Microsoft Excel Review and verdict 2026

Reference spreadsheet for data, budgets, models, and analysis.

From 7€/mo.

Our take

Understanding Microsoft Excel.

Microsoft's spreadsheet application for analyzing, visualizing, and organizing data. Formula support, pivot tables, charts, VBA macros. Desktop and web versions.

Practical uses

Manage budgets, lists, tabular data.
Analyze and visualize simple data.
Automate repetitive tasksMacros.

Pros and cons

What Microsoft Excel does especially well — and the limits to anticipate.

Pros

Universal standard for tabular data.
Very complete free web version.
Real-time collaboration in Microsoft 365.
Very powerful formulas and automations.
30+ years of archive compatibility.

Cons

Microsoft 365 costs if you want full desktop.
Less efficient than BI for large volumes.
Learning curve for advanced formulas.

Microsoft Excel: when it makes sense.

Excel is essential for most professions; for advanced analytics, Power BI is better.

Keep if

You need standard spreadsheet software.. You work with columnar data.

Microsoft Excel becomes worthwhile when

You use it at least once a week
The monthly cost (€7) is small next to the time it saves you

Challenge if

You only want the basic free tool.. You're looking for relational databases.

Microsoft Excel becomes too expensive when

You use it less than once a month
A simple free version or a tool already in your stack would do

Our verdict on Microsoft Excel.

Why this verdict

Decent

Microsoft Excel is fairly easy to replace with an alternative, no free tier to test before paying, clearly documented use cases.