If your business uses spreadsheets — and almost every business does — you’ve probably encountered the Excel vs Google Sheets debate. Both handle basic spreadsheet tasks perfectly well, but they diverge significantly when the work gets complex. This comparison looks at the real differences that matter to business users in 2026.
The Basics: What They Have in Common
Both Excel and Google Sheets can create and edit spreadsheets, use formulas, produce charts, and collaborate with colleagues. For straightforward tasks — a simple budget, a contact list, a basic project tracker — either tool will do the job. The differences become apparent when you push further.
Where Excel Wins
Advanced Data Analysis
Excel’s analytical capabilities are significantly more powerful than Google Sheets. Power Query lets you connect to external data sources, clean messy data, and build repeatable transformation workflows. Power Pivot extends Excel’s data model to handle millions of rows that would crash a standard spreadsheet. PivotTables in Excel are faster, more flexible, and more feature-rich than Sheets’ equivalent.
For anyone doing serious data work — financial modelling, management reporting, operational analysis — Excel is in a different league. The advanced functions available in Office 2024 Professional Plus, including XLOOKUP, LET, LAMBDA, and dynamic arrays, extend Excel’s capabilities further still.
Performance with Large Data Sets
Google Sheets struggles with large datasets. Beyond 400,000 cells or so, performance degrades noticeably — formulas recalculate slowly, scrolling lags, and complex operations may time out. Excel handles significantly larger datasets without issue, particularly with the 64-bit versions available in modern Office installations.
VBA Macros and Automation
Excel’s VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) macro environment allows extensive automation — creating custom reports, automating repetitive tasks, building dashboards, and integrating with other Office applications like Word and Outlook. Google Sheets uses Google Apps Script (JavaScript-based), which is capable but has a steeper learning curve and less legacy support.
In business environments, decades of VBA macros exist in finance, operations, and HR teams. This institutional knowledge runs on Excel.
Offline Working
Excel works fully offline. Google Sheets technically offers an offline mode, but it’s limited and requires Chrome. For users without reliable internet access, or those who frequently work on trains and planes, Excel is the reliable choice.
Advanced Charts and Visualisation
Excel offers a broader range of chart types and more customisation options than Google Sheets. For dashboards and management reports destined for print or presentation, Excel produces more polished visual outputs.
Where Google Sheets Wins
Real-Time Collaboration
Google Sheets was built for collaboration from the ground up. Multiple users can edit the same spreadsheet simultaneously, with changes appearing in real-time for all parties. There’s no need to email files back and forth or manage version conflicts. The comment and suggestion system is intuitive and well-integrated.
Excel has improved its collaboration capabilities significantly in recent years, particularly via OneDrive and SharePoint, but the real-time experience is still smoother in Sheets for many users.
Accessibility and Device Flexibility
Google Sheets runs in any browser on any device. Open a spreadsheet on a Chromebook, a Linux machine, a tablet, or a phone with a full-featured interface. Excel’s web version is capable but less feature-complete than the desktop application.
Cost
Google Sheets is free with a Google account. For small businesses watching every penny, this matters. However, the comparison changes when you consider that Excel is included with Office — a one-time purchase of Office 2024 Professional Plus at £29.99 gives you Excel along with Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and the rest of the suite. That makes the cost argument less clear-cut than it first appears.
Google Services Integration
If your business is embedded in the Google ecosystem — using Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, and Google Workspace — Sheets integrates naturally with all of these. Data from Google Forms populates directly into Sheets; Google Analytics integrations are available; and the whole stack operates cohesively.
The File Format Question
Google Sheets can import and export .xlsx files (Excel format), and compatibility is generally good for straightforward spreadsheets. However, complex features — certain formula types, conditional formatting rules, VBA macros, and Power Query connections — do not transfer cleanly between formats. If you’re exchanging files with clients, accountants, or suppliers who use Excel, working natively in Excel avoids compatibility surprises.
Which Is Right for Your Business?
| Scenario | Best Choice |
|---|---|
| Financial modelling and analysis | Excel |
| Real-time team collaboration on simple data | Google Sheets |
| Large datasets (>100,000 rows) | Excel |
| Working offline regularly | Excel |
| No budget for software | Google Sheets |
| VBA macros and automation | Excel |
| Sharing with external stakeholders | Excel (.xlsx is universal) |
| Google Workspace integration | Google Sheets |
The Verdict
For serious business use — particularly finance, operations, and data analysis — Excel is the more capable tool. The analytical depth, performance with large datasets, and VBA automation capabilities make it the better choice for any business where spreadsheets are core to how work gets done.
Google Sheets is an excellent tool for simple, collaborative, browser-based work — particularly useful for teams that don’t need advanced analysis features.
For most UK businesses, the right answer is Excel — and at £29.99 for Office 2024 Professional Plus from GetRenewedTech, you get Excel and the entire Office suite for less than a month’s subscription to many competing tools. Mac users can access the same core capabilities through Office 2024 for Mac at £49.99.
