The 10 Best Excel Alternatives in 2026 (Free & Paid)

Microsoft Excel is still the spreadsheet standard, and still not free: a Microsoft 365 Personal subscription runs $99.99 a year, and the one-time Office Home 2024 license costs $179.99. If all you need is solid spreadsheet work — budgets, lists, analysis, sharing — there's an excellent alternative to Excel at every price including free, and one of the best free options comes from Microsoft itself.

This guide has been fully re-checked for 2026, and the field has changed: several of the alternatives we once recommended are gone or no longer safe to suggest (details at the end). Here's what's actually worth using now.

Quick comparison

Alternative	Price	Runs	Opens/saves .xlsx	Best for
Google Sheets	Free	Browser, mobile	Yes	Best overall / collaboration
Excel for the web	Free	Browser, mobile	Yes (it IS Excel)	Excel users who need free
LibreOffice Calc	Free	Windows, Mac, Linux	Yes	Best free desktop app
Zoho Sheet	Free tier	Browser, mobile	Yes	Teams already on Zoho
Apple Numbers	Free	Mac, iPad, iPhone	Yes	Mac-first design work
OnlyOffice	Free tier	Desktop, browser	Yes (best fidelity)	Excel-faithful open source
WPS Office	Free w/ ads	Desktop, mobile	Yes	Most Excel-like interface
FreeOffice PlanMaker	Free	Windows, Mac, Linux	Yes	Lightweight desktop
Grist	Free tier	Browser, self-host	Import	Spreadsheet-database hybrid
Gnumeric	Free	Linux	Yes	Linux number-crunching

1. Google Sheets — best overall

Google Sheets is the default Excel alternative for a reason: it's genuinely free with any Google account, lives in the browser, and its real-time collaboration is still the best in the business — multiple people editing one sheet simultaneously is the workflow Excel spent years catching up to. It opens and exports .xlsx files, automates via Apps Script (JavaScript, in place of Excel's VBA), and connects cleanly to Google Forms for data collection.

Limits worth knowing: sheets cap at 10 million cells, huge files get sluggish compared to desktop Excel, and Google's Gemini AI features in Sheets are reserved for paid Workspace plans — the free tier gets the spreadsheet, not the AI assistant.

Who it's for: Almost everyone — and unquestionably anyone whose spreadsheets are shared documents rather than private files.

2. Microsoft Excel for the web — the free Excel most people miss

Here's the option the original version of this article couldn't include, because it barely existed: Excel itself, free, in the browser. A free Microsoft account gets you the real Excel engine on the web with 5GB of OneDrive storage, full .xlsx fidelity, co-authoring, and AutoSave. For the "I just need Excel to open this file properly" crowd, this is the answer.

The catch is the missing power features: no VBA macros, no Power Query, limited PivotTables, no offline use. It's Excel's everyday 80%, free forever — Microsoft's own on-ramp to the paid product.

Who it's for: Anyone who specifically needs Excel formatting and formula behavior without paying for it.

3. LibreOffice Calc — best free desktop app

LibreOffice Calc is the strongest truly free desktop spreadsheet: actively developed, open source, no account, no cloud requirement, no ads. It matches Excel's grid capacity (1,048,576 rows), handles pivot tables and charting well, and — uniquely among free options — runs simple Excel VBA macros through its compatibility mode, though anything with UserForms or ActiveX won't survive the trip.

The interface is functional rather than pretty, and collaboration means emailing files, not co-editing. But as the private, offline, fully-featured workhorse, nothing free touches it.

Who it's for: Desktop-first users, privacy-minded users, and anyone replacing Office on an older PC.

4. Zoho Sheet — best for small teams outside Google/Microsoft

Zoho Sheet remains the most complete independent cloud spreadsheet: a capable free tier, clean .xlsx handling, live collaboration, and it slots into Zoho's broader suite (CRM, Forms, Books) that many small businesses already run. Its Zia AI assistant can build formulas, pivot tables, and charts from plain-English requests — on paid plans; the free tier goes without.

Who it's for: Small businesses in the Zoho ecosystem, or anyone wanting cloud collaboration without a Google or Microsoft account.

5. Apple Numbers — best on a Mac

Numbers ships free on every Mac, iPad, and iPhone, and it's a different philosophy of spreadsheet: a freeform canvas where tables, charts, and text live together, producing the best-looking output of anything on this list. It exports to .xlsx when you need to share with Excel users.

The trade-off is scale and depth — heavy formula work, very large datasets, and Windows compatibility aren't its game (there's a web version via iCloud, but Numbers is really for Apple hardware). Note the core app remains free in 2026; Apple's new subscription bundles only gate premium templates, not functionality.

Who it's for: Mac users making budgets, plans, and presentable one-page spreadsheets rather than million-row models.

6. OnlyOffice — best Excel fidelity in open source

OnlyOffice is built natively around Microsoft's own file formats, which makes it the open-source option least likely to mangle a complex .xlsx on the way in or out. The desktop editors are free for personal use, a free cloud tier exists for individuals, and organizations can self-host — a real differentiator for anyone who wants Google-Docs-style collaboration on servers they control.

