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Google Sheets Reviews & Insights

Score8.9 out of 10

764 Reviews and Ratings

Top industries

Based on 52,803 HG Insights installations.

Community Insights for Google Sheets

Synthesised from 51 verified reviews.


Synthesised from 51 reviews


Google Sheets is a widely adopted tool primarily addressing organizational needs for data handling and collaborative workflows, serving as a central repository for diverse information. Reviewers frequently highlight its robust collaboration and sharing capabilities, with 47% commending its ability to facilitate simultaneous multi-user access and effortless information exchange across teams and with external partners. Its ease of use is also a significant advantage, noted by 39% of users, who appreciate its intuitive interface and simple learning curve. The product's free or low-cost nature is a substantial benefit, with 27% of reviewers citing significant cost savings by eliminating the need for expensive software licenses. While excelling in accessibility and collaboration, Google Sheets faces limitations in advanced functionality compared to Microsoft Excel, a concern raised by 14% of reviewers, who point to deficiencies in advanced features, pivot table rigidity, and a lack of keyboard shortcuts. Similarly, 14% of users report difficulties with advanced formulas, limited options, and a desire for more intuitive error messages. Performance issues, particularly when handling large datasets, are a notable pain point, with 16% of reviewers experiencing slow loading times, sluggishness, or even freezing and crashing. Despite these limitations, Google Sheets is a critical tool for data organization and tracking, a use case cited by 37% of users, and for broader data management, processing, and reporting, mentioned by 27%. Its collaborative nature also contributes to improved file sharing and real-time editing, preventing information silos and enhancing team efficiency, as noted by 18% of reviewers. The platform's overall value proposition centers on its ability to provide a cost-effective, highly collaborative, and accessible solution for everyday data management and analysis, though it may require workarounds or alternative tools for highly complex or large-scale analytical tasks.


  • Robust collaboration and real-time sharing capabilities
  • High ease of use and intuitive interface
  • Significant cost savings due to its free or low-cost nature
  • Effective for data organization, tracking, and management
  • Efficient for basic calculations and formula management
  • Limitations in advanced functionality compared to Microsoft Excel
  • Challenges with advanced formulas and limited function options
  • Performance degradation and sluggishness with large datasets
  • Inconsistent utility and performance of integrated AI features
  • Rigidity in pivot table functionality and fewer keyboard shortcuts
What other products like Google Sheets have you used or evaluated?

From 51 reviews

Reviewers frequently identify a range of alternative spreadsheet and data management tools they have used or evaluated in comparison to Google Sheets. Microsoft Excel stands out as the most commonly cited alternative, mentioned by 29% of reviewers. This indicates its pervasive presence in data handling workflows and its status as a primary benchmark for comparison. Other tools, while less frequently cited, also appear in the competitive landscape, suggesting a diverse ecosystem of solutions for similar tasks. Airtable and Apple Numbers are each mentioned by 8% of reviewers, indicating their role as notable, albeit less universal, alternatives. LibreOffice is cited by 6% of reviewers, suggesting its use among a smaller segment of the user base. The consistent identification of these tools, often in conjunction with one another, highlights that users frequently evaluate multiple options to meet their specific data organization and analysis needs, reflecting a mixed sentiment across these various platforms.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel and Apple Numbers

Airtable

Microsoft Excel, Airtable and Apple Numbers

Apple Numbers

Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers and LibreOffice

What positive or negative impact (i.e. Return on Investment or ROI) has Google Sheets had on your overall business objectives?

From 51 reviews

Google Sheets has significantly impacted business objectives for many organizations, primarily by enabling substantial cost savings and improving data management. Reviewers frequently highlight the financial benefits, with 27% noting that the product's free or low-cost nature eliminates the need for expensive software licenses and complex development, thereby optimizing direct costs. Concurrently, 27% of reviewers report enhanced capabilities in data organization and tracking, which has led to better performance monitoring, strategic decision-making, and improved inventory management. The platform's collaborative features are also a strong positive, with 18% of reviewers citing improved file sharing and real-time editing, which prevents information silos and enhances team efficiency. This collaborative environment, alongside other features, contributes to time savings, as indicated by 14% of reviewers who experienced faster data manipulation and quicker project completion. While overwhelmingly positive, a small segment of reviewers (4%) noted limitations, particularly regarding row quantity for large datasets, which occasionally necessitated workarounds or alternative tools.

