Microsoft Excel Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
Any goal you have in mind for a spreadsheet, you can accomplish with Excel. It's a powerhouse and the industry standard for a reason. It makes tracking data efficient, and helps visualize plans for the future. One of the most helpful features for me, as someone who isn't especially well-versed in the finer functions of the program, is the tips that pop up as you're typing a formula, and the detailed error messages when you inevitably botch one. The ability to click and drag to select cells for formulas is also quite helpful and saves time for larger sheets.

Cons
It has a bit of a learning curve. Its design and interface isn't especially user-friendly, so you can't expect an inexperienced team to be up and running with it on day 1 (but then again, what spreadsheet software is different?). I also wish it was easier to interface Excel with Word in terms of transporting data. And lastly, as someone who is primarily an artist, I wish I could customize my sheets even more to make them as visually pleasing as possible.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I have been using Excel since the 90's and like how flexible the tool is. I've used it to create planners, budgets, to do lists, loan calculators, calendars, financial reports, reconciliation tools, resumes, contact lists, trip itineraries, financial models, statistical analyses, stock charts and surveys. I really love how much formatting is possible, the depth of financial functions and the number of online resources to support use of this wonderful tool. Over time, the interface and functionality has got smarter and recent versions of the software seem to anticipate your needs and offer the correct options and functions based on the context of your current actions.

Cons
There is a tendency to use Excel for everything and in some cases a database or dedicated project management tool would be more suitable to the task at hand. I've seen investment companies using Excel to monitor and report on millions of dollars of assets and personally used Excel to manage complex projects where other tools would have been much less manual. My criticisms may be due to lack of knowledge, but, I really struggled with collaboration and version control when working with an outside organization. We used the same Excel workbook and forwarded this document back and forth with updates. Manually keeping track of the versions and changes became a nightmare. I've also seen situations where you have functions referencing cells in other documents or tabs and the links can be fragile, easily broken - sometimes causing rework and potential errors.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I have used the variations of the same product for over 15 years, and I have been happy with it. I do know that when I was an Economics Student my Econometrics professor recommended that we do not use MS Excel for statistical analysis, given that he preferred SPSS. However, it is possible to use MS Excel for statistics. It is very easy to make all sorts of charts and graphs to figure out the important factors in your mathematical model. MS Excel has various mathematics features that are always good to have in one program. Also, you can use this program for your general accounting needs. This program can also help you do a cost-benefit analysis and a budget. Hence, you can use it for your business needs and for academic needs. It is a reliable program, so I have been able to consistently open and close my files according to my needs. I plan to continue to use the same program in the near future and up to 2 years into the future.

Cons
I have used the Student and the free versions of this product. If this product is over your budget you may need to consider other options. However, if you pay for it once, and if you are likely to use the same product for a fair number of years, then you can invest in this product. If your Windows operating system is the most advanced version, you have to make sure the Excel program will match the exact version of your operating system. So, if you plan to get a more advanced computer or laptop, you have to account for the cost of getting an Excel program that will work with it.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
The industry standard spreadsheet Excel has made my life much easier. I use Excel at least 3 times a day. From organising my daily schedule, budgets, calorie charts to fulfill my academic errands of simple and complex arithmetic functions. Excel has proved to be user friendly and is being constantly updated. The versatile functionalities of Excel has simplified even the complex tricky day today tasks. I find it very convenient that the information can be represented graphically, especially when being shared. The filter system in which information can be filtered using numerals, keywords comes very much handy during quick reference. The suggestions with keywords has simplified the use of Excel further and I found myself using it more often - not to mention the accuracy. Excel can be installed in to your PCs, mac and even your android phones. My life has become much easier with Microsoft Excel and I love it!

Cons
As much as Excel simplifies complex tasks, understanding certain complex functionalites of Excel is a great challenge. I've messed up big time when it comes to dragging formulas over to a set of data or when copy pasting. Further printing a spread sheet is very difficult, considering that the cell alignments and margins has to be repeatedly adjusted. Sharing large Excel files is a challenge, which seems to be a drawback . Excel should be modified as to being able to reset the password of protected files ; the lack of which is extremely inconvenient.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
+ Really easy to use. Some training might be needed to fully take advantage of its features. + Mistakes can be avoided really easily if you know how to use their formulas. You don't need to manually count and insert all the data by yourself, it's automated once you get the hang of it. + A lot of data visualization options to choose from. Data analysis is made simple with this, really useful if you have a plethora of data to work with. + There's a 'free-mium' online version available. It's essentially free but you can fork out some money if you want to purchase it (There are some differences between the free Online version and the retailed software, and they're all listed in Microsoft Excel Online's support documentation). The online version also allows the files to be shared to, and be editied multiple people, which is really useful if they are working on the same project in different areas where they are unable to get the files in person. + Integration with OneDrive (Microsoft's Cloud service) for both the online and retail version is available. + The business subscription deal isn't expensive considering it being bundled with other Microsoft Office applications.

Cons
- Spelling mistakes won't be auto-corrected like they do in Microsoft Word. It would a pretty useful feature if it's applied here. - Lower end computers might have some difficulties working with spreadsheets that have a lot of data. Optimization could be better, especially how most office workstations do not have expensive hardware to work with.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10