OT: Spreadsheet software for very large files

Posted by moritz
Oct 2, 2014 at 12:58 AM

You should check out Excel 2013 Power Pivot (... typically in combination with Power Query and Power View).
We have done some work for clients to re-platform massive spreadsheets (e.g. 10m cells, 4m formulas) into the new “in memory BI” paradigm.
Results are very impressive: Spreadsheet size came down from 300 MB (same example) to 20MB (!!), number of formulas reduced from 4m down to 40 (by separating out the data transformation part via the tabular model and Power Query transformation rules).
Official limit on number of rows is 2 billion, the engine is quite fast as well (almost everything runs real time).
Powerpivotpro.com is a good resource to get you started.

One downside (could be a deal breaker for you): The PowerPivot capabilities require Excel 2013 “Professional” (or Office 2013 Professional or equivalent Office 365 subscription). Not included with “Home” versions of the software.