Who it's for: Users who receive lots of Excel files from others, and teams wanting self-hosted collaboration.

7. WPS Office — most Excel-like interface

WPS Office looks and feels closer to desktop Excel than anything else here, tabbed documents and all, and its free tier is fully functional for spreadsheets. Macro support requires a separate VBA add-on and gets mixed results on complex workbooks.

Two caveats belong in any honest recommendation: the free version shows ads, and WPS is made by Kingsoft, a Chinese company whose data practices drew a (never-enforced) US executive order in 2021 — worth weighing if your spreadsheets are sensitive.

Who it's for: Users who want the Excel desktop experience free and are comfortable with the trade-offs.

8. SoftMaker FreeOffice PlanMaker — lightweight and genuinely free

German-made FreeOffice includes PlanMaker, a fast, light spreadsheet with strong .xlsx compatibility that runs happily on modest hardware. The free version has no macro support at all; the paid SoftMaker Office ($29.90/year) adds a VBA-like scripting language, though existing Excel macros still need rewriting.

Who it's for: Older or low-powered PCs, and users who want a no-frills installed spreadsheet without LibreOffice's bulk.

9. Grist — the spreadsheet-database hybrid

Grist is the most interesting newcomer to this list: an open-source tool that crosses a spreadsheet with a database, using real Python as its formula language and offering per-row access controls that regular spreadsheets can't do. There's a free cloud tier and it can be fully self-hosted.

It's not an Excel clone and doesn't try to be — it's what to reach for when your "spreadsheet" is really a dataset with structure, relationships, and multiple users who shouldn't all see everything.

Who it's for: Technical users and teams whose spreadsheets have outgrown being spreadsheets.

10. Gnumeric — for Linux desktops

Gnumeric is the GNOME project's lean, fast spreadsheet, still actively maintained and respected for the statistical accuracy of its functions. The catch that moves it to the bottom of this list: the project no longer distributes official Windows builds, making it effectively Linux-only in 2026.

Who it's for: Linux users doing statistical and numerical work who don't need the rest of an office suite.

What we dropped from this list, and why

The 2019 version of this guide recommended several options we can no longer suggest. Apache OpenOffice still exists but its own security team has flagged unpatched vulnerabilities and a shrinking developer base — LibreOffice is its actively-maintained descendant and the safe choice. ThinkFree Office pivoted to enterprise software with no consumer product. Spread32 and BIRT Spreadsheet Designer are effectively abandoned relics. And a cautionary tale for shiny new tools: Rows, the VC-backed "AI spreadsheet," shut down in May 2026 after being acquired — your spreadsheets deserve software with staying power, which is partly why the survivors above are the list.

What about VBA macros?

The honest dealbreaker check: if your workflow depends on Excel VBA macros, no alternative runs them reliably. LibreOffice Calc handles simple macros; WPS needs an add-on and gets partial results; everything else uses its own scripting (Apps Script in Google Sheets, Python in Grist). Complex macro workbooks — UserForms, ActiveX, add-ins — need real desktop Excel. That single question sorts most people between this list and a Microsoft 365 subscription faster than any feature comparison.

Frequently asked questions

What's the best free Excel alternative? Google Sheets for collaboration and general use; LibreOffice Calc for a desktop app; Excel for the web if what you really want is free Excel. All three open and save .xlsx files.

Can I get real Microsoft Excel for free? Yes — Excel for the web is free with a Microsoft account, and the Excel mobile app is free on phones. You give up macros, Power Query, and offline use; the core spreadsheet is the real thing.

How much does Excel cost if I pay? In 2026: Microsoft 365 Personal at $9.99/month or $99.99/year (all Office apps plus 1TB OneDrive and Copilot AI credits), or Office Home 2024 as a $179.99 one-time purchase without the cloud and AI extras.

Do these alternatives handle AI features like Excel's Copilot? The AI wave hit spreadsheets everywhere, but almost always behind a paid tier: Copilot needs Microsoft 365, Gemini in Sheets needs a paid Google plan, Zoho's Zia needs a paid plan. Free tiers across the board give you the spreadsheet without the assistant.

Will formatting survive moving between Excel and an alternative? Simple sheets, yes. Complex workbooks — heavy conditional formatting, nested pivot tables, macros — degrade in translation, with OnlyOffice generally most faithful and Numbers least. If a file must render perfectly for Excel users, edit it in Excel (the free web version counts).

The final verdict

For most people, Google Sheets is the best Excel alternative in 2026 — free, collaborative, and more than capable for everyday work. LibreOffice Calc is the pick for a private desktop app, and Excel for the web is the underrated answer for anyone who specifically needs Excel behavior at zero cost.

If you're de-Microsofting your whole toolkit, our guides to the best Microsoft Word alternatives and the best office apps for Android cover the rest of the suite.