Baserow vs Microsoft Excel

Baserow is an open-source no-code database and one of the most complete Airtable alternatives. It is developed by a company based in the Netherlands and offered both as a hosted cloud service with EU data storage and as a self-hosted application you can run with Docker on your own servers. The core of the product is MIT licensed.

Data lives in tables with typed fields, links between tables, lookups, formulas and rollups, and can be viewed as a grid, gallery, form, kanban or calendar. On top of the database Baserow adds an application builder for simple internal tools and portals, automations, an AI field that generates or classifies content from a prompt, row comments, and a REST API with webhooks. The free self-hosted edition has no artificial row limits; paid Premium and Advanced tiers, priced per user, unlock extra views, AI, admin controls, audit logs, SSO and role management.

Baserow suits teams that like the Airtable model but need data ownership, GDPR-friendly hosting or predictable costs at large row counts. It falls short on ecosystem: Airtable has far more integrations, templates and a more mature Interfaces layer, and its community is larger. NocoDB is the closest rival, source-available rather than open source since 2026, and sits on top of an existing SQL database, while Grist is stronger for spreadsheet-style formulas. For many European organizations Baserow is the easiest open-source option to adopt.

Microsoft Excel is the spreadsheet application from Microsoft, first released for the Mac in 1985 and for Windows in 1987. It became the default tool for finance and business analysis and now ships with Microsoft 365 on every major platform. Its core job is organizing, calculating and analyzing numbers, from a simple budget to a complex financial model.

Excel combines formulas and dynamic arrays (XLOOKUP, FILTER, LAMBDA), PivotTables, charts, Power Query for importing and cleaning data, Power Pivot data models, conditional formatting and real-time co-authoring through OneDrive and SharePoint. Python in Excel runs Python code in the grid, and Copilot can write formulas, highlight trends and build analyses from prompts. Excel for the web is free with a Microsoft account; the full desktop apps come with Microsoft 365 Personal, Family and Premium for consumers, Microsoft 365 business plans, or a one-time Office Home 2024 license.

Excel fits anyone who needs serious number crunching, financial modeling or offline work with large files. Google Sheets is simpler and better for live browser collaboration, Airtable suits relational databases with forms and views, and Smartsheet is built for project tracking in a grid. Excel's weaknesses are version sprawl from emailed files and a steep learning curve for advanced features.

Recent changes: Microsoft raised consumer Microsoft 365 prices in 2025 when Copilot was bundled in, launched Microsoft 365 Premium at $19.99 a month in late 2025, and has been rolling out agent-style Copilot features in Excel.