Top all-time · #7709
Row Zero
Company blog · rowzero.io/blog · on HN as breckognizedataprogramming
Row Zero is the company blog at rowzero.io, writing about data and programming. Since 2024, 10 different Hacker News readers have linked it 27 times, most often “Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Comments link Row Zero, a cloud spreadsheet product for large datasets, and one points to its blog overview of Python spreadsheets. No comment judges the writing itself.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Row Zero is the best spreadsheet for big data. Build secure spreadsheets connected to your data warehouse with a bigger, faster Excel alternative in the cloud.
Most-linked posts?
- Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet3 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2024-02-29
- /home2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-03-14
What Hacker News says?
> What about Google Sheets? > This project actually started on Google Sheets but the full 124M model was too big and switched to Excel. I’m still exploring ways to make this work in Google Sheets but it is unlikely to fit into a single file as it can with Excel. I wonder if it would work in https://rowzero.io/home ?
Comment linking /home
on “Spreadsheets are all you need”Submitted Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet as a story · 274 points
HN discussionI've been working on a better spreadsheet for a while now. https://rowzero.io is 1000x faster spreadsheet than Excel/Google Sheets. It looks and feels like those products but can open multi GB data sets, supports Python natively, and can also connect directly to Snowflake/Databricks/Redshift.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?”Submitted We verify the correctness of a spreadsheet engine as a story · 71 points
HN discussion99.9%+ of data sets fit on an SSD, and 99%+ fit in memory. [1] This is the thesis for https://rowzero.io . We provide a real spreadsheet interface on top of these data sets, which gives you all the richness and interactivity that affords. In the rare cases you need more than that, you can hire engineers. The rest of the time, a spreadsheet is all you need. [1] I made these up.
Comment linking /
on “Big data is dead (2023)”Submitted Excel has a row limit of 1,048,576 rows and a column limit of 16,384 column as a story · 13 points
HN discussionHow large are you talking about? Have you tried https://rowzero.io ?
Comment linking /
on “I only use Google Sheets”Submitted Python Spreadsheets as a story · 2 points
HN discussionAs someone who has been to multiple trade shows to show off our own spreadsheet product that solves some of these problems ( https://rowzero.io/home ), I can tell you there are a bunch of data engineers and their managers who have a visceral hatred of spreadsheets but have trouble articulating any reason for it.
Comment linking /home
on “I only use Google Sheets”Submitted Dates do not produce enduring software as a story · 2 points
HN discussionShameless plug: If you have bigger data sets, check out https://rowzero.io We scale up to hundreds of millions of rows and have native Python support. You can define functions in Python and call them as formulas from any spreadsheet cell. We seamlessly marshal Pandas dataframes from Python land to spreadsheet land and back. [1] We're also hosted and support real time collaboration like Google Sheets. We reimplemente…
Comment linking /docs/code-window
on “Pyspread – Pythonic Spreadsheet”Submitted Row Zero raises $10M to accelerate product development as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIf you combine Katherine, Catherine, Kat, Kate, Caty, Katy, Katie, and Katheryn (there are SO MANY variants, but most of them have never been popular), peak popularity for girls in the U.S. in the last century is in 1986 at only 1.8% of baby girls. That's less popular than the single name Matthew for boys, or any one of Jessica, Ashley, Amanda, or Jennifer, in that same year. I expected it would be higher: my own si…
Comment linking /blog/baby-names-rise-of-n
on “An abundance of Katherines: The game theory of baby naming”We built our spreadsheet ( https://rowzero.io ) from the ground up to integrate natively with Python. Bolting it on like Microsoft did, or as an add in like xlwings, just feels second class. To make it first class, we had to solve three hard problems: 1. Sandboxing and dependencies. Python is extremely unsafe to share, so you need to sandbox execution. There's also the environment/package management problem (does th…
Comment linking /new?feature=code
on “My thoughts on Python in Excel”You should try http://rowzero.io . We connect directly to DBs and data warehouses, support Python natively, and scale up to hundreds of millions of rows. Lots of people use us for dashboards.
Comment linking /
on “PySheets – Spreadsheet UI for Python”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.
Comment linking /blog/top-python-spreadsheets
on “Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet”Yes, Excel compatible: https://rowzero.io/docs/spreadsheet-functions If we're missing any formulas you need, message me at breck at rowzero.io and we'll add them (usually within 24 hours).
Comment linking /docs/spreadsheet-functions
on “Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet”We do not use customer data. From https://rowzero.io/security : "Row Zero does not use customer data for any purpose."
Comment linking /security
on “Show HN: We built the fastest spreadsheet”Graph of Daniel vs time: https://rowzero.io/workbook/CA82F353F7060CA9411A12EB
Comment linking /workbook/CA82F353F7060CA9411A12EB
on “The Tale of Daniel”You should check out Row Zero ( https://rowzero.io ). We launched on HN earlier this year. Our CSV handling is the best on the market. You can import multi GB csvs, we auto infer your format, and land your data in a full-featured spreadsheet that supports filter, sort, ctrl-F, sharing, graphs, the full Excel formula language, native Python, and export to Postgres, Snowflake, and Databricks.
Comment linking /
on “'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel”Well, not all its alternatives. There's one spreadsheet out there that has better performance than Excel: https://rowzero.io/home
Comment linking /home
on “'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel”https://rowzero.io/ can handle 1 billion+ rows and offers native Python support. Also compatible with Excel and Google Sheets. However it’s a cloud based solution, and the private hosting option is only available to Enterprise users.
Comment linking /
on “Show HN: GS-Calc – A modern spreadsheet with Python integration”If you like spreadsheets, check out https://rowzero.io . It looks and feels like Google Sheets and scales to 1B+ row data sets. We natively support Python and Parquet, and connect directly to Postgres, Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift, and S3.
Comment linking /
on “Mesh Spreadsheet: A data and code editor that feels like a spreadsheet”I think calling out Durability is a bit of a straw man. Most services get their durability from S3 or some other managed database service. So they're really only making the "do it on a beefy machine argument" for the stateless portion of their service. I agree with the other points for production services with the caveat that many workloads don't need all of those. Internal workloads or batch data processing use cas…
Comment linking /
on “Not Just Scale”It's the difference between the way things are accessed/handled behind the scenes in a spreadsheet vs. database[3][1b]. Adding a programming / scripting language isn't going to change exel data access patterns. One possible approach: Using excel as front end and storing actual data in database would speed things up. This assumes one uses 'python' on the database to do behind the scenes analysis[1] vs. moving complet…
Comment linking /blog/connect-postgresql-to-microsoft-excel
on “Ask HN: Is there a fast/performant alternative to Excel?”
