Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Row Zero VS Grapple

Compare Row Zero VS Grapple and see what are their differences

Row Zero logo Row Zero

Row Zero is the best spreadsheet for big data. Row Zero has all the spreadsheet features you know and love, but can handle 1+ billion rows, process data faster, connect live to your data warehouse and supports sharing.

Grapple logo Grapple

Do-It-Yourself Data Analytics & Business Intelligence, Powered by AI
Visit Website
  • Row Zero 31 million rows in a spreadsheet
    31 million rows in a spreadsheet //
    2024-04-25
  • Row Zero Import from data warehouses
    Import from data warehouses //
    2024-04-25
  • Row Zero Pivot tables
    Pivot tables //
    2024-04-25
  • Row Zero point and click graphing
    point and click graphing //
    2024-04-25
  • Row Zero write and execute python
    write and execute python //
    2024-04-25

Row Zero is the best spreadsheet for big data. It enables operations, finance, marketing, and other business teams to securely analyze and work with big data sets in a familiar and flexible spreadsheet. Row Zero can open 1 billion row data sets, connect directly to data warehouses, and support multi-user collaboration to make working with hosted data easy for anyone with spreadsheet skills. Because Row Zero spreadsheets run in the cloud, they eliminate the security risk of CSV exports and locally stored Excel spreadsheets. Row Zero closes the last-mile analysis gap helping business teams take insights from dashboards and turn them into actionable results.

Row Zero Features:

Speed and Performance - Row Zero is a spreadsheet that leverages cloud computing strategies to enable users to import, open, and interact, cell-by-cell, with 1 billion row data sets, like they would in Excel and Google Sheets but on a larger scale.

Connectivity - Row Zeroโ€™s native connections to data warehouses provide efficiency gains for business teams who, instead of building one-off static analyses, like financial models and demand forecasts, can build them once using a connected table and schedule automated refresh. Row Zero also enables saving data from the spreadsheet to the data warehouse.

Collaboration - In order for data analysis to be valuable the work must be shared across teams, business units, and organizations. For this reason, Row Zero workbooks can be shared with viewer and editor permissions and support real-time collaboration for group work and facilitating efficient presentations.

Governance โ€“ Row Zero runs in the cloud, enables sharing permissions (viewer and editor), and enforces data permissions from the data warehouses, eliminating the security risk of downloaded CSVs and emailed .xlsx files.

Security - Row Zero is SOC2 Type II certified and HIPAA compliant. The SOC II report and a BAA are available upon request.

  • Grapple features
    features //
    2025-06-26
  • Grapple consolidate your business data
    consolidate your business data //
    2025-06-26

Row Zero

$ Details
freemium $10.0 / Monthly (Pro)
Platforms
-
Release Date
2024 February
Startup details
Country
United States
State
WA
City
Seattle
Founder(s)
Breck Fresen, Nick End, William Littlefield, Grant Slatton
Employees
10 - 19

Grapple

$ Details
freemium $99.0 / Monthly (Per Editor, Unlimited Viewers)
Platforms
Web Google Chrome Safari Firefox
Release Date
2025 May
Startup details
Country
United States
State
Nebraska
City
Omaha
Founder(s)
Jack Sellwood, Andrew Carlson
Employees
1 - 9

Row Zero features and specs

  • Spreadsheet functions
    Use all the same spreadsheet functions available in Excel and Google Sheets.
  • Performance
    Upload billion row data sets and work with them in a spreadsheet.
  • Collaboration
    Share with viewer and editor permissions and use real-time collaboration.
  • Connectivity
    Connect to you cloud data warehouse to import data directly to the spreadsheet.
  • Pivot tables
    Pivot and analyze large data sets.
  • Graphing
    A point and click graphing UI.
  • Python
    Write python in the code window and execute it in the spreadsheet.
  • Security
    Eliminate the security risk of CSV downloads and emailed .xlsx files. Row Zero keeps your sensitive data in the cloud.

Grapple features and specs

  • Automatic Data Refresh
    Hourly data refresh from your favorite apps like Salesforce, Hubspot, Zendesk, Stripe, and more!
  • Universal Data Library
    Automatic data modeling ensures your data is clean and queryable
  • Natural Language
    Filter, visualize, and calculate with just your wordsโ€”no SQL required.
  • Map Data
    Combine, merge, and map data from across disparate sources for a full picture of your business.
  • AI Data Scientist
    Create custom calculations and aggregations across multiple sources without writing any SQL or formulas
  • Unlimited Sharing
    Share with your team, view-only users are completely free
  • Dashboard Templates
    Build new dashboards from curated templates so you're never starting from scratch

Analysis of Grapple

Overall verdict

  • Grapple (askgrapple.com) can be a solid choice for teams and individuals seeking an AI-powered tool to streamline their workflows, though its suitability depends on your specific needs and budget. As with any SaaS product, it's best to verify current features and pricing directly and take advantage of any free trial before committing.

