head to head
Microsoft Excel vs baserow
baserow is the open source alternative to Microsoft Excel — spreadsheet application. Here is the honest comparison.
Yes — baserow is a viable free replacement for Microsoft Excel. baserow is open source under its own open-source terms, written in Python, with 5,932 GitHub stars, 735 forks and 1,239 open issues; it was last pushed 7 hours ago. Microsoft Excel costs from $6, while self-hosting baserow carries no licence fee — the trade is your operational time instead of a subscription. 2 other open source Microsoft Excel alternatives are tracked here, led by NocoDB at 64,998 stars. baserow ranks #3 of 3 tracked open source Microsoft Excel alternatives by stars. The tracked set, by adoption: NocoDB (64,998 stars), Grist (11,815 stars). Replacement criteria on this page: 4 reasons to move to baserow and 3 reasons to stay on Microsoft Excel.
choose baserow if
- Your Microsoft Excel bill is growing with seats or usage
- You need your data in a format and server you control
- Your compliance posture requires auditing the code that touches sensitive data
- You have (or can rent) a server and basic Docker comfort
stick with Microsoft Excel if
- You need the polished onboarding and support SLAs of a commercial vendor
- Your team has zero capacity to operate software, even self-hosted-simple
- You depend on a Microsoft Excel integration ecosystem that the OSS alternatives have not replicated
Side by side
| baserow (open source) | Microsoft Excel | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (self-hosted) | $6-$22/user/month via M365 |
| License | Custom / other | Proprietary |
| Source code | Public, auditable | Closed |
| Self-hosting | Yes — baserow/baserow | Cloud only |
| Data ownership | Your server, your format | Vendor's cloud |
| Community | ★ 5.9K · ⑂ 735 | — |
| Built with | Python | — |
Why people look for a Microsoft Excel alternative
About baserow
Baserow is an open source no code platform for building databases, applications, automations, dashboards, and AI agents. It combines a spreadsheet style interface with a relational database backend, letting teams structure data, create internal tools, and visualize results without writing code. The project is written in Python and built on Django, Vue.js, and PostgreSQL, and it lives in the low code and no code ecosystem as a self hostable alternative to Airtable and Microsoft Excel. It is distributed under an open core model, with all non premium and non enterprise features licensed under the MIT License for com…
read the full baserow overview →
Other open source alternatives to Microsoft Excel
last updated nightly · ranking method: github stars, live-tracked
Frequently asked questions
Is baserow a good replacement for Microsoft Excel?
baserow is an open source alternative to Microsoft Excel (Spreadsheet application). It is written in Python and licensed under its own terms, with 5,932 GitHub stars.
Is baserow free compared to Microsoft Excel?
Yes. baserow is open source — there is no licence fee, and you can self-host it. Microsoft Excel is typically a paid subscription, so the trade-off is licence cost against the operational work of running it yourself.
How do I migrate from Microsoft Excel to baserow?
Migration effort depends on the data formats involved. Check baserow's documentation for import options, and compare the feature table above to confirm the capabilities you depend on are covered before switching.