By John Kanellakos
Publication Date: 2026-01-15 19:04:00
If you’ve ever had to calculate, organize, visualize, or sort through large swaths of numerical data sets, then there’s a good chance that you’ve relied on Microsoft Excel to do much of the heavy lifting. As one of the first mainstream digital spreadsheet programs to hit the PC world, Excel has become a ubiquitous utility within the productivity world.
Over the years, Microsoft has bolstered the capabilities of Excel, while also introducing it to competing platforms like Mac, iPadOS, and Android. That being said, the traditional Excel program has become increasingly bloated due to feature creep, and Microsoft’s perpetual subscription-based business model is less pro-user than ever before.
Thankfully, there are a number of stellar spreadsheet program options out on the market, some of which are entirely free and open-source (FOSS), and some of which focus on providing a cleaner user interface or superior virtual collaboration flows. Here are six Excel…
