LibreOffice Calc is the default spreadsheet on most Linux desktops and has been for two decades. It does a great deal that VisiGrid does not, and this page says where, because a comparison that only lists wins is an advertisement.
The short version
| VisiGrid | LibreOffice Calc | |
|---|---|---|
| Install size | under 30 MB | 421 MB (v26.2.5, measured) |
| Startup | ~300 ms | seconds |
| Functions | 123 | several hundred |
| Charts | none | yes |
| Pivot tables | none | yes |
| Macros | Lua | Basic, Python |
| Writes ODS | no (reads it) | yes, it is the native format |
| Same engine in a CLI | yes | headless conversion only |
| Licence | AGPLv3 | MPL 2.0 |
Where LibreOffice Calc wins
Charts and pivot tables. VisiGrid has neither. Not “a simpler version” — they do not exist. A quarterly report that ends in a chart is a LibreOffice job.
Function coverage. VisiGrid ships 123 functions and Calc ships several
hundred. The gaps are not exotic. The entire database family is missing —
DSUM, DCOUNT, DGET — as is most of statistics: CORREL, PERCENTILE,
RANK, TREND, LINEST, FORECAST, SLOPE. Financial coverage is partial:
PMT, FV, IRR and NPV are there, but RATE, NPER, XIRR and XNPV
are not. Newer Excel additions like LAMBDA and LET are also absent.
If your model uses any of those, VisiGrid cannot open it correctly today, and that is the honest answer rather than a roadmap.
It is a suite. Writer, Impress, Draw and Base come with it. VisiGrid is a spreadsheet and nothing else.
Twenty years of edge cases. Calc has met more malformed files, more regional number formats and more legacy macros than a project this young has. That is not a feature list, but it is why it rarely surprises you.
ODS. OpenDocument is Calc’s native format. VisiGrid reads .ods and writes
xlsx, csv, tsv or json — so a round trip changes the format.
Where VisiGrid wins
Startup and size. 421 MB installed against under 30 MB downloaded, and roughly 300 ms to a usable grid. If you open a spreadsheet to check one number several times a day, that difference is most of the experience.
The keyboard. A command palette for every action, vim mode, and shortcuts that do not move. Conditional formatting is typed as a rule and previewed live rather than assembled through a dialog.
One engine, three ways to run it. The desktop app, the vgrid CLI and
headless mode share the same Rust engine, so a formula computes identically in
all three. LibreOffice has --headless conversion, but it is the whole office
suite running invisibly, not a calculation engine you can call.
That difference shows up in CI:
vgrid calc --from csv '=SUMIF(A:A,">100",B:B)' < data.csv
vgrid sheet fingerprint model.sheet --json
vgrid sheet verify model.sheet --fingerprint v1:42:abc123...A sheet built by hand can be recalculated and verified on every commit, with no spreadsheet application in the pipeline and no display server.
Determinism you can assert on. Recomputation is deterministic and the fingerprint proves a file’s calculated state has not drifted. Calc gives you no equivalent handle.
How to choose
Use LibreOffice Calc if you need charts, pivot tables, the statistical or database functions listed above, existing Basic macros, or OpenDocument as your working format.
Use VisiGrid if you live in a terminal, want a spreadsheet that opens before you finish thinking about it, and want the same calculation to run in CI as on your desk.
Keeping both is a reasonable answer, and on Linux it costs you 450 MB.
Try it against your own file
The comparison that matters is your file, not this table:
# Arch
yay -S visigrid-bin
# Anywhere
curl -fsSL https://get.visigrid.app/install.sh | shOpen something real. If it needs a pivot table, you have your answer in a few seconds, and it was not this page that told you.