Cost Savings

In the world of CRM's it's tremendously cheap

Data Organization and Tracking

Upper Management can see directly through updates

Collaboration and Sharing

Time savings : Instead of emailing excel files back and forth, multiple team members work on the same file, saving a lot of time.

Besides Google Sheets, what other software do you regularly use? How likely would you be to recommend it to a friend or colleague?

From 51 reviews

Reviewers frequently utilize a diverse set of software tools in addition to Google Sheets, with a notable emphasis on cloud-based productivity and communication platforms. Google Drive emerged as the most frequently mentioned tool, cited by 18% of reviewers, indicating its widespread adoption for file storage, sharing, and general document management. Collaboration and communication remain key areas of software usage, with Slack and a broader category of collaboration/communication tools each mentioned by 12% of reviewers. This suggests a strong need for efficient team interaction and project coordination. Google Slides is also a commonly used application, mentioned by 10% of reviewers, highlighting its role in presentation creation. Furthermore, traditional spreadsheet software, including Microsoft Excel and Apple Numbers, continues to be relevant, with 10% of reviewers noting their regular use for data organization and analysis. The consistent mention of these tools across the 51 reviews points to their established utility in professional workflows, although specific qualitative feedback on their performance or user experience was not extensively detailed in the provided quotes. The overall sentiment for these tools, as indicated by the review data, is mixed, suggesting general utility without strong positive or negative descriptors in the available quotes.

Google Drive

Google Drive

Slack

Slack

Collaboration/Communication Tools

Slack, Fin by Intercom, Amplitude Analytics

Describe how you use Google Sheets in your organization. What are the business problems the product addresses and what is the scope of your use case?

From 51 reviews

Google Sheets serves as a foundational tool for organizations, primarily addressing business problems related to data handling and collaborative workflows. Reviewers frequently leverage the product for comprehensive data organization and tracking, a use case cited by 37% of users, acting as a central repository for financial records, project statuses, and customer information. Complementing this, 27% of reviewers highlight its utility for broader data management and tracking, encompassing tasks such as collecting, formatting, processing, and reporting operational data, as well as managing processes and budgets. A significant strength of Google Sheets lies in its collaboration and sharing capabilities, with 29% of reviewers noting its allowance for multiple users to work simultaneously and share information effortlessly across teams and with external partners. This is further supported by its collaboration and accessibility features, emphasized by 24% of reviewers, which enable real-time co-editing for remote teams and ensure access to current information from any location. Furthermore, Google Sheets is a critical tool for calculations and analysis, with 20% of reviewers using it for financial forecasting, performance metric tracking, and creating custom dashboards to derive business insights.

Data Organization and Tracking

I use this resource for so many reasons- I'll list out a few that come to mind: Prepare for weekly meetings, track important performance metrics, budget my region's expenses, create region incentive programs, and many other things.

Collaboration and Sharing

We use Google Sheets to keep track of just about everything: schedules, payments, student data, etc.

Data Management and Tracking

Google Sheets has been instrumental for collecting, formatting, processing, and sharing data in a meaningful way.

Please provide some detailed examples of areas where Google Sheets has room for improvement.

From 51 reviews

Google Sheets users frequently identify several areas where the product could be enhanced, particularly concerning its advanced capabilities and performance. A significant portion of feedback, cited by 14% of reviewers, highlights limitations when compared to Microsoft Excel, noting deficiencies in advanced functionality, pivot table rigidity, and a perceived lack of keyboard shortcuts. Similarly, 14% of users express concerns about formulas and functions, pointing to difficulties with advanced formulas, limited options, and a desire for more intuitive error messages. The integration and utility of AI features present a mixed picture, with 12% of reviewers noting both potential and current challenges, such as AI not performing as expected or slowing down sheets. Furthermore, performance remains a notable pain point for 8% of reviewers, especially when handling large datasets, leading to slow loading times and general sluggishness. An additional 8% of reviewers specifically reported performance issues such as freezing, stalling, or crashing when dealing with substantial amounts of data. These observations collectively suggest a desire for greater sophistication, improved usability in complex scenarios, and more robust performance from Google Sheets.

Excel Comparison

Pivot tables are functional but they feel rigid compared to Excel

Formulas and Functions

limited formulas

AI Features

the =AI function maxes out at 200 cells at a time and can really slow down the function of a sheet

Please provide some detailed examples of things that Google Sheets does particularly well.

