[breckognize]

We built our spreadsheet (https://rowzero.io) from the ground up to integrate natively with Python. Bolting it on like Microsoft did, or as an add in like xlwings, just feels second class. To make it first class, we had to solve three hard problems:

1. Sandboxing and dependencies. Python is extremely unsafe to share, so you need to sandbox execution. There's also the environment/package management problem (does the user you're sharing your workbook with have the same version of pandas as you?). We run workbooks in the cloud to solve both of these.

2. The type system. You need a way to natively interop between Excel's type system and Python's much richer type system. The problem with Excel is there are only two types - numbers and strings. Even dates are just numbers in Excel. Python has rich types like pandas Dataframes, lists, and dictionaries, which Excel can't represent natively. We solved this in a similar way to how Typescript evolved Javascript. We support the Excel formula language and all of its types and also added support for lists, dictionaries, structs, and dataframes.

3. Performance. Our goal was to build a spreadsheet 1000x faster than Excel. Early on we used Python as our formula language but were constantly fighting the GIL and slow interpreter performance. Instead we implemented the spreadsheet engine in Rust as a columnar engine and seamlessly marshal Python types to the spreadsheet type system and back.

It's the hardest systems problem our team's ever worked on. Previously we wrote the S3 file system, so it's not like this was our first rodeo. There's just a ton of details you need to get right to make it feel seamless.

You can try it free here: https://rowzero.io/new?feature=code

[fzumstein]

As the author of said second class add-in, let me just guess that your most popular feature request was adding the "Import from xlsx" functionality...which describes the whole issue: it's always Excel + something, never something instead of Excel.

[breckognize]

My apologies, that came off harsher than I intended. I've used xlwings in previous jobs to complete Excel automation tasks, so thank you for building it. xlwings is one of the projects that motivated me to start Row Zero. My main issue with it, and other Excel add-ins, is they break the promise of an .xlsx file as a self-contained virtual machine of code and data. I can no longer just send the .xlsx file - I need the recipient to install (e.g.) Python first. This makes collaboration a nightmare.

I wanted a spreadsheet interface, which my business partners need, but with a way for power users (me) to do more complicated stuff in Python instead of VBA.

To borrow your phrasing, our thesis is that it has to be Excel-compatible spreadsheet + something, not necessarily Excel + something. It's early days for us, but we've seen a couple publicly traded companies switch off Excel to Row Zero to eliminate the security risks that come with Excel's desktop model.

[IshKebab]

These are exactly the issues I would have guessed you would run into when using Python in a spreadsheet. Python has really been promoted above its level of competence. It's not suitable for these things at all.

I would say Typescript is a more obvious choice, or potentially Dart. Maybe even something more obscure like Nim (though I have no experience of that).

I get that you want compatibility with Pandas, Numpy, etc. but you're going to pay for that with endless pain.

[yvely]

Looks very cool. Will be keeping an eye on this for local network hosted and/or desktop application version. Thanks for sharing!

[breckognize]

We have private hosting available (in your VPC) for enterprise customers.

[victor106]

looks cool!

do you have a desktop app in the works?

[breckognize]

We have some development desktop builds working. Is it something you'd pay for?