Why this product is good

  • Offers AI-driven automation that can help save time on repetitive tasks
  • Designed with an intuitive interface aimed at reducing the learning curve
  • Can integrate into existing workflows to boost overall productivity
  • Typically provides responsive customer support and onboarding resources
  • May offer flexible pricing tiers to suit different team sizes

Recommended for

  • Small to medium-sized businesses looking to automate routine processes
  • Teams seeking to improve collaboration and productivity
  • Individuals or startups exploring AI tools on a budget
  • Users who value ease of use and quick setup over complex configurations

Row Zero videos

Row Zero - The world's fastest spreadsheet

More videos:

  • Demo - Open Parquet files with Row Zero
  • Demo - Open a Big CSV with Row Zero
  • Demo - Connect Postgres to Row Zero
  • Demo - Connect Snowflake to Row Zero
  • Demo - Connect Databricks to Row Zero
  • Demo - Export data from a Row Zero spreadsheet to Databricks
  • Demo - Export data from a Row Zero spreadsheet to Snowflake

Grapple videos

Ask Grapple: DIY Data Platform

More videos:

  • Review - Watch this Before Buying a Grapple
  • Review - Don't Waste Your Money! Episode 1. Land Pride Grapple.
  • Review - Tractor Grapple Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Row Zero and Grapple)
Spreadsheets
100 100%
0% 0
Data Analytics
0 0%
100% 100
Productivity
100 100%
0% 0
Business Intelligence
0 0%
100% 100

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing Row Zero and Grapple.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

Row Zero's answer

Row Zero is the world's fastest spreadsheet, designed for big data sets. If a user already knows how to use a spreadsheet and needs to analyze or transform large data sets, Row Zero is the perfect tool. Data teams that serve large businesses can off-load ad-hoc and last mile analytics requests by enabling their business partners to work in Row Zero.

Grapple's answer:

Grapple is built for small to medium-sized companies who haven't successfully implemented traditional BI software like Looker, Power BI, Tableau, or other solutions like DataRails and Domo. Traditional BI software requires a lot of technical knowledge to setup, maintain, and they often make it really difficult for less technical users to customize. This means your dashboards either 1) don't work, or 2) aren't flexible and easy to use enough to let operators adjust them as they need during the course of businesses.

Grapple is designed from the beginning for non-technical operators across marketing, sales, and finance.

What makes your product unique?

Row Zero's answer

Row Zero's is a last mile analytics tool that enables business teams (marketing, operations, finance, etc...) to connect to cloud data warehouses and work with big data sets in a spreadsheet they already know how to use. BI tools are great for high level metric monitoring but the work initiated as a result of those dashboards needs to happen in a tool where business teams can see and interact with their data.

Grapple's answer:

Grapple is a fully vertically integrated data platform and does not require any additional tooling. Unlike competitors Looker and PowerBI, Grapple includes everything you need to get started. Frustrated by your slow data team? Get started with Grapple right away.

In nerd speak, Grapple seamlessly bundles the following tools, you won't even need to manage them: - An ETL and data warehouse for centralizing your data - Automatic data modeling so your data is queryable right away - Visualization and analytics UI

And on top of all that, Grapple provides modern functionality too: - Unlimited Viewers: share your dashboards with as many users as you want, just like a Google Docs - AI/Natural Language: customize your dashboard with natural language instead of SQL or spreadsheet formulas - Straightforward pricing: pay as you go with monthly per user pricing

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

Row Zero's answer

Business teams that need to work with big data sets but prefer a spreadsheet over writing SQL or rigid BI tools.

Grapple's answer:

Grapple is great for data savvy operators who love working with data. We're particularly helpful for companies with 25 to 500 employees who serve other businesses (B2B) and are focused on improving their CRM analytics and SaaS metrics. If you're using apps like Salesforce, Hubspot, Zendesk, Stripe, or Asana, Grapple is for you!

If you want to write data notebooks in python or SQL and want under-the-hood control of your data stack, Grapple is not for you. We recommend you try Omni or Hex.

What's the story behind your product?

Row Zero's answer

Row Zero was born out of our own frustrations doing data analysis on big data sets. Excel and Google Sheets don't easily connect to cloud data warehouses and have small row limits. We needed to open multi-million row data sets and analyze them quickly. Row Zero is the highly performant tool we wish we'd had.

Grapple's answer:

Jack, co-founder/CEO, had the idea for Grapple a couple years ago after spending almost a decade building in Tableau, Looker, Google Data Studio, Trevor.io, and the list goes on! Jack spent a lot of time collaborating with non-technical users in sales, marketing, bizops, finance on dashboards and after one particularly simple report that was still difficult to generate, he thought there must be a better way! Turns out, most data platforms require a ton of other tools and a ton of other people all of which are slow and expensiveโ€”delaying your time-to-insight. Jack had the idea to compress the data stack into a single tool, that maybe couldn't do everything, but would be the fastest, easiest way to pull the types of reports he pulled all the time over the last 10 years. Fast-forward to today, Andrew joined as co-founder/CTO and Grapple is now generally available and includes a suite of AI features to take Grapple's speed and ease of use even further. Let us know what you think!

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

Row Zero's answer

  • Rust
  • Python
  • Amazon Web Services

Grapple's answer:

Grapple's application layer is written in React + Laravel and under the hood uses a mixture of PostgreSQL and No-SQL to deliver data warehousing and analytics capabilities.

User comments

Share your experience with using Row Zero and Grapple. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Row Zero seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 8 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Row Zero mentions (8)

  • ChatGPT for Excel
    Try https://rowzero.com ? We have written a much faster spreadsheet engine and regularly work with 10M+ row datasets. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • I only use Google Sheets
    How large are you talking about? Have you tried https://rowzero.io? - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
    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. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?
    I'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. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • My Thoughts on Python in Excel
    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... - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
View more

Grapple mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Grapple yet. Tracking of Grapple recommendations started around Jun 2025.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Row Zero and Grapple, you can also consider the following products

Google Sheets - Synchronizing, online-based word processor, part of Google Drive.

Looker - Looker makes it easy for analysts to create and curate custom data experiencesโ€”so everyone in the business can explore the data that matters to them, in the context that makes it truly meaningful.

Microsoft Office Excel - Microsoft Office Excel is a commercial spreadsheet application.

Tableau - Tableau can help anyone see and understand their data. Connect to almost any database, drag and drop to create visualizations, and share with a click.

Equals - A next generation spreadsheet with SQL data connections

Microsoft Power BI - BI visualization and reporting for desktop, web or mobile