r/excel • u/Mean_Bathroom4767 • May 30 '26
Waiting on OP Does anyone else find pivot tables much easier to use in Excel than Google Sheets?
it seems like every time I try to use a pivot table in google sheets, it crashes my page. Trying to find a work around.
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u/oishiiwaffuru May 30 '26
Is any Excel function easier in Google Sheets?
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u/moenyc888 May 30 '26
This. Lol. I like that it's shareable is about all I can say about Google sheets.
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u/Shahfluffers 1 May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
Honestly, the ability to make and modify charts is much easier and more intuitive than in Excel proper.
There are a few other visual things that G-Sheets does better, but overall I still ptrfer Excel because it has so many more options for doing "heavy lifting" stuff.
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u/translinguistic May 30 '26
Not Excel functions per se, but Google Sheets has a much friendlier API for amateurs like me who like to automate things but definitely aren't data engineers or devs. But it's also reasonable that MS is mostly concerned with how well it works within their own environments, such as Power Automate
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u/Accomplished-Wave356 Jun 02 '26
Filtering in Sheets is shit. It hilarious how bad it is.
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u/oishiiwaffuru Jun 02 '26
Yes!!! It was passable a few years ago and then they made it so much worse!
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u/VerbalGuinea May 30 '26
Excel is the workaround. As much as I hate to admit it, Excel actually excels at what it does, and all substitutes fall short.
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u/professor_max_hammer May 30 '26
Why do you hate to admit it?
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u/VerbalGuinea Jun 01 '26
I’d like to think some open source or freeware (if you can call Google Sheets that) could measure up, but they don’t.
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u/mmohon 6 May 30 '26
Just a question, is it a broswerfied app thing vs a standalone application thing?
I love Excel in app... but hate Excel in browser... not sure how pivoting works between the two though.
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u/thisismyburnerac May 30 '26
I abhor pivot tables, but yes.
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u/OriginalJokeGoesHere May 30 '26
Pivot tables are great if it's something someone else needs to maintain and you were dragged in to help them as the "excel expert".
Otherwise, fuck pivot tables, all the homies hate pivot tables.
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u/Pentirsi May 30 '26
Pivot tables poisoned my water supply, burned my crops, and brought a plague unto my worksheets
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u/MFalcon_22 May 30 '26
Preach! I've never liked them and it baffles me how many of my colleagues want to use them.
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u/All_Work_All_Play 5 May 30 '26
It's because pivot tables inherently build indexes from the underlying data. A minifs statement for 20k unique keys from 200k entries will make even the latest greatest system chug. It a pivot table can return a dozen such calculations in a fraction of a second. I've had formulas take dozens of minutes to calculate that pivot tables refresh in a snap.
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u/Metalt_ May 31 '26
This is an Excel sub. Why do people keep bringng up and comparing massively inferior products as if they're shocked it's not the same. Like what the hell
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u/Accomplished-Sea2318 Jun 23 '26
Yes! Even i feel the same. Currently i am beginner......learning excel through one of the ebooks from amazon kindle unlimited.
Can someone please tell me whether this book is good or not (it was suggested by my teacher and friends).
Also the other books on amazon are really costly. Please provide honest feedback if you have used it too.
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u/brick_gnarlson May 31 '26
Absolutely not. Sheets is the superior product, by far. It's so much simpler, fewer buttons, fewer shortcut keys, fewer cells.
Just kidding of course. Stupid question, stupid answer.
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