I’ve been working on moving away from Google services and have made good progress so far. Found a decent replacement for Google Docs using Obsidian, though it takes some tweaking to match all the features.
Now I’m stuck trying to find a good alternative to Google Sheets. I’ve been searching but can’t seem to find something that checks all my boxes:
Feature-rich like Google Sheets or better
Saves files locally instead of cloud storage
Supports dark theme
Maybe I’m not looking in the right places or missing something obvious. Anyone have suggestions for a solid local spreadsheet application that works well offline?
Try OnlyOffice. Switched to it six months ago for the same reasons - it’s been rock solid. Interface feels way more modern than LibreOffice Calc and handles advanced spreadsheet functions without breaking a sweat. What sold me was how it imports existing Google Sheets files. Formulas, formatting, charts - everything transfers cleanly most of the time. Dark theme’s actually good too, not some half-baked add-on. One heads up - if you’re deep into Google Sheets specific functions or add-ons, you’ll need workarounds. But for standard work with complex formulas and pivot tables, OnlyOffice crushes it. Local storage works perfectly and performance stays solid even with big datasets.
People sleep on Excel because they think it’s all cloud-based now, but the desktop version runs completely offline. I’ve used it for two years with just a standalone license - no Office 365 needed. The dark theme’s actually better than most alternatives I’ve tried. What sold me was compatibility. Every spreadsheet I get opens perfectly, and sharing with colleagues never causes formatting headaches. Coming from Google Sheets was easy since most functions work the same way. It crushes browser-based tools when handling large datasets too. Only downside’s the upfront cost, but if you do serious spreadsheet work regularly, it pays for itself in reliability and saved time.
I get the privacy concern with Google services. Most people jump to LibreOffice Calc or Excel, but those feel clunky compared to Sheets.
Here’s the thing - you might be thinking about this backwards. Instead of finding a local app that copies Google Sheets, why not automate your spreadsheet workflows?
I had a similar situation moving financial tracking off Google Sheets while keeping the same functionality. Rather than wrestling with desktop apps that never worked right, I built automation workflows that handle all my data processing automatically.
The workflows pull data from various sources, process it how I need, and output clean reports locally. No manual spreadsheet work, no cloud dependency, and everything runs on my schedule.
This gives you better privacy than any local spreadsheet app because your data never touches external services. Plus you eliminate the repetitive tasks you probably do in sheets anyway.
Latenode makes this straightforward to set up without coding. You can automate data collection, calculations, and export everything to local files in whatever format you want.