Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apple Numbers
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Numbers is a spreadsheet application developed by Apple Inc. as part of the iWork productivity suite. It is available for Mac and iOS, or for Windows in a browser via its cloud edition.N/A
Microsoft Excel
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application available as part of Microsoft 365 (Office 365), or standalone, in cloud-based and on-premise editions.
$6.99
per month
Quickbase
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Quickbase helps users tackle any project, no matter how complex. Quickbase helps customers see, connect and control complex projects. Whether it’s raising a skyscraper or coordinating vaccine rollouts, the no-code software platform allows business users to custom fit solutions to the way they work – using information from across the systems they already have.
$700
per month
Pricing
Apple NumbersMicrosoft ExcelQuickbase
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Excel with Microsoft 365
$6.99
per month
Excel for 1 PC or Mac
$139.99
perpetual license
Enterprise
Full Customizable
per month/billed annually
Business
Starting at $2,200
per month
Team
Started at $700
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apple NumbersMicrosoft ExcelQuickbase
Free Trial
NoYesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsQuickbase offers three key plans, with feature distinction, simple and consistent entitlements, and a flexible licensing model, giving users the option of either user based or usage based licensing across all 3 plans.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apple NumbersMicrosoft ExcelQuickbase
Considered Multiple Products
Apple Numbers
Chose Apple Numbers
has a more refined interface, allows for making good looking spreadsheets with little effort. though these other softwares each have their own positives and negatives. But Excel and Odoo are top in features and managing large amounts of data. Apple Numbers is good until you …
Chose Apple Numbers
Apple Numbers lags behind Google Sheets when it comes to real-time collaboration and editing between multiple users (especially when you consider that Numbers is iOS based and anyone can use Google Sheets, regardless of the kind of device and operating system they have). …
Chose Apple Numbers
Sheets is better for collaborative sharing, and Excel is better for complex formulas and functions.
Chose Apple Numbers
I would say excel is top tier, but you are going to pay a premium price for it. A small step down is a price savings and two tools that are really similar: Google Sheets and Apple Numbers. If I had to pick one I would pick sheets as it is easier to collaborate with. For …
Chose Apple Numbers
If you're an Apple user, Apple Numbers is for you. If you primarily operate on PC and Android, you will find more compatibility with Excel. Both platforms perform similar functions -- you can create charts, graphs, and figures. Excel was the pioneer spreadsheet software but …
Chose Apple Numbers
Numbers is every bit as good and functional as Excel.
Chose Apple Numbers
We all work with Apple devices in this organization. So we mostly use this software. It is very well synced in Apple ecosystem and provide very attractive data representation by its graphics and charts. In few scenarios we use MS Excel also but we always try to stick on Apple …
Microsoft Excel
Chose Microsoft Excel
Microsoft is more user friendly in my opinion. More applications and systems are compatible with excel versus Apple Numbers. More companies we do business with use Excel for invoicing and warehouse management which makes Excel stand out from other software like it. It is …
Chose Microsoft Excel
I've used a few of the mobile spreadsheet programs that you can find on the app store and found them to be inferior to Excel, even the mobile version. Access is better than Excel for certain situations but it is largely overkill much of the time and requires a time investment …
Chose Microsoft Excel
Excel will always be selected because it's part of the Office Suite. We started to use Smartsheet, but the onboarding and training process took too long when compounded with licensing setup & costs. Apple Numbers works well, but without the maturity of Excel. Since Apple …
Chose Microsoft Excel
Excel stands out from Google Sheets and Apple Numbers with its extensive range of advanced functions, including financial, statistical, and data analysis tools, surpassing the capabilities of its competitors. As the universally recognized industry standard, Excel offers better …
Chose Microsoft Excel
PowerPoint is excellent for displaying information in a far more visually engaging, relatable manner. However, where it is lacking is the ability to get to that point in analyzing competing deal information, building formulas around it, things of that nature.

