Google Sheets vs Excel | Which one’s right for you?

If you have stepped into the world of productivity there is a very good chance you are looking for a software to manage sheets. This is a battle of Google Sheets vs Microsoft Excel since both softwares dominate the market.

It is believed that Excel overshadows Sheets in the market but while Excel has its pros, so does Google Sheets. According to this research Google Sheets is preferred by young individuals and young companies and startups. While established companies and young people at established organisations prefer Excel.

So if both tools are so great, which one to choose? In this guide we will help you make that decision.

Google Sheets vs Excel: Feature Comparison

First lets look at the features of Google Sheets in comparison to Excel. While there are a lot of similarities you would also find a lot of differences.

One of the strong features of Google Sheets is real-time online collaboration that syncs with tools you already might use. For example Google Drive, Gmail, Google Docs etc

Okay but what about the costs? This is where Google Sheets wins hands-down. Why?

Because Google Sheets is absolutely FREE to use with a Gmail account. Excel on the other hand comes bundled with Microsoft Office suite and the pricing for that can vary.

Collaboration & Autosaving

If there is one thing Google Sheets is known for, its collaboration. This means you can even chat with people in real-time as you work on your sheets together. Also there is option to tag people and assign them tasks on each cell.

In case of Excel everything is stored on your local computer. And this means you that the latest version of your file is always stored but locally only and then you need to email people every time you make changes. This limits the convenience of real-time collaboration.

Autosaving is another big feature of Google Sheets.

Once you make changes to file it is automatically saved to cloud in Google Sheets. In case of Excel however it would depend on the version you have. If you have the regular Excel (without OneDrive cloud storage) then you will have to hit save after you make a change and that can be quite a hassle.

Ease of Use & Large Files

If you are not a spreadsheets kind of person then you will find Google Sheets easy to start with.

However if you have been using Excel in college and in work life then you might find it easier as compared to Google Sheets. But you don’t have to worry since both are easy to learn and work with.

In terms of user experience though you might find Google Sheets to be a lot more simple compared to Excel.

On the case of handling large files Excel has the advantage of being faster with large files that has a lot of data. The reason for it being faster is that it loads a file directly from a computer instead of the cloud. So there is more compute power it can assign to each file.

Google Sheets vs Excel: What’s the verdict

It really depends.

But we think you if you are looking to get started in the world of spreadsheets then Google Sheets is the way to go. Personally we love using Google Sheets and think it is very easy to use and powerful tool.

Finally we have listed a Google Pros vs Cons for you in case that will help you make decision:

Google Sheets Pros:

• Extremely easy to use
• Comes free with Gmail
• Built for online collaboration
• Real-time chat feature
• Access from anywhere
• You can tag your friends & colleagues
• Add-ons can enhance functionality
• Super secure

Google Sheets Cons:

• Not suitable for large files
• Limited data visualisation options
• Cannot be customised much

Hope you enjoyed the detailed guide. We also have a guide on Google Sheets Formulas that can boost your productivity in case you want to review.