If you’re looking for the best program to store your precious data – look no further! We’re looking for the best table simulators. Millions of billions of columns, the greatest tools to manage data, cool interface elements, and just overall – which one will help you organize data better? Well, we’re going to find that out!

If you’re asking about that – you’re probably not a part of the office force. And – we’re saying that for a reason. In recent years, Microsoft has estimated that around 20% of working adults use Microsoft Excel in their everyday work. Worldwide! 

So, as you may have imagined, it’s a pretty popular program. With 35 years of development and constant updates, Excel has been a staple in the office work environment. Every layer added to this program gets more complicated and allows users to add more and more interesting elements to it. 

And, as it usually goes, even the best ones have their fair share of the competition. In recent years, many observers have noted that it might be the twilight of the Excel reign with many looking to get to its spot. With Google Sheets on the rise (a program simpler but more accessible than Excel), you can see that the game is on.

Of course, it’s not only the fight for which program is better. Sometimes you just need to do something else. Data analysis, data integrity, data science – all these things have many different aspects, and whether you need to count something, create a chart, or just process terabytes of data – you will probably need different programs to do so. 

So, when Excel ends – Relational Database Management Systems starts. What are those? It’s just a different way to store information. Excel is Excel, the tale of how it works is older than time itself. Here, we’re going to look at how it relates to RDBMS and a very special way of organizing them called SQL – Structured Query Language. It’s mostly a versus kind of article because those are generally more popular, but in the end – both ways of organizing data, whether it’s SQL queries or Excel tables – are complimentary.

Saving best for last, let’s first find out how to store data with SQL. And what is this SQL everyone talks about? In short – it’s a way of managing data in a relational database. While Excel is essentially a spreadsheet with an extremely powerful core that allows you to do some very complicated tasks within it, relation databases are all about the relations. 

It was first developed by E.F. Codd, an IBM employee, in the 1970s. He created a database model that allowed users to relate any table to another table using a common attribute. By doing so, he switched the focus from storing data in hierarchies to doing it essentially side by side. If the x factor from table A is also present in table B, then there are some commonalities between them, and we can infer from that. It shines best when you have to compare many spreadsheets with a lot of data.

The language itself was created for relational databases. That is why it can process and manage an absurd amount of data. For comparison, your everyday needs will probably never even see a percentage of the 1048576 rows and 16384 columns. 

And that is what Excel is for, personal use, a great amount of complexity, and lots and lots of tools to manage data and work on it. The SQL is really for something else. It goes much further than that. Relational databases using SQL language can weigh up to 65 terabytes and have a trillion rows worth of data.

Big Data

And for that – it’s most useful if there are a lot of databases to manage – you not only want but have to use a database based on SQL. 

It’s Simple!

One of the big advantages of this language is the fact that even basic users can learn SQL and use it freely. You can master it with a few commands that can get you pretty far. Especially compared to a very complex Excel. Of course, learning SQL is an iceberg, but you can “get it” more or less with some basics. And that is really anything that most users needs, the ability to access and understand the relations between databases.

It’s Fast!

When differentiating between Excel and SQL, you have also to understand that SQL is a faster system than Excel. It’s not like Excel is slow, it’s far from that (although with all the pivot tables, you can start to wonder). However, if you use SQL, you have a lot more to process, so it comes with much greater data management memory. This means it can do complicated calculations in a matter of seconds, whereas it would take a program like Excel probably around an hour.

Analysis/Data Separation

In the case of SQL, data is stored separately from the analysis. Why does it matter? Well, when it comes to SQL, it’s all about efficiency. So, sending some trillion terabyte database to a colleague would be unwise. 

Instead, you can send a smaller excerpt with only the instructions for the analysis. That way, the receiver can run the whole analysis by themselves without interfering with your version of the database. 

Because all people with access to the database can run their own analysis, it minimizes the number of human mistakes that could be made if someone inexperienced had access to the whole original database.

SQL Security

This is probably one of the more important aspects of the SQL server. You can preserve data integrity in a way that is impossible in a program like Excel. In the most simple terms – an Excel spreadsheet is a file that you can send to someone. And you can also lose to someone, as we know, because accessing a single file is rather easy. You can send it to the wrong sender; we all know how leaky emails are. 

On the other hand, SQL server is really hard to access. You have to fill in a separate login and password to access the database. Furthermore, you will not be able to access certain elements of the database if the administrator of the said site will restrict your access to it. What it means in practice is that even if someone could gain access to your account, a couple of things will happen. 

First – someone will be alerted and will restrict this account. Then – you will never be able to download it fully, and you will also not be able to corrupt the core data as it only shows you a copy of it. 

Also – in an SQL server, you can retrieve data easily as it shows you not only what it looks like after changes, like in an Excel file case, but it also shows you all the changes made to it. When it comes to the database management system – there isn’t anything even remotely as good with data security as an SQL server.

So, now that we know, more or less, what the SQL databases are all about, let’s talk about Excel. SQL and Excel are similar regarding how they look but completely different regarding how they access or visualize data, analyze data, or the whole concept of data validation. 

