Microsoft Excel
Microsoft's spreadsheet application for calculations, data analysis and charting, part of Microsoft 365.
Liked as an approachable, reactive tool that lets non-programmers and domain experts build working solutions,1234 and many say it is hard to replace for business and finance work.5678 The most common complaint is declining quality, with reports of bloat, broken pasting and phone-home licensing,91011 plus quirks when opening CSV files.121314
Why people recommend it
Accessible power · 3
People without much technical expertise can use it to do useful work in their own domain.
“What Excel gave us is a tool that was simple enough that people without a lot of technical expertise could wield it in anger”
“I cannot overstate just how much I love working on stuff in Excel and Google Sheets.”
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“Excel in the hands of somebody that can actually use it is an incredibly powerful tool.”
Hard to replace · 3
Users who try other tools often return to Excel, and its single-app, single-file setup is hard to match.
“Excel is much stickier than most people realize.”
“still not as flawless as Excel”
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“That's part of the reason Excel can't be dethroned.”
Business workflows · 3
Praised for business, finance and engineering work such as reorganizing data, building tools and doing taxes.
“Excel really shines because it's designed for business.”
“Excel is for the complicated stuff.”
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“Excel was the bread and butter for many engineers for a long time to make functional tools.”
Fast iteration · 2
Reactive recalculation gives instant feedback and quick iteration, even for programmers.
“Even as a programmer I find Excel pretty useful for anything involving numbers.”
“I cannot overstate just how much I love working on stuff in Excel and Google Sheets.”
Keyboard speed · 3
Heavy users value being able to work quickly from the keyboard.
“That's part of the reason Excel can't be dethroned.”
“When you're spending twelve hours a day in Excel, moving around quickly with just the keyboard starts to matter.”
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“Excel in the hands of somebody that can actually use it is an incredibly powerful tool.”
New type features · 1
A long-time user called a recent type-system feature the only revolutionary change in 30 years.
“I genuinely believe this is the only revolutionary feature I’ve seen implemented in excel in the 30 years that I have been using it.”
Caveats and dissent
Declining quality · 3
Commenters report bloat, broken pasting, an awkward scrollbar and licensing that phones home.
“Microsoft has enshittified it.”
“Microsoft breaking pasting in fucking Excel and managing to ship that to consumers”
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“excel is slowly morphing into an unusable bloated behemoth”
CSV handling · 3
Opening CSV files brings quirks, and some large files will not open at all.
“I got tired of all the quirks when opening CSV files in Excel”
“files that excel won't even open”
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“Excel is for the complicated stuff.”
Complex formulas · 3
Nested lookup formulas and range references are hard to get right and error-prone.
“I love spreadsheets.”
“it's ultra-powerful stuff, but you basically have to be a programmer to understand what's doable”
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“anything is better than excel”
Maintainability · 3
There is no good testing, source control or modularity, so complex sheets are hard to maintain.
“I cannot overstate just how much I love working on stuff in Excel and Google Sheets.”
“Even as a programmer I find Excel pretty useful for anything involving numbers.”
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“I use Excel a lot”
Calculation errors · 1
Floating-point rounding errors make it unreliable for accounting work.
“The tool is broken in a way that proper accounting software is not...”
File versioning · 2
Sharing files on network drives leads to messy versioning and editing conflicts.
“we cannot switch away from Excel, whether I like it or not”
“my company is so entrenched in Excel that I don't see any alternative”
Often compared with
1 moved from Microsoft Excel to LibreOfficeGoogle Sheets4 comments mention both
1 moved from Microsoft Excel to Google SheetsNumbers5 comments mention both
1 moved from Microsoft Excel to ClaudeSharePoint3 comments mention bothgridcraft2 comments mention both
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Excel now supports multiple values in a single cell 5 mentions
- Microsoft Teams is a red flag 3 mentions
- Kale: A Transformation-Safe Spreadsheet System 2 mentions
- My Rules for Using Spreadsheets 2 mentions
- MoneyPouch – self hosted expense tracker 1 mention
- Ask HN: Have you observed this trend of building "internal vibe-coding apps"? 1 mention
Also written as Microsoft Excel. Data: microsoft-excel.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 38
“anything is better than excel”
“What Excel gave us is a tool that was simple enough that people without a lot of technical expertise could wield it in anger”
“we cannot switch away from Excel, whether I like it or not”
“my company is so entrenched in Excel that I don't see any alternative”
“I don't see a way away from excel.”
“I hate Excel and curse it, but in the end, I use it”
“Excel is much stickier than most people realize.”
“I genuinely believe this is the only revolutionary feature I’ve seen implemented in excel in the 30 years that I have been using it.”
“Microsoft has enshittified it.”
“Even as a programmer I find Excel pretty useful for anything involving numbers.”
“Excel was the bread and butter for many engineers for a long time to make functional tools.”
“Also, Excel’s scrollbar is deranged in general.”
“Microsoft breaking pasting in fucking Excel and managing to ship that to consumers”
“still not as flawless as Excel”
“it's ultra-powerful stuff, but you basically have to be a programmer to understand what's doable”
“The count is added and checked in an Excel sheet”
“That's part of the reason Excel can't be dethroned.”
“I've done a handful of Excel automations that they needed”
“a tracking sheet created in excel”
“Excel for spreadsheets -_-”
“Excel is for the complicated stuff.”
“excel is a powerful tool but in nowadays tech it is outdated.”
“files that excel won't even open”
“a Excel file where I save and review the new words”
“All of the following products and services are fantastic in 2026:”
“I cannot overstate just how much I love working on stuff in Excel and Google Sheets.”
“I got tired of all the quirks when opening CSV files in Excel”
“Excel did the calculations. It was super easy”
“When you're spending twelve hours a day in Excel, moving around quickly with just the keyboard starts to matter.”
“If the CFO is saying to use Excel, you use Excel.”
“The tool is broken in a way that proper accounting software is not...”
“I used excel and wrote down all the tasks that needed to be done”
“I use Excel a lot”
“I use named ranges to semantically label relevant cells or ranges, and then use those labels in the formula.”
“Excel in the hands of somebody that can actually use it is an incredibly powerful tool.”
“Excel really shines because it's designed for business.”
“excel is slowly morphing into an unusable bloated behemoth”
“I love spreadsheets.”