Apple has its own …
Chose Microsoft Excel
Excel is a far superior product compared to Numbers as far as it's usability, simplicity, and functions. I do like the ease of sharing that Google Sheets offers and that's an advantage, but otherwise, very similar. Often I use Excel over Google because of how user friendly it …
Quickbase
Chose Quickbase
Compare to excel Quickbase is having so many advanced features which help users to solve different scenarios of real time problem. excel can only store and sort the data according to our request. Pipelines, notifications, reports, charts, formulas, forms these are the advanced …
Chose Quickbase
Microsoft tools are functional but they are not necessarily created for scalability. As our contract scaled, we needed something that had the capability to consolidate data as well as handle more and more amounts of data and analysis. Quickbsae has also helped us stop working …
Chose Quickbase
Some will tell me they don't use Quickbase because they already have Excel. I always take that opportunity to explain how they're missing out by not converting that Excel sheet (which takes less than 1 minute to convert) into a Quickbase tool. The functionality that Quickbase …
Chose Quickbase
This is the first time I've used this type of product. Generally, it's either on Excel or it's on PowerPoint or it's on Word. So this is my first experience with this type of application.
Chose Quickbase
Excel required more manual updating to keep data synchronized. Users often emailed copies of spreadsheets that were outdated almost as soon as they were received. We had less control over how the data was inputted in the spreadsheets while Quickbase allows us to customize …
Chose Quickbase
If you don't know any programming languages, it's no problem to get started with Quick Base. On-line guides and prompts, plenty of examples and help are always available. There are template sample databases available for modification, and these provide a great opportunity to …
Chose Quickbase
Quickbase is very versatile and unlimited for quickly meeting [the] needs of our company. Power Automate was very behind, but I am sure they will catch up exponentially.
Chose Quickbase
There are good and bad with both. Quickbase gets the win because at the time it was more feature-rich.
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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Enterprises
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
Apple NumbersMicrosoft ExcelQuickbase
Likelihood to Recommend
7.9
(6 ratings)
9.3
(76 ratings)
8.4
(521 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.9
(7 ratings)
9.9
(54 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(6 ratings)
8.4
(22 ratings)
8.4
(40 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(16 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(15 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
7.4
(44 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.8
(22 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.4
(10 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(15 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apple NumbersMicrosoft ExcelQuickbase
Likelihood to Recommend
Apple
Apple Numbers is the PERFECT tool if you are looking to plan a conference at your church. Furthermore, if you are a youth pastor, Apple Numbers is incredibly useful in keeping track of how much each of your high school students has accumulated funds towards their summer camp bill. Lastly, Apple Numbers is perfect if you are trying to keep track of all your upcoming preaching opportunities.
Read full review
Microsoft
I don't really know another program as powerful as Excel. I've used Google Doc programs but do not feel they come close. So far, anytime I've needed a table of some sort for data, whether it's budget oriented or information off a survey, the best system has been Excel. We do web audits on occasion and we create an Excel worksheet featuring every URL of the pages we're auditing, notes, data about the content, information about files attached to the page and other information to help us determine what pages need updating, deleting or otherwise. We also use Excel primarily to export our Google Analytics to in order for us to create reports for clients that need to see specific information about their traffic.
Read full review
Quickbase
I no longer think that Quickbase is the way of the future. They do not fix major bugs in a timely manner, and are releasing basic functionality behind a paywall. I believe that Enterprise Level Tier should be given certain things, like SLAs on Support and up-time. However, as a low-code no-code platform the majority of the accounts, "builders", and users are not going to be able to justify the cost of an Enterprise Tier Plan, and won't be able to use the features that Quickbase continues to advertise.
Read full review
Pros
Apple
  • Data security provided by Apple on its all the software.
  • Very well integration within the Apple ecosystem.
  • It is very well compatible with MS Excel also.
  • It is available on iOS also. We can use it on our Apple mobile phones and on our iPads also.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • It is very good at embedded formulas and tying cells to one another
  • It allows me to compare deals terms on a side-by-side basis and talk my clients through it easily.
  • It is very helpful as well in terms of allowing me to filter/sort results in many different ways depending on what specific information I am most interested in prioritizing.
