Nextcloud, Ionos and other partners are developing an open-source office suite under the project name „Euro-Office“ as an alternative to the market-dominant Microsoft Office.
The two partners are not starting from scratch, but have forked the components of OnlyOffice available as open-source code and want to build on them. In the summer, the software is then intended to replace the previous office component Collabora in Nextcloud and the Ionos Nextcloud Workspace. A ‘technical preview’ is already available on GitHub.
While this is a good news, I think they should move from github, you know microslop copilot…
Are there any actually good replacements for Excel? As an intermediate/advanced user, every alternative I’ve tried to date pales in comparison. I can’t see anyone in my industry switching away from MS because of this, as things currently stand.
Edit: I didn’t expect so many replies. I use Sync (I know, it sucks and is dead) and it didn’t inform me I had replies, so I’m only just seeing them, apologies. Can’t get to everyone though.
For those who think we’re using Excel as a database, not really. Can’t get into specifics regarding industry, but personally I use Excel daily for a variety of things, none of which is data entry. I build stuff to help calculate and solve issues; I’m not following a specific process in most scenarios. 🤷
I hear this argument a lot but no one ever gives details as to what common features excel has vs say libreoffice. I’m really curious, because i’d like to contribute free time in this direction.
What I always find missing in all these Excel vs. other spreadsheet software debates is the rationale for using a spreadsheet in the first place. I work a lot with large corporations, and it’s often the case that they can’t move away from Excel because, in the past, they relied on it to solve a process in a way that—at least today—could and should be handled better. Perhaps we should question the process more often and the Excel alternatives less.
As a data consultant, I would say those companies already do question the process, and have done for decades.
Yes there are countless situations where a dedicated system or database could and should replace Excel, but there are just as many scenarios where Excel is ideal, and swapping out a spreadsheet for what would be potentially tens of separate applications across the business, or one absurdly expensive behemoth, to perform tasks that could be done rapidly and clearly in Excel is neither practical nor economically viable for most companies. A spreadsheet is perfect for plenty of situations.
My job is literally to help these companies move to appropriate database solutions, often transitioning away from Excel. But there’s no getting around that a spreadsheet solves (often simple) problems that are impractical with other tools. You can move a company to a supplier’s sector-specific solution and solve huge numbers of issues, but unless that solution exactly meets every aspect of the business requirements, there’s always going to be a fallback and it’s often Excel, for better or worse.
Years ago, one of my buddies tried to open a very long spreadsheet and Libreoffice couldn’t do it. I think the maximum row and columns reached parity in version 7. I think one more cosmetic feature that is missing is the easy to access table and chart style templates.
Power Query
I can only assume anyone still asking the question “is Excel really that much better than the alternatives?” lacks exposure to Power Query and its prevalence in business.
My answer isn’t going to be helpful, because I can’t remember specifically what I was doing, but even for a small personal project a year ago, I tried to do something I consider basic, and OnlyOffice (what I was trying out at the time) couldn’t handle it and was ridiculously slow.
Format as table
I’m confused. Excel is a spreadsheet, that’s always in the form of a table.
that downvoter really could have instead done something useful and explain what “format as table” is
A table in Excel will have a name that can be referenced. It will also automatically grow larger when you type in the row under the last row. You can have multiple tables within a sheet. It comes with extensive filters. In LibreCalc you can only set filters but everything else remains static. It’s literally the most used thing in Excel.
You just described the basic functions of a database. People are building a databases in spreadsheets. That’s not a reason to keep using Excel, that’s a reason to have an intervention lol
Edit: this is halfway tongue in cheek. Trying to get office workers to use more and different tools partway through their careers is unfortunately unviable in many industries.
No, there isn’t.
I would love if there was, but beyond basic use cases, Excel is significantly ahead of the competition.
I mean ideally people should move away from spreadsheets altogether, keeping the data and the view and control layers mixed like that is kinda terrible and scales poorly for large data sets that require any serious transformation and computations, ideally your data should reside in a acid compliant database or some data lake for safety and ease of access, and then view and transformations should be handled by a separate software on top of that, at least this is how most companies that do big data analytics set things up, I know it’s overkill for some small to medium company that has limited needs, but there has to be something better than putting data into cells and writing functions on top of that.
I’m not talking about uses of Excel as a serious database, though. 🤷
Probably more credibility if you actually give real, specific examples of what you cannot do on Libre Calc that you require?
Oh boy!
Lack of proper table support.
FILTER is borked.
MAP functions and their ilk aren’t there.
The DBASE functions have serious issues.
Array formulas sort of work but often results in issues.
Calculation speed is super slow. I’ve tried converting a pension forecast tool and it just ran so incredibly slowly.
As someone self hosting my own Nextcloud with Collabora, I can tell you that living with LibreOffice is easy - but living with Libra Calc is impossible. It is not a workable, serious solution.
The fact that you can’t make real tables renders the software completely unusable. Tables are used in pretty much every spreadsheet.
I think you might be thinking of databases… Access (barf), not Excel.
I do think databases and tables are a useful thing but most database systems require over-specifying fields via esoteric “column types” while spreadsheets underspecify them via formatting (and extremely limited formatting at that)
Some happy medium must exist out there, but I haven’t seen it. Notion and Google Docs (Format /Convert to Table) approach this but don’t quite get there.
No, definitely thinking specifically of data tables in excel.
I appreciate you attempting expansion, I will say it is still difficult when you’re asked for specific detail and your response consistently States generalities like:
“lack of support” - meaning what, feature isn’t there at all? Doesn’t display existing tables from uploaded excel docs?
“has serious issues” - meaning… what are they?
“results in issues” - …
“…is borked” - c’mon
and "incredibly slow " - relative to what? Double time of expected from excel? Triple? Extra two seconds per attempt?
You’re using subjective terms that mean people can’t A) determine if you’re problem will impact them as well and B) you’re not describing your perceived issues well enough to allow experts reading along here, now or in the future, to offer you actual solutions or alternatives.
That considered, it makes you come off as a person who doesn’t want their perceived problem solved.
Alternatively, it comes off as a person who has tried this in earnest numerous times and is exhausted by people who assume that they haven’t given things a genuine shot.
And there are few things more grating than a tech person assuming the other person doesn’t know what they are doing in earnest just because they were short with you from having already explained it elsewhere, numerous times over time, to the same result of what is, effectively, tone policing. “You didn’t phrase this in a technical manner thus I assume you know jack shit.” Not far off from sea-lioning really.
You’re bringing a lot of personal momentum to your responses obviously. My point was clear, state specific issues to allow the potential for specific answers. If you’re moving in good faith, that’s the approach.
The perspective here is one of someone resistant to change, blaming FOSS as an easier scapegoat. Always simplest to blame the tool over the operator… And often, that “dumbshit, broken printer that won’t print!!!” Just wasnt plugged in.
Your rebuttal is borked.
May I suggest Python ?
By the time you get tits deep in Excel to the point where other spreadsheets can’t hack it, you may as well be using a real programming language instead of VBA…
If you can do advanced Excel, you can do Python (and numpy will crush Excel in ways that aren’t even funny, well OK, it’s funny too).
This is a good suggestion which could work in some cases for sure.
You won’t find any applicants for a secretary, HR, or accounting position if it requires knowledge of Python.
No, but for these OnlyOffice is a viable alternative. @surgarsweat was referring to way advanced features, not something secretaries or HR or accounting will need. I have use OnlyOffice for 6 years now, and have yet to find an Excel need it could not fulfill.
I’ve tried OnlyOffice for personal use and it’s just okay. There are some things that I consider basic that I tried to do and either they didn’t work or it got super slow/laggy/crashed.