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An Excel alternative, and an honest account of what Excel still does better
TableDI is a desktop spreadsheet workspace that runs entirely on your machine. Excel is the most capable spreadsheet ever written and it is not going anywhere. This page is about which of the two fits the work in front of you, written by people who use both.
The honest summary is that these are different shapes of tool, not better and worse versions of one tool. The table is the short answer; the sections under it are where the trade-offs live.
| Microsoft Excel | TableDI | |
|---|---|---|
| Rows per sheet | 1,048,576 | Millions in one table; the limit is your machine |
| Function library | Several hundred, plus LAMBDA and dynamic arrays | 82 functions, plus web and AI functions Excel has no equivalent for |
| Writing a formula you don't remember | Type it, or search the docs | Eight guided panels write it in four steps; AI writes it from a sentence |
| Linked tables | Power Pivot and the data model | Built in — a change in the detail table updates the summary and the charts |
| Cost | Microsoft 365 subscription, or a perpetual Office license | Free tier that is not a trial; one-time or yearly |
| Where files live | Your disk, or OneDrive if you use it | A folder on your disk |
| AI | Copilot, on a Microsoft 365 subscription, running in Microsoft's cloud | Your own API key; the request goes from your machine to your provider |
| Macros and scripting | VBA, Office Scripts, Power Query | None of these. Automations are trigger-condition-action, not code |
| Charts | Deep, and everyone knows the format | 16 view types including pivot, funnel, gauge and dashboards |
| Everyone can open your file | Yes. This is Excel's real moat | Export to xlsx, csv or pdf when you need to send it |
Excel's moat is not features, it is that everyone has it
Any honest Excel comparison has to start here. The file format is the interchange standard of business. Your accountant, your bank, your regulator and the person you are hiring next month all read .xlsx. No alternative changes that, and a tool that cannot export a clean .xlsx is not usable in the real world — which is why TableDI exports one.
So the useful question is not "which is better", it is "what am I doing that a spreadsheet is bad at".
Where a spreadsheet stops being the right shape
When the same cleanup happens every month. In Excel you re-drag the formula down the new rows, or you build a Power Query and maintain it. In TableDI a formula column is a property of the column: it recalculates for every row, including the ten thousand you paste in next month. There is nothing to re-drag and nothing to remember.
When one number lives in three places. Detail sheet, summary tab, chart — kept in step by hand, or by a web of references that breaks the first time someone inserts a row. TableDI's tables are linked: the summary and the charts read the detail table live, so there is only ever one copy of the number.
When the file gets big. Excel's hard stop is 1,048,576 rows per sheet, and the practical stop arrives well before that — a workbook with a few hundred thousand rows and a dozen formula columns recalculates slowly enough to change how you work. More on the row limit and what to do about it.
When you cannot remember the function. VLOOKUP's fourth argument, the difference between SUMIF and SUMIFS, why INDEX/MATCH is the "right" way — this is a real tax on people who use spreadsheets occasionally. TableDI's formula panels ask four questions in plain language and write the formula, and the formula stays visible so you learn it rather than hiding it. How that works.
Excel without a subscription
A large share of the people searching for an Excel alternative are not unhappy with Excel; they are unhappy with renting it. The options worth knowing about:
- LibreOffice Calc — free, open source, and the closest thing to a drop-in Excel replacement including a large function library. If what you want is Excel-but-free, start here, not with us.
- Excel for the web — free with a Microsoft account, and genuinely capable for ordinary sheets, but it is a web app with your file in OneDrive.
- A perpetual Office license — still sold, no cloud requirement, and it never becomes read-only.
- TableDI — a different shape of tool rather than a cheaper Excel: a workspace for data work, bought once, working offline. Pricing.
When to choose each
Stay with Excel
- Your work is financial modeling — nothing matches Excel for building and auditing a model.
- You depend on VBA, Office Scripts or Power Query you have already written.
- You need a specific statistical or engineering function from Excel's library.
- Your team exchanges live workbooks and expects formulas to survive the round trip.
- You need to co-author a file with someone in real time.
Try TableDI
- You repeat the same import-and-clean every week or month.
- Your files are big enough that Excel has started to think about it.
- You want AI writing the formulas without the data leaving your machine.
- You want a dashboard that updates itself, not a chart you re-point at a new range.
- You want to buy a tool once. See the tiers.
Trying it without committing
The free tier is not a trial and does not expire: no cap on rows, sheets, file size, imports, formulas or views, and one dashboard. The cap is on the way out — 1,000 rows per sheet exported — which is enough to check that the tool does what you need before deciding whether to pay for the exports, the AI plugins and the automations. And if you decide against it, the full encrypted backup export is on the free tier too, so nothing is held hostage.
Questions people ask
What is the best free Excel alternative?
For a like-for-like replacement of the spreadsheet itself, LibreOffice Calc — free, open source, offline, with a large function library. TableDI's free tier is worth trying when what you want is not a cheaper spreadsheet but a workspace for repeated data work: linked tables, formula columns that keep recalculating, and dashboards.
Is there an Excel alternative for Mac that is not a web app?
Yes — LibreOffice Calc, Apple Numbers and TableDI all run natively on macOS. The TableDI build is signed and notarized by Apple, on both Apple silicon and Intel, so it opens without a Gatekeeper warning. Downloads.
Can TableDI open my existing .xlsx files?
Yes — .xlsx, .xlsm, .xls, .csv and JSON, with no row cap on import. Values, sheets and dates come across. Excel formulas are not translated: TableDI has its own engine with 82 functions, so calculated columns are rebuilt once on the way in. Importing.
Does TableDI have VLOOKUP?
It has a Vlookup panel, which is the same job done as a four-step wizard: pick the lookup column, pick the table to search, pick what to return, done. The formula it writes stays visible and editable. There is also a Match panel for the comparison case people usually reach for VLOOKUP to solve.
Can I use Excel and TableDI together?
That is how most people start. Import the file, do the repetitive part in TableDI, export a clean .xlsx for whoever needs one. Nothing about TableDI asks you to stop using Excel.
Does the free tier expire?
No. It is a tier, not a trial: no time limit, no read-only lockout, no card. The limits are functional — 1,000 rows per sheet on export, one dashboard, no AI plugins or automations — and they are the same on day 400 as on day one. The full split.
Related
Do this on your own machine instead
TableDI is a desktop spreadsheet workspace that runs entirely on your machine. Import the file, fix it, chart it — nothing is uploaded, and there is no account to create.
Free forever, not a trial — no account, no card. macOS and Windows. What the paid tier adds.
Last reviewed 2026-09-01 by the TableDI team. Something wrong on this page? Tell us — it is one inbox, read by the people who build TableDI.