Working with other individuals or groups (collaborating) is a necessary part of today's world. This is why it is important, when choosing spreadsheet software, that it supports collaboration. While Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet is widely used, it has definite limitations such as control of various versions of the same file and security issues. People are looking for alternatives.

The extensive data that we, at Doakio, have collected show that the spreadsheet tools listed in this article are the best Excel alternatives that provide real-time collaboration. This article is based on intensive research of more than 30 Excel alternatives. We’ve compared and contrasted all features and company attributes. The results are these top 5 plus three runners up.

Be sure to consider your own individual or business needs when looking for an Excel alternative with collaboration. It’s possible that you’ll come up with a different selection than what is listed here. The research was conducted in a way that makes it possible to layer on your own feature-specific importance weighting for each feature and attribute of these tools. Simply participate in our custom Excel alternatives survey to give your own rating for each feature.

We’ve also collected domain authority data which serves as a good indicator of overall popularity. If you think of any tools that we should have included in our comparison analysis let us know in the comments below.

We found 23 Excel alternatives with collaboration. We list the top five tools here, along with three runners up.

We are not incentivized in any way by any of these software companies, as of this writing. Many have benefited from our original research publication on Excel alternatives that is always kept up-to-date.

We now present to you our evidence-backed ordered listing of the top five Excel alternatives with collaboration:

Apache OpenOffice Calc 4
LibreOffice Calc 7
OnlyOffice Spreadsheet
Excel for the Web
Zoho Sheet

Runners up:

Numbers for Mac
Google Spreadsheet
Smartsheet

Top Five Excel Alternatives with Collaboration

Apache OpenOffice Calc 4

Apache OpenOffice Calc 4 Comparison Details

Free trial: Fully Free

Pricing: Free

Feature summary: Has the tools you need to analyze, and effectively present your data in reports or excellent graphics.

Age of Software/Company: 20.7 Years

Industry thought leadership blog: Click to visit blog.
Business Score: 15.6

Software Score: 104

Distinctive features:

Portability / No Install
Data Cleaning
Single Sign On

List of 38 Apache OpenOffice Calc 4 Features in order of popularity

Create and Edit Charts

Create Formula / Employ Functions

Windows Compatible

Import / Export / Save as: Excel file

Refer Cell Values

Data Filtering / Sorting

Templates

Formatting / Styling Option

Password Protection / Document Restriction

Print Optimization

Date / Calendar Function

Insert Image

Insert Notes / Comment

Cloud Services

Conditional Formatting

Mac OS Compatible

Statistical Analysis

Publish to Web / HTML

Multi-Language Support

Export to PDF File

Pivot Table (to Reorganise Data)

Linux Compatible

Browser Platform

Sharing

Create and Edit Forms

Remote and Data Application Programming Interfaces

Real-time Collaborative Edit

Data Security Standards Compliance

Email Function

Custom Functions

Macros or Scripts

Automatically Saves Version History

View Edit History

Open Source Code

Training

Single Sign On

Data Cleaning

Portability / No Install

Apache OpenOffice Calc 4 provides the important tools needed to quickly format cells and insert formulas. Some users report that the visual format could use updating but this tool is straightforward and flexible.