16. April 2025
Comparison of spreadsheet software

In late June 2024, we did a survey of the capabilities of the spreadsheet software available. This is an overview of our findings.
The ultimate goal was to determine how sophisticated each engine is. While this may be subjective, we've tried to quantify this as a combination of a few factors:
Feature set support
Formula and function support
Exactness of calculations
Speed of calculations
We are aware that we cannot be unbiased in this endavour. We are also actively trying to work against it, as we hope our learnings expose where we can improve.
Comparison of features
A spreadsheet engine feature set is perhaps the best indicator of how sophisticated it is. Features are selected based on whether they create a divergence.
Comparison of function support
Function support varies from engine to engine. We've found that 90% of the usefulness is sitting in about 350 most commonly used functions.
Exactness of calculations
Generally speaking we can say that spreadsheet applications are reliable. Given some set of inputs and functions that an engine supports, the output will be correct or acceptable to a user.
However, when moving those inputs to a different engine the results may be different. So exactness really means similarity of calculations to "some standard". That standard is usually desktop Excel, but could be Sheets or some other engine. In fact, Excel has maintained several quirks and bugs from its predecessors for decades.
So what really matters is how well an engine does with a model originating in another engine. The feature set as shown above is obviously a large factor but other things also matter:
Correctly implemented functions. – Calculated output should be close or identical to an ideal standard, and a quirky function should maintain a "standard" quirk.
Correct traversal of dependent cells. – Formulas in a spreadsheet model depend on other cells. When a change happens in one cell, it's vital that dependent cells are calculated in the right order.
Excel and Excel Online
Excel is the de-facto standard. It is one of the most important and widely used software in the world. It has, for all its quirks, done an amazing job at staying consistent and backwards compatible for decades.
Excel doesn't support everything the other engines have implemented but it also has little incentive to as it is the market leader by a wide margin.
The online Excel engine is separate from the desktop one. It is very consistent with its older sibling, but does not have all its capabilities yet. Our testing found that there are some minor incompatibilities in dependency handling, esp. with circular references. Largely though, desktop Excel compatibility is near perfect.
Google Sheets
Sheets does not have a fully compatible cell-model to Excel. Unlike Excel, when a cell references another, the cell picks up the meta-data (such as formatting) from the referenced cell.
Sheets pioneered the spilling of cells, but limited to only a few functions. Sheets' spilling model is less mature than what Excel eventually did and it may be difficult for Google to move to the newer behavior.
Our testing has found that multiple functions in Sheets are quirky, esp. when it comes to error output. But by-and-large Sheets has high compatibility to Excel with the exception of the recent advancements Excel has done with spilling and dynamic arrays.
Sheets also lacks the ability to cross-reference workbooks as well as very advanced reference features (multi-area, 3D).
GRID
GRID's engine is a headless JavaScript engine which is capable of running in a browser as well as on a server. It has been built with the aim of having perfect compatibility to desktop Excel as well as Sheets.
It thus supports both modes of cell meta-data handling and spilling, running workbooks in corresponding modes. It will even allow Excel and Sheets workbooks to coexist in the same environment and theoretically could allow cross-references between them (if authoring this were possible). Workbooks authored in GRID can reference any flavor of workbook.
GRID's compatibility to both Excel and Sheets is very high, missing only a few statistics and finance functions.
SpreadJS
SpreadJS is a browser-only spreadsheet engine. Judging by the engine's tight coupling to its UI, its primary focus seems to be to allow in-browser spreadsheet viewing and editing. It has broad support for Excel features such as charts and images that do not have to do with calculations.
SpreadJS compatibility with Excel is very high, but it lacks all support for Sheets-specific features. It also lacks the capability to cross-reference workbooks.
Other engines
HyperFormula is a headless JavaScript engine capable of running in a browser and on a server. It is quite limited in its features. Its data input/output is basic and it has next to no support for newer and advanced features. Its compatibility with both Excel and Sheets workbooks is low as there are some fundamentals missing like correct/dynamic dependency calculations and anything beyond the most basic number formatting.
jSpreadsheet is a JavaScript engine capable of running in a browser. Its compatibility with Excel is high, but it lacks all support for Sheets specific features. It supports cross-referencing workbooks, but does not support iterative calculation. Its numeric precision is limited so models that require exactness may break.
