
All core functionality is in the free edition. Google Sheets is part of Google’s G-Suite productivity apps and functions similarly to Microsoft Excel (right down to its green icon). By offering free and inexpensive services to users, they can grow their data collection, ad targeting, and media sales efforts, and make searches more comprehensive and accurate. Google’s core competencies are in search, data collection, storage, and advertising. In this article, we compare the top spreadsheet apps currently available and look at features, mobility, automation, compatibility, best use case, and even how to set up a sheet. In recent years, however, new players have arisen that offer enhanced features and functionality that simply aren’t available in the Excel. Several competitors arose, but Microsoft eventually released the first graphical version of Excel on Macintosh in 1985, and grew to dominate productivity software ever since. At the time, with just 22 functions, no charts, and a cumbersome interface, it was so revolutionary it was considered a killer app for the early Mac. The original digital spreadsheet was the DOS-style Visicalc debuted on Apple II in 1979. Of course, improvements have been made across the board in terms of automation, collaboration, and visualization, but at the end of the day, it’s still just a grid, values, and calculations. This analog era holdover system of tables, labels, and entries is still quite relevant today. In all this time, no one has come up with a better way to manage and organize data than the humble spreadsheet.

No-code required.įrom lines of DOS commands at your desk to real-time cloud access in your pocket, computers have come a long way.

