with little issue. And that's with more colums than I'd care to talk about too.

Excel is best on Windows by the way. And frankly, for the price, I see nothing wrong with what you get for M365 Family (not individual) as an annual sub. Unlike many others, it's darn good value.

[pistonheadforum]

LibreOffice will do pretty much all your spreadsheeting needs unless it's a particular Excel-ism you need. If that's the case you need to suck it up or get an older version before it went all subscriptiony and you can then use local files.

[Tony B2]

xeny said:

You realise all your banking data is on the internet to that extent?

If you don't want internet based, you're looking at LibreOffice.

If anything goes wrong with bank security, I do at least have some comeback.

If I stick all my account providers, names, account numbers and passwords in someone's cloud I deserve to get robbed.

[Tony B2]

vaud said:

I'm running 250mb excel models right now with no crashes, with 500,000 row data sets.

(yes I know I should find a better solution for analytics but I have my reasons)

Is this on a Mac?