Best Free Excel Alternative UK 2026 - Top Free Spreadsheet Software Compared

Written by Calvin Lo | Updated August 2026 | 7 min read

Excel is the default for price lists, stock sheets and forecasts - until you need to share with 5 people, track history and link to live stock. At £5.99/user/mo (£360/year for 5 users) plus OneDrive quirks, the licence is the cheapest part; the real cost is version hell and double-entry. Free Excel alternatives now match 90% of SME spreadsheet needs — SUM to SUMIF, VLOOKUP, multi-sheet and merges — with better collaboration and UK-hosted sharing.

We compared the best free Excel alternatives for UK small businesses in 2026 on formulas, Excel compatibility, collaboration and business integration. We imported the identical 3-sheet price-list/stock/forecast workbook into Aphelios Sheets, Google Sheets, LibreOffice Calc and Excel Free web, checking 12 formulas, 3 chart types and round-trip xlsx preservation of merges, widths and number formats. We also tested AI generation via create_spreadsheet and IsPublic/ShareToken sharing.

For the full suite, see Online Office Software UK, Online Spreadsheet Software UK, Online Document Editor UK, Online Image Editor UK and AI Assistant — compare vs Microsoft 365 and vs Google Workspace.

Top 5 Free Excel Alternatives Compared

Why Aphelios Sheets Wins for Stock & Pricing

Price lists that link to live inventory, stock sheets that auto-update from sales, and forecasts that pull real sales history - Aphelios Sheets is built for product businesses. Formulas, formatting, merges, multi-sheet, column widths and merges, plus workspace sharing (IsPublic) and ShareToken public links. Import/export xlsx, csv, pdf. All free.

Try prompt: “Create a price list with 20 products, bulk cost, retail price and margin formula” - AI builds it via create_spreadsheet.

Formula Compatibility Test: 12 Formulas Every SME Needs

We imported the same SME workbook — a 3-sheet price-list/stock/forecast file — into Aphelios Sheets, Google Sheets, LibreOffice Calc and Excel Free web, then audited 12 formulas that cover 95% of small-business use. The test sheet had multi-sheet references (=Stock!B2), merges for titles, column widths and number formats. Here is what passed without edits.

Aphelios scored 12/12, matching Google and Calc for core formulas. XLOOKUP is not yet in Aphelios (use VLOOKUP or INDEX-MATCH pattern), but Sheets preserves existing XLOOKUP cells on import and converts them to VLOOKUP on save. For most UK SMEs, that trade-off is invisible — VLOOKUP handles price-list lookups perfectly. If you rely on Power Query or VBA UDFs, keep Excel for those files and sync the rest via ExcelFileService. Try asking /ai to “Create a price list with 20 products, bulk cost, retail price and margin formula” — it builds via create_spreadsheet with correct formulas pre-filled.

Pivot Tables & Charts: What Free Alternatives Can Do

Enterprise pivot tables with slicers, timelines and Power Pivot remain Excel’s moat. But few 2–20 person businesses use them. What you do need is a quarterly sales summary, stock-by-category totals and a margin chart — all doable without Power Pivot. Aphelios Sheets supports pivot-style summary tables (group-by totals via SUMIF/COUNTIF), multi-sheet aggregation, conditional formatting and charting (bar, line, pie) via the built-in canvas. Create a “Summary” sheet with =SUMIF(Category,A2,Amount), copy for each category, and insert a bar chart tied to that range.

Google Sheets has a native Pivot Table UI that is easier for drag-and-drop grouping; LibreOffice Calc has the most Excel-faithful pivot engine for offline. Aphelios’ strength is not pivot polish but live business linkage: your spreadsheet can reference live Inventory (stock quantities update from sales), and your document proposals can embed that sheet. That replaces manual copy-paste that causes errors. For UK hosting, Aphelios (Azure UK) beats Google (US) and matches Microsoft EU. If you need enterprise pivots weekly, keep one Excel licence and import/export; for monthly SME reporting, Aphelios + its all-in-one suite is faster and collaborative.

• Solo power user offline: LibreOffice Calc or Excel desktop for complex pivots.
• Cloud collaboration: Google Sheets or Aphelios Sheets — both real-time with history.
• Product business reporting: Aphelios Sheets — pivot-style + live stock/sales link + Image Editor/Video Editor for promo assets.

Business Use Cases: Price Lists, Stock Sheets & Forecasts

The reason to pick a free Excel alternative is not just saving £5.99/user/mo — it is killing double-entry. In Aphelios, a price list spreadsheet is not a dead file; it can link to live Inventory so when stock or cost changes, the sheet reflects it. Example use cases we see with UK product SMEs:

• Price lists: Columns Product / Bulk Cost / Retail Price / Margin % (= (C2-B2)/C2*100) / Stock Qty (pulled from Inventory). Share via IsPublic workspace (team can edit) and ShareToken (supplier sees read-only live price). Export to xlsx/pdf for accountants.
• Stock sheets: Multi-sheet workbook: “All Stock”, “Low Stock” (filtered via IF + conditional formatting), “Purchase Orders”. Auto-flag rows where qty < reorder point. Link to POS so sales decrement stock and reorder sheet updates.
• Sales forecasts: Pull 12 months of Sales history into a forecast sheet, use AVERAGE + seasonal multiplier, chart with line/bar. Share with owner only (IsPublic=false) or workspace (IsPublic=true).

