Nextcloud, Ionos and other partners are developing an open-source office suite under the project name „Euro-Office“ as an alternative to the market-dominant Microsoft Office.
The two partners are not starting from scratch, but have forked the components of OnlyOffice available as open-source code and want to build on them. In the summer, the software is then intended to replace the previous office component Collabora in Nextcloud and the Ionos Nextcloud Workspace. A ‘technical preview’ is already available on GitHub.
While this is a good news, I think they should move from github, you know microslop copilot…
Are there any actually good replacements for Excel? As an intermediate/advanced user, every alternative I’ve tried to date pales in comparison. I can’t see anyone in my industry switching away from MS because of this, as things currently stand.
Edit: I didn’t expect so many replies. I use Sync (I know, it sucks and is dead) and it didn’t inform me I had replies, so I’m only just seeing them, apologies. Can’t get to everyone though.
For those who think we’re using Excel as a database, not really. Can’t get into specifics regarding industry, but personally I use Excel daily for a variety of things, none of which is data entry. I build stuff to help calculate and solve issues; I’m not following a specific process in most scenarios. 🤷
Probably more credibility if you actually give real, specific examples of what you cannot do on Libre Calc that you require?
Oh boy!
Lack of proper table support.
FILTER is borked.
MAP functions and their ilk aren’t there.
The DBASE functions have serious issues.
Array formulas sort of work but often results in issues.
Calculation speed is super slow. I’ve tried converting a pension forecast tool and it just ran so incredibly slowly.
As someone self hosting my own Nextcloud with Collabora, I can tell you that living with LibreOffice is easy - but living with Libra Calc is impossible. It is not a workable, serious solution.
I appreciate you attempting expansion, I will say it is still difficult when you’re asked for specific detail and your response consistently States generalities like:
“lack of support” - meaning what, feature isn’t there at all? Doesn’t display existing tables from uploaded excel docs?
“has serious issues” - meaning… what are they?
“results in issues” - …
“…is borked” - c’mon
and "incredibly slow " - relative to what? Double time of expected from excel? Triple? Extra two seconds per attempt?
You’re using subjective terms that mean people can’t A) determine if you’re problem will impact them as well and B) you’re not describing your perceived issues well enough to allow experts reading along here, now or in the future, to offer you actual solutions or alternatives.
That considered, it makes you come off as a person who doesn’t want their perceived problem solved.
Alternatively, it comes off as a person who has tried this in earnest numerous times and is exhausted by people who assume that they haven’t given things a genuine shot.
And there are few things more grating than a tech person assuming the other person doesn’t know what they are doing in earnest just because they were short with you from having already explained it elsewhere, numerous times over time, to the same result of what is, effectively, tone policing. “You didn’t phrase this in a technical manner thus I assume you know jack shit.” Not far off from sea-lioning really.
You’re bringing a lot of personal momentum to your responses obviously. My point was clear, state specific issues to allow the potential for specific answers. If you’re moving in good faith, that’s the approach.
The perspective here is one of someone resistant to change, blaming FOSS as an easier scapegoat. Always simplest to blame the tool over the operator… And often, that “dumbshit, broken printer that won’t print!!!” Just wasnt plugged in.
Your rebuttal is borked.
I hear this argument a lot but no one ever gives details as to what common features excel has vs say libreoffice. I’m really curious, because i’d like to contribute free time in this direction.
Power Query
I can only assume anyone still asking the question “is Excel really that much better than the alternatives?” lacks exposure to Power Query and its prevalence in business.
Anyone reaching for powerQuery in excel should not, and instead be reaching for something like PowerBI.
And pay the additional licence? Why?
So, I should use PowerBI when I get a weirdly formatted .txt file with data I want to analyze, get my insights, do calculations on etc. and will never use again after? Thats what I use PQ for, format/ combine data from different sources in a way I can use. I don’t need dashboards or fancy charts someone can click on.
And no, python is not the tool for me. I am not getting paid to learn a programming language, I don’t have time for this at work. I would have to learn and program a lot of python to do what I can do in PQ in a few minutes. I don’t even know, if I am allowed to execute a self written python script on my work PC.
