Concept
People ask "which one is best?" That's the wrong question. The right one is: how big is your data, and how many people will touch it?
Microsoft Excel — desktop application. Handles up to 10 lakh rows. Power Query and Power Pivot exist only here. VBA runs only here. It is the default across corporate India. If you are learning for a job, learn Excel — that is what gets tested in interviews.
Google Sheets — runs in the browser, free, and its real-time collaboration is genuinely better than Excel's. Limit is 1 crore cells (comfortable up to roughly 5 lakh rows), but it starts slowing down past 50,000 rows. It has Apps Script instead of VBA. For a small team, a shared tracker, or automation tied to Gmail and Drive, Sheets beats Excel.
LibreOffice Calc — free, offline, open source. Basic formulas and charts all work. But there is no Power Query, VBA compatibility is incomplete, and saving to .xlsx sometimes breaks formatting. Fine if your budget is zero and the work is basic. Otherwise avoid.
The one-line decision
| Your situation | Tool |
|---|---|
| Preparing for a job or interview | Excel |
| Live sheet shared with a team | Google Sheets |
| 5 lakh+ rows, heavy model | Excel (Power Pivot) |
| Gmail / Drive automation | Google Sheets |
| No budget, basic work | LibreOffice |
In this course: 95% of Foundations lessons work in all three. The Automation track covers Excel (VBA) and Sheets (Apps Script) separately. The Dashboards track is Excel-first.
Note: There is a free web version of Excel at office.com. Basic formulas work, but Power Query, VBA and Power Pivot don't. Good enough for practice, not for learning the full toolset.