EditGrid

EditGrid, an online spreadsheet service, might convince you that Microsoft's Excel isn't the best spreadsheet product for all jobs.

EditGrid, which offers a free Personal Edition (as well as paid subscription and server editions), delivers more and less than Excel does.

Like Google Spreadsheets and Zoho Spreadsheets, EditGrid lets you collaborate with others in real time, and then share the results easily. A handy chat capability lets you talk to collaborators while you work.

To use EditGrid , you need a broadband internet connection and a Web browser that supports JavaScript (as most do). After signing up for a free account, you can upload up to 2GB (8GB in the paid version) of existing spreadsheet files created in Excel, OpenDocument or Lotus 1-2-3.

EditGrid has some tricks that Google Spreadsheets and Zoho Spreadsheets lack. For one thing, EditGrid lets you insert online stock-price charts, exchange rates, and other financial data from services such as Alexa, Compete.com, GoogleCharts, Reuters, and Yahoo Finance.

You can also integrate EditGrid with your existing apps using an application programming interface the company publishes.

Still, EditGrid is no Excel. EditGrid lacks Excel's macros, pivot tables, data validation, and cell merge, among other features. You'll also wait longer to save your changes than you would working on a local hard drive.

All the same, you'll find that most other spreadsheet functions (like copy and paste) operate just as fast as their counterparts do in Excel.