Are There Any Free Alternatives to Microsoft Excel?

Alternatives to Using Microsoft Excel

This site has made the assumption so far that you have Microsoft Excel.  There is a percentage of the population who don’t use Microsoft Office.  For them, they have to use other solutions to meet their spreadsheet needs.  The Excel alternatives below are free and have nearly the same functionality as Microsoft Excel.

Google Spreadsheets

Google introduced their version of the Office suite a few years ago.  The Excel component is know as Spreadsheets.

Pros:

• Available online
• Has  spreadsheet templates available
• Can save and share documents online
• Microsoft has seen the benefit of this online product and will be offering Excel 2010 online as well

Cons:

• Only available online
• Not as stable as Office suite especially when sharing documents online
• Not as functional as Excel

Open Office

Open Office is a free product that has a suite similar to the Microsoft Office Suite.  Its Excel counterpart is called Calc.

Pros:

• This product can be downloaded to your computer
• Is free to use
• Very similar interface to Excel

Cons

• CPU and Memory resource hog
• Limited Fonts
• Limited support for this product