From 51 reviews

Google Sheets is highly valued by reviewers primarily for its robust collaboration and sharing capabilities, which are highlighted by 47% of reviewers. Its ease of use is also a significant advantage, noted by 39% of reviewers, who frequently commend its intuitive interface and simple learning curve. Beyond these core strengths, the platform is recognized for its effectiveness in data handling and analysis, cited by 18% of reviewers, particularly with the aid of AI integrations like Gemini. Reviewers also frequently leverage Google Sheets for data organization and tracking, including project management and inventory, a use case mentioned by 14% of the sample. Furthermore, its ability to perform calculations and manage formulas efficiently is appreciated by 14% of reviewers, making it a versatile tool for various analytical and administrative tasks.

Collaboration and Sharing

share-able for collaboration

Ease of Use

Creating a sheet - super easy

Data Handling and Analysis

Organizing data in a meaningful way

Reviews

93 Reviews

Google Sheets - what else?

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Google Sheets almost every day to do my job. I always have to do some complex comuptation, statistics and it's a fantastic tool to manage easily all the computation I have. Whatever is my issue : scheduling, assessing options, project plan estimation, it's a very easy tool. What I really appreciate is the capability of this tool to keep the history of cells modifications. Thanks to that I can know who changed what. futhermore it's feasible to put comment to explain why a change occured.

Pros

  • table mangement
  • being able to sort from criteria
  • manage cells history
  • comment management

Cons

  • manage images in cells
  • having an app available for Windows (like Google Meet add-on)

Likelihood to Recommend

if you have to manage tables of figures and having to do some computations this is definitively the best ever tool to use.
it's not a tool very usefull when you have other kind of work to do. By instance managing to describe a process, I would use another tool.
As it is in the name it's perfect to manage spreadsheet otherwise you should find another tool.
Vetted Review
Google Sheets
10 years of experience

Google Sheets is just awesome

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Google Sheets pretty much every single day across almost every department. From keeping project records to Payments of the clients, everything in between is being handled on Google Sheets. For our marketing side, we put campaign performance data into Google Sheets, things like Google Ads metrics, SEO tracking, social media KPIs, and build out custom dashboards for clients.

Pros

  • Data Entry
  • Calculations
  • Sorting
  • Custom Macros
  • Project Management
  • Tracking
  • Marketing

Cons

  • Pivot tables are functional but they feel rigid compared to Excel

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Sheets is a perfect fit for collaborative, real time work, shared editorial calendars, client-facing project trackers, lightweight budget monitoring. Where it falls short is anything data-heavy or analytically complex. Running multi-source campaign attribution or managing large ecommerce datasets, we've learned the hard way that Google Sheets just isn't the right tool.

Good for organization and structure

Rating: 10 out of 10

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are currently using Google Sheets to manage some of our candidate pipelines on the potential and archived sides of the business. It makes it easy to collaborate in real-time on some of the tasks we need to complete on any given day. Right now, it is being used, in some capacity, by the entire company.

Pros

  • It is a great way to collaborate in real-time with any member across the organization.
  • It easy very easy to create formulas, data validation options, and pivot tables for data analysis.
  • It is a great way to see the revision history and changes that other collaborators have made on the document.

Cons

  • I was using Google Sheets for more but I moved to Airtable because it is easier to quickly sort the information into groups for better visualization.
  • I find the filtered views to be useful but if there were more flexibility on moving the data around, that would be great.
  • The above two points were my major reason for leaving Google Sheets for some parts of the business.

Likelihood to Recommend

Great all rounder tool with excellent collaboration and features

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Sheets to manage all reporting within our company. We use it extensively to manage automations, with new role applications and other activities.
All of our team reporting on account status, team member performance and also our client facing documents with project plans and roadmaps for growth are managed in Google Sheets.

Pros

  • Ease of use
  • Flexibility with layouts and usage
  • Extensive templates available
  • Graphs and diagrams
  • Calculations

Cons

  • Onboarding documentation
  • Training and courses
  • Providing more specific use cases of how we could implement it

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Sheets is great for companies which need collaboration with data and information. It is a great way of being able to maintain singular 'points of truth' for work. It can be integrated with many other systems and settings, and we are excited to integrate it further with AI solutions in the future.

I would say it is probably less appropriate to more enterprise businesses. We are a SME so this is good for us.
Vetted Review
Google Sheets
5 years of experience

Google Sheets 1010 recommend

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Google Sheets on a daily basis to help me in my role as a regional manager. I use this resource for so many reasons- I'll list out a few that come to mind: Prepare for weekly meetings, track important performance metrics, budget my region's expenses, create region incentive programs, and many other things.

