17 best Microsoft Excel alternatives & competitors for your teams

ProofHub is a versatile project management and collaboration platform that leaves Excel behind when it comes to teamwork and collaboration. Its modern work approach helps managers and team members to perform outstanding and fast at work.

ProofHub provides a centralized hub for collaboration, communication, task management, and time tracking.

ProofHub makes all information easily accessible such as project details, discussions with team members, important files, and tasks in a central place.

Its robust task management feature helps users to create tasks, assign them to team members, set deadlines, and track progress all within a user-friendly interface. Whereas Excel lacks all of these functionalities. If you need to create all these functionalities in Excel then you need to be a pro at Excel, only then you will be able to do it.

In ProofHub, changes are instantly reflected across the platform, ensuring all team members can access the latest information. This real-time functionality surpasses Excel’s manual updating process, reducing the risk of version control issues.

ProofHub allows users to customize workflows to match their specific project requirements. From task statuses to approval processes, teams can tailor workflows to optimize productivity and streamline project execution—Excel does not offer these options.

ProofHub offers visual progress tracking through Gantt charts, Kanban boards, and other visualization tools. These dynamic visuals provide at-a-glance insights into project timelines and progress, surpassing Excel’s static charting capabilities. In ProofHub you can do it with a few clicks, you don’t require any technical knowledge to perform all of these things.

If you have a Gmail account, you already have access to Google Sheets.

It’s a free, web-based software office suite offered by Google within its Google Drive service. The application allows users to create and edit files online and collaborate on them with others in real-time.

Sharing spreadsheet documents, online storage, shared access, real-time editing over the internet, and offline access are some of the key benefits of this program that make it an ideal choice for businesses and teams looking to collaborate and work on projects without having to coordinate their schedules.

Lastly, with Google Sheets, users can also download files to their computer or keep the online files in sync with the ones stored on their local drive for offline access.

Zoho is a suite of applications that works exceptionally well for small and medium-sized businesses.

The appearance and functionalities of this tool are similar to those of Microsoft Excel, but it offers a much smoother experience.

With Zoho Sheet, users can open files on their computer or import sheets using URLs, switch between different file formats like .xlsx, .xls, .csv, and .ods., collaborate with others in real-time, and stay connected to work from their mobile devices.

LibreOffice is an open-source Excel alternative that has been derived from the original Openoffice.org, just like Apache Open Office.

And it’s not just Excel, LibreOffice is an alternative to the whole Microsoft Office application.

However, suppose we keep the fact aside that LibreOffice provides all the basic Excel features like pivot tables and text to columns aside. In that case, LibreOffice lacks an essential functionality i.e. extensive formatting.

Also, there have been many incidents where the application crashes while handling a large amount of information. That is why LibreOffice is often considered best for personal use but not so ideal for comprehensive business analysis.

Microsoft Project is a versatile, flexible tool for project management and portfolio management with both cloud-based and on-premises options.

The tool is designed to help teams organize and keep track of their projects.

It enables businesses to get started on the right foot while managing a project, managing project portfolio investments, and ensuring successful project delivery with the intended business value.

ThinkFree is quite similar to Google Drive applications. It’s a suite of web-based word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation tools that allows users to manage documents from any platform/device.

With ThinkFree, users can create, view, and edit documents within the application and collaborate on them with others in real time.

The software is completely compatible with Microsoft Office and is pretty easy to use as compared to other spreadsheet alternatives.

SPREAD 32 is an excellent Excel alternative and a go-to tool for analyzing and organizing a small amount of business data or spreadsheet files. It includes over 300 functions under mathematics, trigonometry, logic, engineering, and financial categories.

SPREAD 32 works with almost every basic spreadsheet file which includes XLS, CSV, and PXL.

However, if you often go through comprehensive data analysis or your hard drive is crammed with data most of the time, it might be best to look into their online spreadsheets.

Workzone is an easy-to-use, cloud-hosted application for efficient project management, team collaboration, and document management. For years Workzone has been used by teams to stay organized at work.

