Numbers by Apple
Ranked 5 of 12 spreadsheets by recommenders
Free Apple spreadsheet people find good enough, praised for movable tables and smooth scrolling. Critics cite weak keyboard support and nagging upgrade prompts.
Free Apple spreadsheet people find good enough, praised for movable tables and smooth scrolling. Critics cite weak keyboard support and nagging upgrade prompts.
49 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 27
- criticize it
- 22
- approval share
- 55%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 27 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 11 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
Free and good enough
“dropped the desktop Office suite in favour of Pages and Numbers, which are both free and absolutely working fine”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Apple Business” “Apple suite (Pages, Numbers etc) works well, has good mobility to mobile, and is free.”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “Microsoft Abruptly Terminates VeraCrypt Account, Halting Windows Updates” “Plus Pages, Numbers and Keynote are free on Macs, minus the new paid features.”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Apple Business” - Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft Office renamed to "Microsoft 365 Copilot app"”
Multiple freely movable tables
“Its main innovation is creating multiple tables in a single visible sheet”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “My Rules for Using Spreadsheets” “Numbers is brilliant simply because of independent freely-movable tables”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Apple Creator Studio” Powerful and steadily improving
“both Pages and Numbers are pretty powerful in their modern incarnations”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Apple Business” “it's been slowly improving over the years and is pretty good now”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Apple is getting this wrong” Smooth and fast compared to Excel
“I have simple needs, and I much preferred the smooth inertial scrolling compared to running Excel in a VM”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Apple Creator Studio” “Fast like Numbers.app, not sluggish like Excel is.”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Weak keyboard support and navigation
“it severely lacks in keyboard use and keyboard navigation when compared to Excel”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” “A lot of menu options don’t seem to have keyboard shortcuts.”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Apple Business” Nags and upgrade prompts
“forced upgrade of Numbers/Pages/Keynote with annoying nags that can't be turned off”
Comment from 21 Apr 2026 in “Tim Cook to become Apple Executive Chairman” “Selecting "Not Now" still results in the nag appearing every. single. day.”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “I said no and Apple said yes” “they keep pushing the Creator Bundle when I open up the Numbers.app”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “MacBook Pro Rival with the Nvidia Powered Surface Laptop Ultra” Behind Excel and Sheets for serious work
“no one who is serious is doing their data work / anything else in Numbers.”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “My Rules for Using Spreadsheets” “Numbers is so much worse than Excel or even Google Sheets”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “Apple is getting this wrong” “Apps like Numbers are chaotic in the face of Excel.”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Apple Business” Weak CSV, date and filter handling
“I never liked how Numbers handles filters, sorting, and views all different”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Nobie – an Excel-compatible runtime for agents and humans” “Numbers was choking on CSVs, so I had to import them into GSheets”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Apple is getting this wrong” “convert date formats, which Numbers refused to do”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “The Joy of Not Learning: How AI Saves My Hobby Projects”
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 Calc | 32 | 18 | 64% | 10 | 2 yrs3 owners | — |
| Numbers by AppleThis page | 27 | 22 | 55% | 11 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 54 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“macOs Numbers for my Excel file I wanted to update yesterday”
“this book gradually builds it up in a way that made the conclusion positively intuïtive”
“is about 40x faster than Numbers”
“Both Apple Numbers and Mathematica still depend on a proprietary software package from a for-profit company though.”
“have been a happy Apple Numbers and Wolfram Mathematica (and SPSS, PSPP, and R, and Python) user ever since”
“Selecting "Not Now" still results in the nag appearing every. single. day.”
“Numbers is essential, because it understands dates, better handles CSV files, and doesn't corrupt long numeric UIDs.”
“no one who is serious is doing their data work / anything else in Numbers.”
“Its main innovation is creating multiple tables in a single visible sheet”
“Numbers was choking on CSVs, so I had to import them into GSheets”
“it's been slowly improving over the years and is pretty good now”
“Numbers is so much worse than Excel or even Google Sheets”
“The Numbers is such a brilliant site”
“I never liked how Numbers handles filters, sorting, and views all different”
“they keep pushing the Creator Bundle when I open up the Numbers.app”
“all of which are excellent”
“Numbers gaslights you letting you share something you can't use”
“forced upgrade of Numbers/Pages/Keynote with annoying nags that can't be turned off”
“Apple suite (Pages, Numbers etc) works well, has good mobility to mobile, and is free.”
“except some scripting requirements”
“A lot of menu options don’t seem to have keyboard shortcuts.”
“Apps like Numbers are chaotic in the face of Excel.”
“dropped the desktop Office suite in favour of Pages and Numbers, which are both free and absolutely working fine”
“both Pages and Numbers are pretty powerful in their modern incarnations”
“Plus Pages, Numbers and Keynote are free on Macs, minus the new paid features.”
“Fast like Numbers.app, not sluggish like Excel is.”
“Apple Pages/Numbers/etc. to avoid dealing with this”
“convert date formats, which Numbers refused to do”
“what Numbers really lacks is a circular converge-to-solution mode”
“I have simple needs, and I much preferred the smooth inertial scrolling compared to running Excel in a VM”
“Yeah Numbers wins, when going back to Excel I miss it.”
“it genuinely allows you to create nice information displays with your tables”
“Numbers is brilliant simply because of independent freely-movable tables”
“Not available for one time purchase are the AI features and templates available for the free apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Freeform).”
“The apps themselves are fine IMO.”
“Numbers.app, Autodesk Fusion, Adobe Illustrator, and Terminal.app were the first places I noticed it.”
“mostly because they are free and they are good enough”
“it severely lacks in keyboard use and keyboard navigation when compared to Excel”
“it's not trying to be Excel”
“They’re underrated I think as local apps go.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.