The short answer
Use Google Sheets when collaboration, sharing, and zero-setup matter most. Use Excel when you need serious modelling, large datasets, advanced formulas, or Power Query.
For most everyday spreadsheets, either tool is fine — and files move between them without much pain.
Formulas and functions
Excel has the deeper formula language. LET, LAMBDA, dynamic arrays (with implicit spilling), and structured table references are richer and more performant than their Sheets counterparts.
Google Sheets has a few unique winners — ARRAYFORMULA, QUERY (SQL-like), IMPORTRANGE, and GOOGLEFINANCE — that Excel can't match natively.
Collaboration and sharing
Google Sheets was built for the cloud. Real-time multi-user editing, commenting, version history, and link-based sharing are seamless.
Excel for the web has caught up on co-authoring, but the desktop app still feels happier as a single-author tool that lives in OneDrive or SharePoint.
Performance and scale
Excel handles much larger datasets. Google Sheets caps out around 10 million cells per workbook and slows noticeably well before that.
For datasets above a few hundred thousand rows, Excel + Power Query is the practical choice.
Automation
Excel offers VBA macros (legacy) and Office Scripts (modern, TypeScript-based, web-friendly).
Google Sheets uses Apps Script — JavaScript with deep integration into Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and the rest of Workspace.
Pricing
Google Sheets is free with a Google account; Workspace plans add admin controls and more storage.
Excel for the web is free; the desktop apps require a Microsoft 365 subscription or a one-time Office licence.
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