I’ve been on a mission to cut down on bloated and paywalled software wherever I can, especially when open-source tools do the job just as well, if not better. I rarely use Excel to begin with, but every time someone sends me a spreadsheet to review, I remember why I avoid Excel. It just has a weird, half-database, half-calculator energy.

I sought out better options to handle my future spreadsheets and discovered Grist. It’s an open-source, self-hostable spreadsheet and database app that makes Excel feel like a fossil. It supports most Excel functions, handles Python better, and has some unique functions that other spreadsheet tools lack. I’ve been using Grist for a minute now – here’s what I can say about it so far.

It’s a real database tool

Your documents actually function like databases

One of the first things I noticed about grist is that it doesn’t treat spreadsheets the same way as Excel. In Excel, columns and cells are just…columns and cells. You can enter whatever you want, which feels flexible at first, but that’s also what makes it easy for things to break or lose track of how your data fits together. At least, that’s been my experience with Excel.

Grist approaches it differently. It looks like a spreadsheet but functions like a database under the hood. Each column behaves like a field in a database and has a defined data type, like a number or date, and each row acts like a structured record. You can also link tables together, so you can reference data properly instead of duplicating it across tabs.

In practice, all of this simply means my entries stay clean and consistent. For example, in my to-read document (which I derived from the Book Club template), clicking an author’s name can show me all the books I have by that author in a card. It reminds me of Notion’s linked databases and rollups.

It has widgets

You can make it your own

This is something I wasn’t expecting: Grist has widgets. Not in the build-a-dashboard way (although it has those kinds of widgets too), but actual layout components you can use to build your own mini app interface. Instead of simply looking at grids of numbers and text, you can display the same data in different ways: cards, charts, lists, and even Kanban boards if you’re willing to do a little additional setup. I can choose how I want to see and interact with my information, and Grist will remember my widget setups for every document so I don’t have to rebuild it.

Here, I tracked my to-read list and set up a card view (a widget) that shows the title, author, notes, buying links, and Goodreads links for each one. I can also take it further and create a summary view that gives me totals or trends based on this data. Widgets also respond to one another, so any changed data will reflect across the board when you link them.

It does Python better than Excel

And you don’t need to be a coder to use it

I don’t know that much about Python, which is exactly why I think Grist handles it better than Excel – I can actually use Python in it despite not understanding the code very well. So when people say Excel is powerful because it supports Python now, what that really means is, if you already know Python, Excel will let you run it. Grist bridges the gap; its formulas are written in Python, which means it uses the code behind the scenes so I don’t have to. The paid plan also includes access to the AI assistant, which can turn text prompts into code for you.

You can start typing in the formula bar and Grist will present a pop-up list of code lines, but you can also reference the Python Standard Library if you want to write something from scratch. So far, I have used the Python-based Trigger formulas to auto-fill some of my cards and calculate my average reading time, which comes in very handy as I anticipate my to-read list getting longer.

But the formulas go beyond that – you can use them to auto-calculate anything from due dates to budgets, clean up messy inputs, and build relationships between tables. It does pretty much anything Excel formulas can do, except faster, easier, and without the fragile cell references.

The spreadsheet tool I didn’t know I needed

I went looking for a spreadsheet tool that wouldn’t frustrate me, and Grist surprised me. It gave the power of Python without the learning curve, plus the familiarity of databases and widgets. It’s like Excel, Notion, and Airtable combined into a brainy, low-maintenance app. So far, I’ve only used it to keep track of my reading lists, but I’ll likely start using it to keep track of other things like my finances and project timelines (don’t tell Notion I said that).