VisiData
Hacker ApprovedRanked 6 of 12 spreadsheets by recommenders
Free terminal tool for exploring, filtering and sorting large files and databases quickly. Critics agree that editing fields it doesn't understand can lose data.
Free terminal tool for exploring, filtering and sorting large files and databases quickly. Critics agree that editing fields it doesn't understand can lose data.
30 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 26
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 87%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 26 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 6.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 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
Handles large files well
“I prefer visidata as the program stays running while searching and navigating through large files”
Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: A terminal spreadsheet editor with Vim keybindings” “you can use visidata for poking around databases of any size, really”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal” “The only tool that really works for me with millions of rows csv's”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Sheets Spreadsheets in Your Terminal” - Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “sc-im Spreadsheets in Your Terminal”
Powerful, favorite tool
“It's one of the most powerful applications I've used in years”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Sheets Spreadsheets in Your Terminal” “visidata is my favorite spreadsheet.”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “VisiCalc Reconstructed” “it's a marvelous piece of software”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “GNU recutils: Plain text database” - Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Sheets Spreadsheets in Your Terminal”
Works with many data sources
“Visidata is an amazing multitool for exploring tabular data that supports many data sources.”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “VisiData – open-source spreadsheet for the terminal” “VisiData is superb. It can work with website tabular data too; great for scraping.”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Sheets Spreadsheets in Your Terminal” “you can use visidata for poking around databases of any size, really”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal” Exploring, filtering and sorting data
“It's an incredibly useful piece of software for data wrangling and exploration.”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “L123: A Lotus 1-2-3–style terminal spreadsheet with modern Excel compatibility” “VisiData is great to not only peek into the file but filter it, sort”
Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: Parqeye – A CLI tool to visualize and inspect Parquet files” “killer data swiss army knife”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “VisiCalc Reconstructed”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Can mangle or lose data
“editing the parts VD didn't understand lead to data loss”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “GNU recutils: Plain text database” “it didn't play nice with fields like %sort (they'd disappear if you re-saved the file)”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “GNU recutils: Plain text database” “it mangled the file if you had anything more than a basic set of records”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Hashcards: A plain-text spaced repetition system”
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 | — |
| VisiDataThis page | 26 | 4 | 87% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
27 of the 31 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the entire file is loaded in the background, which might be a problem”
“They're easy to inspect using visidata”
“I prefer visidata as the program stays running while searching and navigating through large files”
“It's an incredibly useful piece of software for data wrangling and exploration.”
“It's one of the most powerful applications I've used in years”
“awesome tool that helped me with a side project not long ago”
“handles large text fields in tabular data nicely”
“VisiData is superb. It can work with website tabular data too; great for scraping.”
“The only tool that really works for me with millions of rows csv's”
“fast popular data tool in python”
“visidata is my favorite spreadsheet.”
“I would think visidata could.”
“killer data swiss army knife”
“I use the closest modern tool to Lotus”
“you can use visidata for poking around databases of any size, really”
“Love the VisiData shoutout.”
“has offered “real time” analytics of fixed files for a long time”
“We keep that list up to date.”
“it didn't play nice with fields like %sort (they'd disappear if you re-saved the file)”
“Instantly installed as well. Free software is awesome”
“editing the parts VD didn't understand lead to data loss”
“it's a marvelous piece of software”
“I use VisiData[0] to view and modify in bulk.”
“it mangled the file if you had anything more than a basic set of records”
“VisiData is great to not only peek into the file but filter it, sort”
“Visidata is an amazing multitool for exploring tabular data that supports many data sources.”
“it doesn't allow formulas in cells”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.