Should You Choose Tiller for Microsoft Excel or Tiller for Google Sheets?

Over in the Tiller Community, people have recently asked about the differences between Tiller for Google Sheets and Tiller for Microsoft Excel. 

There are actually two ways to think of this:

• You can compare the differences between Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel
• And you can compare which Tiller features are available for each platform

Either way, with one Tiller subscription you can use both Google and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets at the same time.

For example, you might use Google Sheets for your household budgets, and Microsoft Excel for your freelance income. 

And you can test both platforms completely free for 30 days to decide which you prefer. (And again, you might prefer to use both!)

Comparing Tiller Features for Each Platform

When Tiller launched, it was exclusively available for Google Sheets. It took a couple of years before we even offered basic support for Microsoft Excel. 

However, after declaring 2022 would be our “Year of Excel,” we announced a new partnership with Microsoft, then launched full Excel support for Tiller Money Feeds, the Foundation Template,  and most recently AutoCat. 

Today, Tiller’s core features are available for both Google Sheets and Excel

As mentioned above, these include Tiller Money Feeds, AutoCat, and the Foundation Template, as well as the daily email update, customer support, and access to the Tiller Community.

The Tiller Money Feeds add-on for Google Sheets has the following features that the Microsoft Excel add-in does not yet have:

• Manual account balance entry via the add-on sidebar
• Refresh account connections via the add-on sidebar
• Tiller Community Solutions add-on for installing community-built solutions

On Google Sheets, Tiller offers dozens of free Community Templates for Google Sheets. Some of these templates, such as the Debt Payoff Planner and CSV Importer have become essential to many people’s daily budgeting workflows.

On Excel, there are several free Tiller Community templates currently available. However, new Excel templates are posted in the Community each week. You can see the latest here. 

Tiller’s goal is feature parity between both platforms

Because we have a multi-year headstart on Google Sheets, currently there are several features and tools currently only available on that platform. 

Besides the Community Templates mentioned above, the Transaction Splitter is one of the most popular tools currently only available in the Tiller Money Feeds for Google Sheets extension. 

Likewise, the Tiller Money Feeds for Google Sheets has more user interface elements such as buttons and fill toggles, while the user interface for Microsoft Excel is streamlined and quite simple. The Google experience is slightly more like an app. 

The features and user experience in the Tiller Console is identical for everyone with a Tiller subscription. 

Choosing Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel 

So, should you use Tiller for Google Sheets or Excel?

If you’re somewhat experienced with spreadsheets, the best answer here is simple: which would you choose if you were going to open a new spreadsheet today? 

Or, put another way, which platform are you most comfortable using? Which do you prefer? That’s the one you should use. 

That said, if you’re going to collaborate with your Tiller spreadsheets, Google Sheets currently has better sharing options for most people than Excel.

Google Sheets is also free, which is helpful if you’re sharing a spreadsheet. As noted here, “for the full Excel experience, you’ll have to pay for a Microsoft 365 subscription,” but you can use it free on the web or via mobile app.