Read full review
Quickbase
  • Rapidly bring new ideas to life
  • Great authentication and authorization system out of the box
  • Connects with many major third-party services (via Pipelines)
  • Reporting and Dashboards are awesome
  • Excellent emails notification system to keep us in the loop when data changes
  • Intuitive UI for building forms and reports
  • Nice playground to test new ideas
Read full review
Cons
Apple
  • Doesn’t have all the bells and whistles as excel.
  • Sometimes you have to save it in a different format for others to view
  • Could include more options on the menu bar rather than clicking on some of the drop downs.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Excel offers collaboration features that allow multiple users to work on the same spreadsheet, but managing changes made by different users can be challenging. Excel could improve its features by offering more granular control, better tracking of changes, and more robust conflict resolution tools.
  • Itcan be a barrier to productivity when importing and exporting data from other applications or file formats. To improve its features, it should offer better support for standard file formats and more robust error handling and reporting tools.
  • Excel can be challenging for finance students and working professionals, but it can be improved by offering more robust tutorials, better documentation, and more user communities and support forums.
Read full review
Quickbase
  • I'd like to see a link on email notices that take you directly into said notice. On an app that only has 1 or 2 email notices firing, there's no issue. However, we have some tools that are so complex that they have about 20 email notices firing at any given time based on the action users take. In this case, if we have to go in to modify a notice, we have to guess or scroll down the long list of notices to see which one we need to customize. It would be great if Quickbase had the URL of said notice somewhere at the footer of that notice so when Administrators click on it, it takes them into the exact notice they need to update.
  • When filling out or reviewing a lengthy form, I'd like to see the Save & close button, as well as a Save & next option at the bottom of the form rather than having to scroll back up to the top of those forms just to click on those choices.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Apple
I just really like it
Read full review
Microsoft
Excel remains the industry standard for spreadsheets and has maintained simple and straight-forward formula writing methods. Although there is a learning curve to do more complex calculations, there are countless help sites and videos on the Internet for almost any need.
Read full review
Quickbase
For our use-case of QuickBase, there really aren't any other products out there that can offer us the same out-of-the-box solutions they provide to us. We're also so integrated with it in our daily processes that to move away from it abruptly would cause mass chaos, so it's going to be renewed for at least the next several years.
Read full review
Usability
Apple
The interface once familiar allows for quick work, and easy to use. very intuitive. Its easy to create beautiful spreadsheets, ones that capture interest and can communicate data in a easy to understand with Apple Numbers ability to organize, and make good looking with styles. Collaboration is great for our teams to all contribute the to document at the same time.
Read full review
Microsoft
I'm giving it a 7 because it is my go to. But the fact other prefer Google Sheets when working with a team does get irritating. I've used the online version of Microsoft Excel that other teams can get into and it still seems behind Google Sheets. It's a little clanky and slow? If that's even a term.
Read full review
Quickbase
Quick Base has done everything we have asked it to do and then some. Our original goal was to have one system for CRM that encompassed both the sales process and the customer management. We have gone w-a-y beyond that with analytics, project management, system bug logging, and historical effort reporting.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Apple
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
I have rarely, if ever, had issues with its availability.
Read full review
Quickbase
Once we did get Quick Base configured and customized it was reliably available when we needed it. We may have had one or two occasions when the product was inaccessible but those were few. The greatest challenge with its availability was its difficulty with integrating with our systems.
Read full review
Performance
Apple
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Excel load and performs calculations immediately. It integrate well with all Microsoft Office applications and does not slow them down.
Read full review
Quickbase
Some of our tables that hold over a million records are starting to perform poorly, with some summaries taking over 20 seconds to load. This may be an indication that it is best to archive old data when reaching large volumes like this.
Read full review
Support Rating
Apple
It is visually appealing and easy to use
Read full review
Microsoft
I have not had to use it often, but it is good.