Pros

  • Helps me organize my thoughts.
  • Helps me track metrics & admin duties for my team.
  • Helps me keep track of my inventory.

Cons

  • Many of the templates are very similar. I'd like to see more variety.
  • When using the mobile app, I'd like for the experience to be much closer to the web version.
  • I'd like to be able to change the icon associated with my different sheets.

Likelihood to Recommend

I'd recommend Google Sheets to any colleague as I have several times over. Each time I onboard a new hire, I share a budget tracking tool with them to help us both have visibility into their spending & tracking. Another use case - I create an inventory tracker with each new hire to help them manage their personal inventory in an organized way.

Great value

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Sheets for price lists, tracking inventory, tracking costs on projects

Pros

  • Calculating the totals
  • Designing color coded spreadsheets
  • Tracking the status of items/products

Cons

  • Finding buttons
  • it would be great f it had a cheat sheet that you can open while you work that shows the commands/shortcuts for formulas

Likelihood to Recommend

It's well suited for creating a product list and review your cost and sales price. I also use it for flow charts sometimes but it is a little hard to figure it out so i wish it was easier.
Vetted Review
Google Sheets
4 years of experience

Seamless interface some minor drawbacks

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Google Sheets for informal data tracking in the remote education industry. I am able to easily create data drop-downs to mindfully sort each category and variable into its correct place. I use Sheets daily for this in relation to my work from home position, and prefer it by far to competitors like Excel.

Pros

  • Organization
  • Layout
  • Auto-save

Cons

  • Freezing
  • Basic features
  • No offline capabilities

Likelihood to Recommend

I can say that my most fruitful tasks that involved Google Sheets would be informal data tracking and personal organization. Less appropriate functions would be using Google Sheets for very large projects in which you will need to be able to edit/work offline, as overwhelm can already cause freezing and offline auto-save is not available.
Vetted Review
Google Sheets
6 years of experience

Easy to use and collaborate

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

My organization uses Google Sheets to keep track of advertising expenses for our digital media clients. We log how much we spent on ads, how much we need to charge them, how we should account for additional fees. We also use Google Sheets to organize daily tasks and their status of completion.

Pros

  • Storage and memory
  • Ease of use
  • Real-time changes

Cons

  • Adding more font options
  • Opening to most recent sheet (instead of oldest)
  • Buffer/refresh more quickly

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Sheets is well suited for tracking weekly and monthly expenses and spending. It allows for multiple people within one organization to view and make changes to the sheets, and we can all see the changes in real time. It is not ideal for large chunks of text. This often leads to formatting errors.

Google Sheets is a must for all businesses

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Google Sheets daily for tracking, staying organized and pulling content utilization. Sheets allows me to work quicker and stay organized by easily organizing lots of information in an easy to follow way. I communicate with many individuals and share a link to a sheet to collaborate with. Because sheets allows for multiple people to collaborate at once we can focus on speed and alignment across the board

Pros

  • Collaboration
  • Formulas
  • Organization
  • Formatting

Cons

  • Ai integration

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Sheets is a great tool and if you are still using excel you should move to sheets due to the ability for better collaboration and teamwork. Sheets might not have all the bells and whistles of excel, but as long as you don’t need all Those, sheets is the clear winner. It’s easier to use, looks cleaner and is a better collaboration tool.
Vetted Review
Google Sheets
8 years of experience

Google Sheets is heads and tails above the rest

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Sheets for so many things: Project tracking, Data cleaning, Software QA, Prepping for meetings, performance metrics, Onboarding templates, Gathering client data, Exporting reports from our system, Investigating and verifying bugs, Documenting keyboard shortcuts, Documenting corrections that we need to make in the system, Expense sheets. The list is really endless.

Pros

  • Sheets makes it really easy to build complex formulas, especially with the new Gemini integration.
  • Sheets makes it easy to share data with other people and collaborate on shared documents.
  • Sheets makes it easy to build charts based on data.

Cons

  • Sheets could stand to have more keyboard shortcuts.
  • I think Google Sheets is missing some formulas compared to Excel.
  • I don't know what could be done for this, but our clients sometimes don't use Google Sheets, and sometimes they are blocked. So we have to use Microsoft OneDrive in order to have shared documents with them.

Likelihood to Recommend

I use Google Sheets for so many scenarios. I think the best one is using formulas to do comparisons and data validation/discrepancies. The version history is also great for keeping track of data. Sheets is not where you want to go if you're writing a long document. Obviously you would use Google Docs instead.