Both Excel and Google Sheets are two great apps for creating spreadsheets. While to use Excel you need to have a subscription to Microsoft 365 (although we can use the web version with fewer functions), Google Sheets is available without any limitations via the web. So far, roughly, the main differences between the two applications are found, since both share practically the same functions .
They share the same basic functions, since, if we talk about all the options that Excel makes available to us, Google Sheets obviously has nothing to do with it, functions that most of us will never use, so It doesn’t exactly matter if they exist or not.
Features shared by Excel and Sheets
Both Excel and Google Sheets save documents in the respective clouds of each platform. In this way, if our equipment is turned off due to a power outage or we want to continue working from another device, we will not have to upload the document to the cloud.
Both applications also allow us to work collaboratively on the same document, registering the changes that are made and offering the option of reverting the changes and knowing who has made them at any given time.
When using formulas , both Excel and Google Sheets allow us to use the autocomplete function through suggestions depending on the values that we have entered in the tables. In this way, it is not necessary to know in detail how we should write a formula to do a rounding, a sum, an average and others.
Macros allow us to perform tasks automatically. These macros are available in both Excel and Google Sheets, both to create and edit them.
One of the functions that both applications also share and that is extremely useful for carrying out a number of functions is the possibility of creating custom filters . Although the number of options when creating filters in Excel is broader, the options in Google Sheets are not far behind, however, they are more limited, but sufficient for most users.
Pivot tables , a functionality unknown to many users, but very useful in any business or company, and even at a private level, is another of the functions shared by both the Microsoft and Google spreadsheet applications. However, this feature is much more accessible and easier to implement through Google Sheets than Excel.
When it comes to graphically representing data in a table, the best solution is to create a chart . Both Excel and Google Sheets allow us to create graphs, both manually and automatically based on the data in a table. Excel, once again, includes a greater number of graphing options than Google’s solution.
Another of the functions that both applications share is found with the integration with their respective applications . Excel integrates perfectly with the rest of the applications that are part of Office, both Word and PowerPoint, To-Do, Outlook and others, while Google Sheets is fully integrated with both Presentations and Google Documents.