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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

#21

Post by airstrike »

I'm a bit obsessed about spreadsheets and as someone who's building something similar (but not identical), it feels great to see all these next-gen spreadsheets on HN.

Spreadsheets are hard to do and even harder to do right, so congrats on launching—although given your backgrounds I don't think you ever lacked the manpower to let this be a technical challenge ;-)

My initial reaction:

* It does feel pretty fast

* but spreadsheets on the browser always represent an inferior UX

* the data tables / formula tables are a solid idea

* no self-hosting outside of Enterprise makes switching to this harder than it ought to be

* limiting the free plan to 3 sheets feels like a strange decision

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#22

Post by nickjj »

At the time of this comment (edit: since this comment, they addressed this, check the replies), on your pricing page you have "SOC 2 Type II Security Compliance" not being checked off on the free tier but it's checked in the others. The same thing applies to "HIPAA Compliant and BAA" except this isn't enabled for free and pro plans.

What makes the free tier different here? Are you storing free data in a different area with many less restrictions on who has access to it? How do I know what I upload is safe from being analyzed or sold? Are you using this data to train any data models but only in the free / pro tiers that aren't SOC 2 or HIPAA compliant?

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#23

Post by pimlottc »

airstrike wrote: post #21

I'm a bit obsessed about spreadsheets and as someone who's building something similar (but not identical), it feels great to see all these next-gen spreadsheets on HN. Spreadsheets are hard to do and even harder to do right, so congrats on launching—although given your backgrounds I don't think you ever lacked the manpower to let this be a technical challenge ;-) My initial reaction: * It does feel pretty fast * but…

> * but spreadsheets on the browser always represent an inferior UX

What do you mean by this? Inferior to a standalone app? Inferior to some other design in general?

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#24

Post by orliesaurus »

gamegoblin wrote: post #3

Hello all, I'm Grant, founding engineer at Row Zero. Working on this spreadsheet engine has been one of the most exciting, complex, and stimulating engineering experiences of my career. Feel free to ask any technical questions about the product. We're really proud of what we've build and what's on the roadmap!

Tell us about the stack you're using to build this. Also the biggest tech challenges you've faced and solved? But most importantly, does your family still use Google Spreadsheets?

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#25

Post by gamegoblin »

david_draco wrote: post #20
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…

How does it compare to gnumeric in terms of speed?

We haven't benchmarked against gnumeric, but will make a perf blog post in the next week or two (will post on HN too) and will see if we can add it to the comparison mix

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#26

Post by otterley »

nickjj wrote: post #22

At the time of this comment (edit: since this comment, they addressed this, check the replies), on your pricing page you have "SOC 2 Type II Security Compliance" not being checked off on the free tier but it's checked in the others. The same thing applies to "HIPAA Compliant and BAA" except this isn't enabled for free and pro plans. What makes the free tier different here? Are you storing free data in a different are…

IME working at SaaS providers in my past, there's no practical difference in the underlying implementation; it's market segmentation. It's a great way to help SaaS providers attract more revenue. Customers who care about these compliance regimes are the target cohort and are more likely to pay for the ticked box.

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#27

Post by gamegoblin »

eichin wrote: post #19

https://spreadsheets-are-all-you-need.ai/ has a 1.5G (in excel-binary save form) spreadsheet that would make an entertaining benchmark (not a particularly relevant one for your target market, unless you want to get into "frightening educational tools for AI researchers" which is not a notably excel-friendly space - just a hilarious one.)

I have a demo I will post soon that runs MNIST in Row Zero, we should be able to handle all of GPT2 without too much trouble, probably a lot faster than Excel, we may have to try it!

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#28

Post by airstrike »

pimlottc wrote: post #23
airstrike wrote: post #21

I'm a bit obsessed about spreadsheets and as someone who's building something similar (but not identical), it feels great to see all these next-gen spreadsheets on HN. Spreadsheets are hard to do and even harder to do right, so congrats on launching—although given your backgrounds I don't think you ever lacked the manpower to let this be a technical challenge ;-) My initial reaction: * It does feel pretty fast * but…

> * but spreadsheets on the browser always represent an inferior UX What do you mean by this? Inferior to a standalone app? Inferior to some other design in general?

Inferior to a native app. Navigating it with the keyboard is clunky, the UI is never as crisp and responsive, it's harder to save and open files... the list goes on

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#29

Post by Kluggy »

codegeek wrote: post #10
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…

"We're the team that wrote the file system that powers S3." Your funding slide heading right here.

He was at AWS for 5 years from 2015 to 2020. It seems unlikely that he wrote the filesystem that powers s3. Improved, absolutely.

His partner was a manager, not an engineer, per https://www.geekwire.com/2024/former-aws-engineers-raise-3m-...

Personally I don’t like this sort of puffery in funding slides nor announcements.

Re: Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet

#30

Post by yau8edq12i »

jasongill wrote: post #11

This looks really promising. We generate about 1gb of financial CSV files per day for finance/accounting/audit teams and the number one response is "wow this data is great, but my computer just can't handle it". The biggest issue that I think I would run into in my organization is that all of the spreadsheet lovers are Excel die-hards and they refuse to even use Google Sheets, not to mention something else that isn't…

I'm curious, which ones of these limits are you hitting? https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/power-query-speci... If your answer is "Maximum number of rows filled to worksheet", you should understand that this means exactly what's written, rows filled to the worksheet - you can still have more rows in the source and do your transform/queries on that.
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