The tool helps them to organize projects by tasks/subtasks, set priorities, assign responsibilities, and get notified in real-time regarding project or task progress.

It enables project managers and teams to keep their projects in check and quickly identify the ones that need immediate attention. It’s a mature and battle-tested project management software solution that has been an excellent Excel alternative since 2000.

Redbooth is a great alternative to Microsoft spreadsheets and popular as a project management and team collaboration tool for quite a long time.

Eventually, teams and businesses have started to realize that Redbooth is a significantly better alternative than the competing tools, including Microsoft Excel.

Redbooth is effective, intuitive, secure, and trusted by users across all industries. It serves as an ideal single place where teams can conduct HD video conference meetings, one-on-one discussions, team chats, file sharing, task management, and more.

Gnumeric is an innovative and open-source spreadsheet application that provides all the basic functionalities with other additional features.

For users who’ve had previous experience with any other spreadsheet software, Gnumeric is easy to use and is a great tool for less complicated data analysis.

It’s a powerful Microsoft Excel alternative with which teams can read files saved with other spreadsheets and manage large spreadsheets while remaining responsive. Gnumeric also provides users with the ability to get a more customizable feel and save tons on transition.

Scoro is an intuitive data analytics solution that can also be considered “Excel on steroids”. It doesn’t provide the formal Microsoft Excel functionality but when it comes to organizing and visualizing business-critical information, it’s an excellent tool to work with.

The tool integrated seamlessly with an array of third-party applications and tools which makes it even easier for teams to keep everything and everyone in one place.

Also, it’s an excellent tool for analyzing and managing an extensive amount of business data. As compared to Microsoft Excel, Scoro delivers more insightful and beautiful visualizations.

WPS Office is an amazing, affordable office suite for Microsoft Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, developed by a software and Internet services company based in California, USA.

The office software solution allows teams to perform various tasks, create and modify Word/text documents, convert PDF documents to editable formats, create spreadsheets and presentations, retrieve deleted files, and everything else that helps fulfill their file management or document management needs.

WPS Office is an efficient and light application that empowers businesses and teams to painlessly manage their everyday tasks and activities at work.

Sheetster is an open-source, standalone online spreadsheet service that allows teams to create, edit, and access spreadsheets in different formats.

It provides support for a range of Excel features and formulas and can import and export files in .xls and .xlsx formats without any hassle.

Sheetster also provides server-side API and REST API which makes it an ideal choice for development teams who are looking to integrate spreadsheets into web applications.

Freedcamp is a web-based project management and team collaboration software that keeps teams organized and on track via the cloud.

This free project management platform can be used for an unlimited number of projects and users. It’s an ideal software solution for businesses that are looking for ways to stay in control of their projects, resources, time, and data.

Freedcamp provides an array of tools and capabilities that allow teams to achieve their goals without having to invest in multiple tools.

Podio is a simple collaboration software that is designed to help teams stay organized and communicate better within the workplace atmosphere. It does that through a system that puts everything and everyone in a single place.

Podia provides tools for various project management functions, including team collaboration, task management, file sharing, automated workflows, shared calendars, meeting scheduling, and integrated chat.

With this software, teams can closely track their projects and keep their documents organized, no matter what.

Calligra Sheets is a feature-rich calculation and spreadsheet tool that you can count as the best alternative to MS Excel. It is being used by teams across the globe for creating and calculating business-related spreadsheets, including employee work hours, overall expenditure, and income.

The technology used in Calligra Sheets is the same as any other Calligra product. That’s why it integrates well with any other Calligra application and is easy to use.

Furthermore, it allows users to create flowcharts and mindmaps for work and keep them in a central place until the work is done.

SharePoint is a Microsoft-hosted alternative to Excel that helps teams store, organize, access, and share information more efficiently.

The solution unites some really impressive features, including content management, business intelligence, workflow management, personal cloud, workflow management, and more.

The overall vision behind this solution is to streamline effectiveness and provide teams access to the relevant data at the right time.