Excel is pretty much a spreadsheet on which you can do a lot of calculations and create multiple tables, pie charts, and similar things. When you go deep into it, it’s a data visualization program used by pretty much every company in the whole world. 

Why is that? Well, for starters – it has been used for decades now, so everyone is pretty much familiar with the program. Everyone knows how to merge cells or remembers Excel formulas, making it a very useful spreadsheet software for a single Excel user. Your everyday data analytics does not operate on large datasets that should be accessed by multiple users. It’s usually your everyday filling the gaps to perform analysis for a shop or accounting calculations. It can process data pretty fast, the file size does not kill you, and probably you will never be pushed to let multiple people access the same data. But, as always, there are troubles with it, so we’re going to talk about them.

You may find it peculiar that we’ve decided to show you the disadvantages of Excel and only the advantages of SQL server, but we have a good reason to do so. First of all – everyone knows Excel and knows what it can do. It’s the best spreadsheet ever created. You can do great calculations on it, have a million rows just for your fun, and create some very cool tables and charts with it. 

Smaller datasets are all that this bad boy is about. But, as often happens, we have to show you the major difference between SQL query and Excel, and as the first one is really an advanced version of Excel, we have to focus on what it cannot do compared to a big brother rather than what it can and also – SQL can as well. More on that in the conclusion, but with that in mind – let’s find out what Excel is not amazing at.

Data Security

As we’ve stated before, there are a lot of problems when it comes to Excel and privacy. For starters, it’s relatively easy to access a single spreadsheet. At least it’s easier than accessing a whole database.  For a single user – it’s much easier to work on a single file, but if there is a lot of sensitive data to be accessed, it’s recommended to use an SQL server to do so. 

Also – Excel files are much more prone to things like human error and negligence as they don’t have built-in security systems that could prevent it. We mentioned it before – SQL is meant for collaborative work, and other users will have to be able to access it. Excel is more for individual use, and so – every new data that gets added to it is a burden on the whole system, and, as the single file goes, you can only repair the damage so far. With close to the unlimited large volumes of SQL server, you can see every single difference made, so you can act accordingly.

Data Analysis

With enormous amounts of data, you need a way to organize, manage and analyze them. It’s like Habermas said – in Noah’s time, the whole world got flooded with water. Nowadays, we’re being flooded with information. And we have to do something with it in the end. 

So, when it comes to analyzing it, of course, the multifaceted nature of SQL servers is much better when it comes to in-depth analysis and getting the right information about a large data set. 

But you have other tools as well. In the case of an Excel “power” user, sometimes you just need to show your data in an understandable and precise way. That is why Excel is great for creating a spreadsheet, charts, and tables that will show why it’s like that and not the other way to convince someone or just to present it in a more “human” way.

It’s Slow!

Well, it’s not slow per se, it’s slow when you compare it with an insane amount of calculations that an SQL server can do. But – we’ve spoken about it already.

It’s Singleplayer!

In more detail – it’s meant for a single user to work on it. There is no way for many people to work on a single Excel file, which could benefit both parties. In the end, you would just have two separate Excel files that you have no way of combining. It’s not meant for such usage.

Well, of course! You can get data from the SQL server. That way, you can have all the terabytes of data on the server and use Excel as a presentation tool to summarize and show them in an accessible visualization. You can also add data from Excel and pass it on to the SQL server, especially if you use a Microsoft one.

It is probably the place where you’d think – wait a minute, why would I ever use a program like Excel? It can do much less than SQL server, except all the visualization stuff, it has lower security, and it’s just not as good of a program as the other one. Why was this article even got made? 

Well, to answer your question – you should probably get Excel. And – you will probably get an Excel. Why? Well, an SQL server can cost from a few hundred to thousands of dollars. And you really cannot blame them, it’s a massive operation to perform. With all the security and terabytes of information, it’s no surprise.

However, Excel can be bought from third-party sellers at a fraction of the official cost. If you don’t have it already, grab yourself a Microsoft Office CD key with Excel included in the bundle.

The conclusion is simple – you will use Excel. More than that – you will be pretty happy with using this spreadsheet applications godfather as in 99.9% of cases – you will probably never have the need to use even a percentage of what SQL provides. Large quantities of data, lots and lots of analyzing – it’s something suited for large companies. 

With one sheet of Excel, you can do a lot of detailed data analyses and outstanding charts that will immediately help you out with your business. So to answer the question in the title of the article – yes, SQL is a much better solution that most people will probably never use. It’s best to be complimentary, after all.

In short – Excel is for your everyday user. Well-known, user friendly and just an overall a very good spreadsheet with amazing visualization elements. SQL on the other hand is best suited for large companies with a great amount of data to gather and analyze.

Thank you for spending your precious time and checking out our article on the differences between Excel and SQL. We hope that, once again, we could help you to better understand what is what rather than make you do something with your hard-earned money. 

As usual in this “battle of software” – everything depends. And in this case – it really depends if you want to spend some money or a lot of money on a product. Both Excel and SQL are fantastic ideas that brought humanity further into development, and we can just be happy that we are alive during the time they reign over our offices.