Comparison of spreadsheet software

Online versus Desktop

Web-based spreadsheets do not in general depend on a particular operating system or similar constraints and are therefore generally more portable by their nature than desktop applications.

Collaborative spreadsheets

Generally, online spreadsheets offer spreadsheet sharing and public sharing as part of their features which enables collaboration between multiple users.

• see shared public spreadsheets

Remote data update

Some on-line spreadsheets provide "remote data update" allowing data values to be extracted from other users' spreadsheets even though they may be inactive at the time.

It should be noted that Gnumeric (listed below as a desktop spreadsheet) is also used as the "back-end" processor in at least one on-line spreadsheet application (Editgrid).

Online spreadsheets

The following tables only provide a comparison of desktop spreadsheet applications.

For a list and links to comparisons of online (web-based) spreadsheets,

• see List of online spreadsheets.

Desktop Spreadsheets

General

	Creator	Development started	First public release	Latest stable version	Cost (USD)	License
Gnumeric	GNOME Office Team	1998	1998	1.8.3 / 2008-05-24	Free	GPL
KSpread	KOffice KSpread Team			1.6.3 / 2007-06-07	Free	LGPL
Mariner Calc	Mariner Software	1990	1992	5.5.1	$49.95	Proprietary
Mesa	P&L Software	1990	1991	3.1 / 2006-08	$34	Proprietary
Microsoft Excel	Microsoft	1982	1985	12.0.4 / November 2006	$239	Proprietary
Numbers	Apple, Inc.		2007-08-07	2.0 / 2009-01-06	$79 (packaged with Pages and Keynote as part of Apple iWork)	Proprietary
OpenOffice.org Calc	Sun Microsystems	2000	Build 638c / October 2001	2.4 / March 27, 2008	Free	LGPL
Quattro Pro	Corel	1988		X4		Proprietary
Resolver One	Resolver Systems	2005	2008-01-16	1.3.1 / 2009-01-13	Free for non-commercial use or $399	Non-commercial use / Proprietary
Tables	Daniel Schwill	2004	First Public Beta / 2005-12	1.4.4 / 2008-05-27	$46	Proprietary

Operating system support

The operating systems the software can run on natively (without emulation).

	Windows	Mac OS X	Linux	BSD	Unix
Gnumeric	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
KSpread	beta	beta	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mariner Calc	No	Yes	No	No	No
Mesa	No	Yes	No	No	No
Microsoft Excel	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Numbers	No	Yes	No	No	No
OpenOffice.org Calc	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Quattro Pro	Yes
Resolver One	Yes	No	No	No	No
Tables	No	Yes	No	No	No
	Windows	Mac OS X	Linux	BSD	Unix

Import capabilities

This table gives a comparison of what file formats each spreadsheet can import.

	Calc	CSV	Excel	HTML	LaTeX	ODF	OOXML
Gnumeric	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
KSpread	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
Mariner Calc	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
Mesa	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
Microsoft Excel	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes,plugin	Yes
Numbers	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
OpenOffice.org Calc	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Quattro Pro	No	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes
Resolver One
Tables	Partial	Yes	Yes	No	No	Partial
	Calc	CSV	Excel	HTML	LaTeX	ODF	OOXML

Export capabilities

This table gives a comparison of what file formats each spreadsheet can export.

	Calc	CSV	Excel	HTML	PDF	LaTeX	ODF	OOXML
Gnumeric	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
KSpread	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes		Yes	No
Mariner Calc	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Mesa	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Microsoft Excel	No	Yes	Yes	Partial			Yes,plugin	Yes
Numbers	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
OpenOffice.org Calc	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
Quattro Pro	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Resolver One
Tables	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
	Calc	CSV	Excel	HTML	PDF	LaTeX	ODF	OOXML

Spreadsheet comparison tools

Looking for changes in spreadsheets or checking to see if two copies of a spreadsheet have identical content can be a mind-numbing exercise, especially for the larger and more complex spreadsheets. For Microsoft Excel, at least, the data file is amended each time the file is opened, even if there are no actual changes in the spreadsheet itself. For this reason; using file comparison will always show differences if the two files have different viewing (file opened) histories, even if the contents are identical. The following tools are helpful to find if there are any actual differences between different spreadsheet files.

	Creator	Development started	First public release	Latest stable version	Cost (USD)	License
Spreadsheet Compare	sourceforge.net	2004	?	1.11 / 2006-09-16	Free	GPL
Compare Excel files	Spreadsheet Advantage	?	?	? / ?	$299 (30-day trial)	Proprietary
Synkronizer	Synkronizer	2000-07	?	9.5 / 2008-02	€29 to €149	Proprietary
Spreadsheet Professional	Miricle Solutions	?	?	? / ?	? (30-day trial)	Proprietary

See also

• List of spreadsheets
• List of online spreadsheets
• Comparison of word processors
• Comparison of Numbers '09 and Excel