LibreOffice Calc
Ranked 4 of 12 spreadsheets by recommenders
Free spreadsheet many people find good enough for most work and Excel files; critics say it is slower and lacks newer Excel features.
Free spreadsheet many people find good enough for most work and Excel files; critics say it is slower and lacks newer Excel features.
50 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 32
- criticize it
- 18
- approval share
- 64%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 2 years
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 32 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good enough for most users
“Calc doesn't need to implement 100% of Excel's functionality when most people - even business/power users - don't use all of its features.”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The state of Schleswig-Holstein is consistently relying on open source” “LibreOffice's Calc is a pretty damn good replacement for Excel for the majority of users.”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” “it has been satisfying all my personal spreadsheet needs”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “LibreOffice 26.8 Released with Many Nice Improvements” - Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it”
- Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux”
- Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “Swiss authorities want to reduce dependency on Microsoft”
- Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Seeing Like a Spreadsheet”
Excel file compatibility and CSV import
“I've never experienced any compatibility issues with XLS(X) in LibreOffice Calc”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “Swiss authorities want to reduce dependency on Microsoft” “For importing csv files it has always been superior to Excel.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” “LibreCalc is a better old Excel file reader than Office 365”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “LibreOffice: Request to the European Commission to adhere to its own guidances” - Comment from 25 Jun 2026 in “Computer use in Gemini 3.5 Flash”
Feels intuitive, like classic Excel
“LibreOffice Calc (same parentage as Collabora Office) feels more like Excel used to feel.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The New Collabora Office for Desktop” “it is intuitive and feels like the people who wrote it, use it.”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Scott Hanselman says he's working on Windows local accounts” Free, cost savings and sovereignty
“would be well served to switching to a Free Software alternative such as LibreOffice Calc”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” “we get data and software sovereignty, privacy and cost savings”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The state of Schleswig-Holstein is consistently relying on open source”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Missing newer Excel features and tables
“LibreOffice and Google Sheets are still quite far from everything that Excel is capabale of”
Comment from 5 Dec 2025 in “Why we can’t quit Excel” “it’s missing basically any feature added in 2019 like Lambda and filter and dynamic arrays.”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Dutch governments builds alternative for Microsoft based on NixOS” “LibreOffice Sheets doesn’t compete with Excel 2024, it competes more with Excel 2003.”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Dutch governments builds alternative for Microsoft based on NixOS” - Comment from 22 Feb 2026 in “LibreOffice blasts OnlyOffice for working with Microsoft to lock users in”
- Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “LibreOffice hits back at critics, says its UI is better than Microsoft Office's”
Slow with larger spreadsheets
“Calc, for example, is just much slower than MS Excel when you build a bit larger spreadsheets”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Microsoft degrades functionality of perpetually-licensed offline products” “The difference in processing time was profound, last time I tried it.”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The state of Schleswig-Holstein is consistently relying on open source” “when the former started seriously lagging with about 250 rows total”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux” Not aimed at Excel power users
“Libre Office simply isn't even trying to replicate”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” “Libreoffice is made for private users, and that's not the same users that VBA powered office documents have.”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “Swiss authorities want to reduce dependency on Microsoft” “making LibreOffice Calc as good as Excel? One can dream, but it's not cheap”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The state of Schleswig-Holstein is consistently relying on open source”
Other spreadsheets people recommend
The four most recommended other spreadsheets, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Excel | 339 | 292 | 54% | 12 | 30 yrs12 owners | — |
| Google Sheets | 92 | 54 | 63% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | — |
| Lotus 1-2-3 | 34 | 2 | 94% | 8 | — | Approved |
| LibreOffice CalcThis page | 32 | 18 | 64% | 10 | 2 yrs3 owners | — |
| Numbers by Apple | 27 | 22 | 55% | 11 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 54 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it's a lot faster than Excel, even on very fast systems”
“it’s missing basically any feature added in 2019 like Lambda and filter and dynamic arrays.”
“LibreOffice Sheets doesn’t compete with Excel 2024, it competes more with Excel 2003.”
“My experience with LibreOffice Writer and Calc has been excellent.”
“it has been satisfying all my personal spreadsheet needs”
“just put that time into getting LibreOffice Calc working better”
“the .csv support is leagues ahead of Excel”
“Calc, for example, is just much slower than MS Excel when you build a bit larger spreadsheets”
“you can open files in libre calc, rewrite scripts and save.”
“are you trying to say that i cant use libre, to automate, share, or collaborate datasets across a network?”
“Libreoffice is made for private users, and that's not the same users that VBA powered office documents have.”
“I've never experienced any compatibility issues with XLS(X) in LibreOffice Calc”
“Ive never had problems for my use case.”
“if you want a fancy interface, there are proper options these days like LibreCalc, Caliigra and Gnumeric”
“LO has the best implementation I've seen apart from Excel”
“So far, I haven't had any blockers”
“I can completely live with just a keyboard on Excel or LibreOffice Calc.”
“it is intuitive and feels like the people who wrote it, use it.”
“LibreCalc is a better old Excel file reader than Office 365”
“LibreOffice doesn’t have the “Format as Table” feature from Excel”
“LibreOffice Calc doesn’t have tables in the sense of Excel “insert > table”.”
“I don't have the same issues with LibreOffice Calc, which is why I choose it for my personal work.”
“LibreOffice Calc (same parentage as Collabora Office) feels more like Excel used to feel.”
“Libre's Calc is more than enough for many use cases.”
“I think there is a recent performance regression but hopefully will be fixed soon. Hasn't affected me.”
“when the former started seriously lagging with about 250 rows total”
“Libre Calc works fine for me as an Excel alternative”
“A whole lot of accountants/bookkeepers (including I) will totally disagree with you.”
“LibreOffice's Calc is a pretty damn good replacement for Excel for the majority of users.”
“would be well served to switching to a Free Software alternative such as LibreOffice Calc”
“Libre Office simply isn't even trying to replicate”
“LibreOffice Calc just gives you an import window with some pretty good defaults, like UTF-8.”
“Calc has many features focused on correctness and reliability.”
“For importing csv files it has always been superior to Excel.”
“pretending that anything else does enough for many orgs is delusional”
“Calc doesn't need to implement 100% of Excel's functionality when most people - even business/power users - don't use all of its features.”
“The difference in processing time was profound, last time I tried it.”
“making LibreOffice Calc as good as Excel? One can dream, but it's not cheap”
“we get data and software sovereignty, privacy and cost savings”
“LibreOffice and Google Sheets are still quite far from everything that Excel is capabale of”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.