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Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

rowzero.io

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Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#161

Post by billylitt »

fallingsprings wrote: post #136

Out of curiosity, do you support/have plans to support the broader set of Excel shortcuts that reference the ribbon? (Alt + shortcuts). Lots of excel power users more or less exclusively use the keyboard to navigate, and so have muscle memory for almost everything they do, including more niche operations (Insert Line Chart = Alt N N 1, or Change Column Width = Alt H O W). Will be a very hard sell to banks/other finan…

Good question - we've heard this feedback before and have some ideas for how to bake alt-shortcuts into the app for the muscle memory crowd. So, not yet, but its very much on our radar.

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#162

Post by dmurray »

Terretta wrote: post #149
breckognize wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For S3 specifically, we support IAM-based role assumption. If you go to Data > Import from Amazon S3 > Add S3 Bucket, you can grant our AWS account permissions to read an S3 bucket in your account. We also have dedicated hosting options for our Enterprise tier. If there's a specific data source you'd like us to support OAuth integration for, let me know, and we'll add it.

Great to hear you can do the policy. Are you able to be “NSL-proof”? This means, if you are served a national security letter with a gag order saying to turn over my data without telling me, can you? If you are not NSL proof, are you able to demonstrate who from your firm can, and cannot, by technical guarantee not by policy in the “signed agreement” sense, see my data, and can I see in an audit log any time and ever…

If you need protection from the US security apparatus, you're not the target market.

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#163

Post by pax »

breckognize wrote: post #2

Founder/CEO here. When I worked in AWS S3, I spent a lot of time in Excel. Even as a dev, it was the fastest way to explore data, build models, and share forecasts with business partners. My Excel usage was plagued by slow performance, poor cloud integration, and no first-class Python support. I loved the richness and responsiveness of Excel, but I had to give up too much power to get it. This felt like a false choic…

Excited to see this. I built quite a few data-rich projects / dashboards with gSheets as backend/api - or as input UI, fetched to SQLite.

I'd be looking very much forward for: data validation, conditional formatting (including heatmaps) and - what gSheet doesn't offer natively, multiple choices cells via data validation or values from another column/sheet.

I was surprised I couldn't way to view a spreadsheet as a DataTable, or back as a DataTable (LE: found later how in documentation). And no sticky/frozen header row, ugh.

Cherry on top would be gSheets like SQL flavoured QUERY.

LE2: to add the wishlist, a potentially killer feature to/for some, dashboard type of sheet, with minimal/layout options –rows & columns blocks that can host charts & text (headings & paragraphs), with global filters – it would add a feature or two complementary to what gSheets offers. And at some point maybe, comments - per sheet or column only.

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#165

Post by andelink »

al_borland wrote: post #152
otoburb wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This looks like something that I could use right away, but I wonder, since we can write Python, does this mean that we can write back to one of the native backends (e.g. Postgres)? Currently, the only way to do this from Excel (e.g. saving a snapshot of an analyst's current dashboard that they just built) is through a macro, which then starts the (understandable) descent into Excel's External Content and Trust Center…

It’s worth noting that Excel supports Python now as well. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/excel-blog/announcing...

Looks like the Row Zero blog does a brief overview of existing Python spreadsheets, mentioning Excel support: https://rowzero.io/blog/top-python-spreadsheets#top-5-python...

Would like to see a more detailed comparison than the one they've got in their blog, though.

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#166

Post by MichaelZuo »

breckognize wrote: post #13
MichaelZuo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excel 2010 is several times faster than the latest Excel versions. What are the performance metrics compared to Excel 2010?

When we claim 100x faster than desktop Excel, we're looking at supported row counts, import speeds from Snowflake, and time to drag large XLOOKUPs. We'll do a deep dive on performance in another blog post next week. Stay tuned!

Thanks, what are the lower bound numbers you're willing to guarantee in writing? (assuming identical systems)

I think putting that on the site would save business customers a lot of evaluation time.

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#167

Post by gamegoblin »

elforce002 wrote: post #145
gamegoblin wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have definitely gotten requests to embed spreadsheets in webpages (e.g. as dashboards, etc), it's on the roadmap

Nice. Is there a way to access the roadmap or to be on the loop regarding new features?

Email us at contact[at]rowzero.io, we should probably set up some sort of newsletter now that we are launched

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#168

Post by gamegoblin »

pax wrote: post #163
breckognize wrote: post #2

Founder/CEO here. When I worked in AWS S3, I spent a lot of time in Excel. Even as a dev, it was the fastest way to explore data, build models, and share forecasts with business partners. My Excel usage was plagued by slow performance, poor cloud integration, and no first-class Python support. I loved the richness and responsiveness of Excel, but I had to give up too much power to get it. This felt like a false choic…

Excited to see this. I built quite a few data-rich projects / dashboards with gSheets as backend/api - or as input UI, fetched to SQLite. I'd be looking very much forward for: data validation, conditional formatting (including heatmaps) and - what gSheet doesn't offer natively, multiple choices cells via data validation or values from another column/sheet. I was surprised I couldn't way to view a spreadsheet as a Dat…

Conditional formatting is high on the to-do list

If you're open to it, email us at contact[at]rowzero.io and we would love to do a call to talk about your use case, what features you want, etc. We love doing customer calls and adding delightful features.

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#169

Post by Terretta »

dmurray wrote: post #162
Terretta wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great to hear you can do the policy. Are you able to be “NSL-proof”? This means, if you are served a national security letter with a gag order saying to turn over my data without telling me, can you? If you are not NSL proof, are you able to demonstrate who from your firm can, and cannot, by technical guarantee not by policy in the “signed agreement” sense, see my data, and can I see in an audit log any time and ever…

If you need protection from the US security apparatus, you're not the target market.

On the contrary, that scenario (as well as, "what if your SaaS provider or CSP is hostile?"), are great "clarifying" questions to understand the security architecture of a product that is very likely to see some incredibly sensitive data.

It is possible for the answer to be that a service is NSL proof -- with asterisks, and the asterisks are very interesting to discuss.

And no, it's not about the US security apparatus for most firms, although if you take a look at AWS's security teams, you'll see there is a lot of experience exchanged, and AWS does secure the US security apparatus' data.

They're quite good at it.

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#170

Post by 7thaccount »

breckognize wrote: post #111
7thaccount wrote: post #102

A better Excel sounds nice, but the problem is Excel is already on my computer and used by everyone. It's a universal format for most people in the business world. If your product is really that superior, I wish Microsoft would just buy y'all out and rewrite Excel from scratch using your product. I guess they can't do to infinite backwards capability needs as half the world prob runs off Excel spreadsheets.

The reason we launched a hosted product first is to get around the chicken and egg problem you describe. You can create a workbook and just share a link with a colleague - they don't have to install anything. If you turn on link-sharing under the workbook's "Share" menu, they don't need an account either. The cloud also provides some powerful performance advantages.

True, but then you have private data on the cloud which a lot of folks either aren't happy with or in some cases maybe can't do.
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