Read full review
Quickbase
If you utilize the community, the support is amazing. Unfortunately, I find their actual support system a bit underwhelming. They don't seem to have a great process for interacting directly with an issue and often sweep significant issues under the rug by categorizing them as "Enhancement" ideas or legacy items.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Apple
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Quickbase
It is very easy to get training from their University portal and still if we don't know their, then we can ask their support too.
Read full review
Online Training
Apple
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Quickbase
Quick Base already is having a separate portal of providing training to customers and it is very easy to use and updates as per the new features added in to the application
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Apple
Implementing Numbers effectively, whether for personal use or within an organization, requires understanding its strengths and limitations to maximize productivity
Read full review
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Quickbase
I was not directly involved with the initial account implementation, only a bystander. For the app I directly implemented for my department only, I wish I had know to create an app diagram first. I don't remember if that was suggested. I think that would be a great help tip tool when a new app is created, to have a page with a check list of what is needed or how to get started. If you are a regular app builder, then you can bypass it or have the ability to turn it off in the app settings.
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Alternatives Considered
Apple
Apple Numbers lags behind Google Sheets when it comes to real-time collaboration and editing between multiple users (especially when you consider that Numbers is iOS based and anyone can use Google Sheets, regardless of the kind of device and operating system they have). However, Numbers is easier to navigate, which can be a benefit for some users.
Read full review
Microsoft
Out of Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, IBM SPSS, and Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel is by far the most common tool used for anything data-related across organizations. Accordingly, our organization has also implemented Microsoft Excel as a first-step tool. We recently adopted Microsoft Power BI (the free version), and use it occasionally (mostly for creating dashboards), but it is less commonly understood by stakeholders across our organization and by our clients. Accordingly, Microsoft Excel is more user-friendly and because of its popularity, we can easily look up how to do things in the program online. Google Sheets is a comparable alternative to Microsoft Excel, but because it's cloud-based and we have sensitive data that needs to be protected, we chose against using this software. Finally, a few users (including myself) have access to and utilize IBM's SPSS. For my role, it's a helpful tool to do more rigorous analyses. However, because of its cost and limited functionality as a simple spreadsheet, we only use it for more complex analyses.
Read full review
Quickbase
Well, there's a plethora of low-code tools out on the marketplace and, you know, there's a reason that we've decided to partner with QuickBase because it has all the right balance of the ability to integrate with the ability for a citizen developer to create apps successfully. So if you look at something like Zo Ho's low-code offering, for example, yes, there are some similarities there, but they're really dependent on all of their other licensed products to get you where you want to be, where with QuickBase you have the ability to truly create something custom.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Apple
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
N/A I was not involved in this process.
Read full review
Quickbase
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Apple
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Each user can use it to whatever level of expertise they have. It remains the same so users can contribute to another's work regardless of whether they have more or less expertise
Read full review
Quickbase
It has evolved really well with our company, but there is a hard limit to the table size that has begun to affect us and not let us grow. The table size limit is set at 500 MB and we have had to jump through quite a few hoops to be able to get by.
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Professional Services
Apple
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Quickbase
For clients we use Qucik base to develop application
Read full review
Return on Investment
Apple
  • Apple Numbers is a free software ...huge ROI!
  • Apple Numbers is upgraded frequently and automatically without charge
  • Enormous time saver when integrating Apple Numbers spreadsheet into word processor and presentation software
  • easily exporter in pdf format. Ideal to share information
  • On the negative side , it misses some advances macro and programmable functions features present in Excel
  • Exportation as an Excel document sometimes defective
  • Importation from Excel sometimes missions some features
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Excel has positively impacted the business as it has increased our efficiency.
  • It also saves us the time that we would have spent on making the calculations that it does for us.
  • Since it works on all devices and is compatible with both Windows and Mac, we do not have to invest in any other alternative.
Read full review
Quickbase
  • ROI is HUGE. Our company saved over 3.5 million in one year alone based on developments that year in Quickbase that saved time for many teams
  • Less user error - implementing automations and standardized workflows has led to less user error as was previously seen by maintaining spreadsheets or Smartsheets
Read full review
ScreenShots