PhpSpreadsheet is a server based spreadsheet runner. Its compatibility with Excel is low as it lacks nearly all new and advanced features, and does not even respect correct formula operator order.
Rows is a server based spreadsheet runner. Its compatibility with Excel is very low as it lacks most things beyond the absolute basics. Interoperability does not seem to be its focus.
Calc is the open source answer to Excel. It's been around for a long time so it has very high compatibility with Excel except for newer features (like spilling or LAMBDA).
Gnumeric is an open source spreadsheet application that focuses on statistics. Its compatibility with Excel/Sheets is very low, but interoperability has never been its goal.
Numbers is Apple's offering. It takes a very different approach to many paradigms, aiming to innovate in its UI rather than keeping compatibility. It has very low compatibility to Excel and Sheets.
POI is a limited headless Java engine that aims to be a programmatic interface on top of Excel workbooks. Its development seems inert, and it looks to have only limited support for older Excel files and features. Its compatibility with Excel/Sheets is very low.
The interactive charts and calculators in this post were built with Calculator Studio—a standalone, no-code product powered by the GRID spreadsheet engine.
News
Updates and announcements
02.12.2024
Bringing spreadsheets into the AI-first era
Introducing GRID's new mission The current wave of AI is arguably the biggest shift in user interfaces since the advent of the GUI. Meanwhile, spreadsheets remain a cornerstone of the business world — resilient, ubiquitous, and indispensable despite repeated predictions of their demise. The fusion of AI and spreadsheets is poised to be big, but it requires a fundamental rethinking — not bringing AI to traditional spreadsheets, but reimagining spreadsheets and their workflows for the AI-first era. With a unique set of cutting-edge spreadsheet technologies, GRID is uniquely positioned — and determined — to lead this transformation. AI-First The AI-first paradigm is defined by three key characteristics: Language-oriented: We interact with computers in our language, not theirs. Task-centric: Work starts with the task at hand, not the hunt for the right software. Agentic: Computers will act on our behalf, even when we’re not there. Spreadsheets Spreadsheets are not just tools; they are foundational to modern business: Ubiquitous: Over 1 billion users worldwide rely on them. Empowering: As the original low-code solution, they enable business users to solve problems independently. The fabric of business: Spreadsheets likely hold more business logic and data than any formal IT system. Bringing them together With the world’s most advanced independent spreadsheet engine — designed for lightning-fast performance and seamless compatibility with Excel and Google Sheets — and a suite of other powerful spreadsheet technologies, GRID is uniquely positioned to redefine the future of spreadsheets in an AI-first world. We’re bridging the gap between AI and spreadsheets, delivering the reliable and verifiable calculations that AI solutions currently lack. Bringing spreadsheets to ChatGPT Today, we’re taking a major step forward by expanding the Alpha testing of our ChatGPT solution and opening registrations for early access. Sign up now to secure your spot in the Alpha and see GRID’s solution in action!
26.08.2020
GRID closes $12M in Series A funding round led by NEA
We’re thrilled to announce that we have closed a $12M Series A funding round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from our existing investors BlueYard Capital, Slack Fund, Acequia Capital and other strategic partners! This funding will enable us to bring GRID to market and power accelerated product development. For more information see our press release. Additional coverage: Tech Crunch: GRID raises $12M Series A to turn spreadsheets into 'visual narratives' SiliconANGLE: Iceland's Grid lands $12M to help workers make their spreadsheets more visual Tech Target: Analytics startup Grid raises $12 million in funding
27.03.2019
GRID closes $3.5M seed funding
We are thrilled to share some great news with you: We just closed $3.5M in seed funding! The investment is led by BlueYard Capital, with participation from strategic investors such as Slack Fund, Acequia Capital and angel investor Charlie Songhurst. We are happy to work with this group, as they add a lot of value to our mission other than their funding. Needless to say, they deeply believe in our mission to empower people to turn any spreadsheet into a beautiful web report, dashboard or interactive application. After our private Alpha launch a few weeks ago, we are now all heads-down again working on product, strategy, network expansion and go-to-market planning. This investment - on top of our $1M angel round in October - fuels current plans well into 2021. It gives us breathing room to focus on building the initial version of our product, take it to market and grow it from there - by delighting our users. We will be adding a few people to our team in the coming weeks and months. This is a fantastic opportunity to join an exciting startup at an inflection point. Take a look at our open positions, and keep an eye on our tweets.