Google Sheets vs Excel, which is best for you?

Many would first think of Microsoft Excel when one thinks of spreadsheet programs, but now there’s another solid option, Google Sheets! With that being said, it begs the question: “Which one is right for me and or my organization?” There is no clear winner between the two leading solutions as they each excel, if you’ll forgive the pun, at different things. In this post, we’ll quickly go over the pros and cons of both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel and hopefully help you make the best decision for your situation.

Advantages

Google Sheets:

• Google Sheet’s most vital feature is its ability to allow for collaboration amongst coworkers and developers. A staggering 50 people can work on a single spreadsheet simultaneously. Not only can you work at the same time, you can also be sure everyone is always working on the most current version of each file.

• Being an entirely cloud-based system, your data is arguably more secure than on individual computers. Data stored on a company computer is one bad email link away from being public.

• Everyone is always on the same version. This aspect might seem insignificant, but when multiple versions of a program are installed across an organization, backwards compatibility can be a nightmare. As such, this can be one of the most powerful aspects of Google Sheets, as any formula, command, feature, addon, or script you use, you can be confident that it’ll work for everyone.

• Query Function! This might personally be my favorite feature of Google Sheets! While excel can also query data, it’s a much more rigid experience. If your goal is to create dashboards, this function allows you to sort and transform data in nearly unlimited ways. If you take anything away from this read, it should be how powerful Google Sheet’s query function is.

• Auto-Save; losing data when a program hangs, or a computer crashes is the worst! Many programs have an autosave feature. However, with Google Sheets being a cloud-based solution, your data is being saved automatically nearly instantaneously, making data loss a thing of the past!

• It’s 100% free to use!

Microsoft Excel:

• Formula/Function Library: Excel has 450+ formulas in its function library, giving Excel an edge over Google Sheets.

• Excel Can handle & process enormous data sets. What exactly is enormous, you ask? Excel can contain 17,179,869,184 (17 Billion) cells worth of data compared to Google Sheets' 5,000,000. That means that excel can handle roughly 3,400 times more data.

• Customizable User Experience: Excel allows you to customize your ribbons in nearly unlimited ways, activating or deactivating used or unused tools, making for a more streamlined experience for the experienced user.

• Collaboration - sort of. If everyone is running Office 365, there is an online version of excel in tandem with OneDrive, which allows for limited collaboration between users.

• Speed: being a desktop application, excel can typically process calculations and data transformations more quickly than its cloud-based competitor.
  

Disadvantages

Google Sheets:

• While Google sheets has an “offline” mode, it is limited compared to when connected to the internet.

• Processing large amounts of data or simultaneous calculations can be considerably slower when compared to Excel’s desktop application.

• Must have a Google account to use and access Google Sheets.

Microsoft Excel:

• The full version is NOT free! Excel can range in price from $5/month to $20/month for each user, depending on which package works best for your situation.

• Daunting! With great customization comes great potential for confusion. While its customizability was marked as a pro, it can be quite daunting for new users to jump into compared to Google Sheets' more streamlined experience.

• While Excel has autosave, I have found it to be spotty at best and have often lost data on crashes. While using Excel, Ctrl + S becomes your best friend.

Both seem great; which one is best?

Well… it depends. It really comes down to what your situation prioritizes. If your primary goal is collaboration and, through it, dashboard creation, I’d highly recommend Google Sheets. However, if your primary goal is to process and analyze large amounts of data, Excel is the clear winner. While they each have their pros and cons, it really comes down to each of their limitations.

For Google Sheets, with the advent of Covid-19, virtual collaboration has become increasingly more vital, and even in a post-Covid-19 world, that fact will more than likely remain true. On a less dire note, dashboard creation is made extremely easy and secure with Google Sheets. Ensuring that everyone is using the same software/file version with its cloud-based infrastructure removes the need to either email or physically hand off dashboards which significantly reduces security risks.

Microsoft Excel, on the other hand, lends itself to enormous datasets and analyzing said datasets. Excel offers a much more extensive set of analytical tools and data visualizations, giving it a significant edge when it comes to sharing insights in creative ways.

As I said, it essentially comes down to what is most important to your current situation, and in most cases, you can’t go wrong with either choice.