All three are creatable by AI without Excel knowledge: “Create a stock sheet for 30 SKUs with low-stock flag” or “Build a forecast for the next quarter”. Pair with Online Office Software UK, vs Microsoft 365 and vs Google Workspace to see how sheets, docs and business tools share one login. For off-site work, import/export xlsx via ExcelFileService preserves merges, widths and DataJson history.

XLSX Fidelity Lab: Merges, Widths and Number Formats

Formula pass rates hide layout fidelity — merges, column widths, number formats and multi-sheet refs break silently. We round-tripped the same workbook (3 sheets, merged title row A1:E1, 4 column widths, £/%, date formats, conditional formatting on low-stock) through import → edit → export → reopen in Excel desktop. The goal: does your price list still look like a price list?

Aphelios and Google both preserved layout; Excel Free web dropped some conditional formatting on round-trip. LibreOffice Calc was pixel-perfect offline but lacks UK-hosted sharing. For SMEs, layout fidelity + shareability matters more than calc engine edge — Aphelios gives both: ExcelFileService keeps formatting, IsPublic/ShareToken keeps one live version, Azure UK keeps GDPR happy. Test with your own 10MB price list before deciding, and compare Document Editor for quote covers.

Collaboration and Governance: IsPublic, ShareToken and Audit

Spreadsheets leak when you email them. We audited sharing controls that matter for price lists with margins: who can edit, who can view, can you revoke, and is there an audit? Aphelios Sheets uses the same permission model as Docs: Private (IsPublic=false, owner only) → Workspace (IsPublic=true, Tenant members view/edit, owner-only delete/toggle) → Public link (ShareToken 32-byte base64url, read-only, revocable). Search mine/shared/all, paginate 25, owner controls. Browser-only (no offline sync) so lost devices do not retain copies; ShareToken always serves live version so suppliers never keep stale prices. GDPR-friendly with TenantId isolation on Azure UK.

• Internal: IsPublic=true for team price lists and stock sheets; IsPublic=false for payroll/margin drafts.
• External: ShareToken read-only link for supplier/accountant; revoke via RevokeShare when quote expires.
• Customers: Do not share sheets via link — use Customer Portal for scoped order data.
• Audit: List IsPublic=true sheets and active ShareTokens quarterly; export xlsx/pdf monthly snapshot.

Google Sheets links default to “Anyone with link” and need manual revocation; Microsoft needs OneDrive inheritance tuning. If you answer supplier questionnaires about UK hosting and access logs, Aphelios’ two-state model is cleaner than folder ACL sprawl. See vs Google Workspace and Online Office Software UK.

Migration Playbook: From Excel to Aphelios in 60 Minutes

You do not need to rebuild every workbook. This 60-minute playbook migrates your 3 critical sheets — price list, stock sheet, forecast — to a free, collaborative workspace with live business linkage.

1. Inventory (10 min): List your Top 3 workbooks and note sheets, key formulas (VLOOKUP/margin%), merges, widths, formats, and who you share with. Keep local xlsx backup.
2. Import + verify (20 min): In Spreadsheet Software UK, import xlsx via ExcelFileService. Check SUM/AVERAGE/IF/VLOOKUP/COUNTIF/SUMIF/DATE/CONCAT/ROUND/MIN/MAX plus multi-sheet refs and merges. Run a test margin row: = (C2-B2)/C2*100. Export to xlsx and reopen in Excel to confirm.
3. Reshare + link (15 min): Set IsPublic=true for team stock, IsPublic=false for finance forecast. Generate ShareToken read-only link for supplier, test revoke. Link one sheet to live Inventory/Sales to prove live stock decrement.
4. AI accelerate (15 min): Ask /ai “Create a price list with 20 products, bulk cost, retail price and margin formula, low-stock flag” — verify formulas and conditional formatting, then insert into a Document Editor proposal and Image Editor promo. Parallel-run for a month before cancelling Excel.

At £5.99/user/mo saved plus 2–4 hours/month saved on double-entry, ROI is weeks not years. See Video Editor for promo and vs Microsoft 365 for cost comparison.

When to Keep Excel (And When to Ditch It)

Keep one Excel desktop licence if you live in Power Query, Power Pivot/slicers/timelines, VBA UDFs or XLOOKUP-heavy models that exceed VLOOKUP. In that case, use Aphelios as your sharing layer: co-edit price lists and stock sheets in the browser with IsPublic/ShareToken, preserve XLOOKUP on import, edit with VLOOKUP, export back for Power Pivot crunching. You keep power, you lose the per-user tax.

For the other 90% — price lists, stock sheets, supplier quotes, sales forecasts, low-stock flags — free alternatives are faster. You skip the installer, skip licence admin, and gain all-in-one links to Inventory, POS and CRM plus Image/Video in the same browser. Import your three most-used xlsx, test merges/widths/formats, share via IsPublic and decide on evidence. If it passes, cancel at renewal; your xlsx files remain yours.

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