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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Excel Custom Functions in Zig

A Zig package for implementing Excel custom functions against the ancient C SDK. This exists because I wanted to learn about Zig's C interop and comptime to see if it was possible to make the Excel C SDK slightly nicer to work with. It's just a demo, I wouldn't use it for anything important, but I learnt a lot doing it. There is also a demo repo: https://github.com/AlexJReid/zigxll-standalone

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

  1. 1

    I built zli, a batteries-included CLI framework for Zig with a focus on DX and composability. Key features: - Typed flags with default values and help output - Rich formatting, and layout support - Command trees with isolated execution logic - It’s designed to feel good to use, not just to work. - Built for real-world CLI apps, not toy examples. Would love feedback, feature ideas, or thoughts from other Zig devs. repo here: https://github.com/xcaeser/zli

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    The project is called QueryStorm. It uses Roslyn to offer C# (and VB.NET) support in Excel, as an alternative to VBA. I've posted about it before, but a lot has changed since then so figured I'd share an update. The current version includes a host of new features, namely a C# debugger, support for NuGet packages, and the ability to publish Excel extensions to an "AppStore" (which is essentially a NuGet repository). The AppStore can be used by anyone with the (free) runtime component. Another great addition is the community license, which is a free license for individuals and small companies…

    2023 · querystorm.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3ZD

    Hi everyone, I've made an open-source library for using design by contract (DbC) principles in the Zig programming language. It's called Zig-DbC, and it currently provides the following features: - A simple API to define preconditions, postconditions, and invariants. - Contracts are active in `Debug`, `ReleaseSafe`, and `ReleaseSmall` modes to catch bugs early. - All checks are removed at compile time in `ReleaseFast` mode for zero performance cost. - An optional mode to handle partial state changes in functions that return errors. - Transparent error handling that propagates errors from…

    2025 · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    A minimal RISC-V 32-bit OS written in Zig. Contribute to botirkhaltaev/pico-os development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Minimalist, dependency-free virtual machine sandbox for microcontrollers and other resource-constrained devices. Single C file, no dynamic memory allocations, asynchronous design, pure C99 - ringtailsoftware/uvm32

    Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    I believe the best way to learn a language is by doing an in-depth project. This is my first Zig project intended for learning the ropes on publishing a Zig package. It turns out to be quite solid and performant. It might be a bit over-engineered. This little library is packed with the following features: - Building dependency graph from dependency data. - Performing topological sort on the dependency graph. - Generating dependence-free subsets for parallel processing. - Cycle detection and cycle reporting.

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7
    Stigg▲552

    The first pricing & packaging API built for SaaS

    2023 · stigg.io · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    I'm Robbert, the creator of DataGridXL.js. Last month I released version 2 which includes many new features. DataGridXL is a free (and commercial) editable data table library written in ES6. My goal is to develop the most performant & user-friendly spreadsheet-like data table out there: - It has zero dependencies. You don’t need any framework to use DataGridXL. - It is lightweight (~250kb) and easy to use. It does not even require messing with CSS. - It has its own Virtual DOM implementation to prevent DOM errors. - Developer friendly. Supports all modern web browsers Please take a look at…

    2022 · datagridxl.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    Doing dynamic dispatching in a strict static typing language is hard. Something as simple as, map.put("add", add); map.put("hello", hello); fn add(a: i32, b: i32) i32 { return a + b; } fn hello() []const u8 { return "Hello World"; } is impossible because the value type of key/value of the map needs to be the same but all the function types are different. Calling functions with different number of parameters, different parameter types, and different return type dynamically is difficult. Other languages either use dynamic typing, runtime reflection, macro, or passing in one big generic…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Hey HN! I made this because Zig's stdlib changes so much and outdated docs are a problem. Server fetches the latest documentation directly from the ziglang.org and makes it available through the MCP, so LLM can query stdlib functions and builtins. Link: https://github.com/zig-wasm/zig-mcp

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Zig library for HyperLogLog estimation. Contribute to axiomhq/zig-hyperloglog development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    Writing Redis from scratch in Zig.

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    A repository that collects libc ABI files for multiple versions and a tool to combine them into one dataset. - ziglang/libc-abi-tools

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14FA

    I built a visual editor that represents Excel formulas as blocks, making it easier to inspect, refactor, and reason about complex formulas structurally. Frockly is not an Excel replacement. It focuses on understanding and refactoring formulas before bringing them back to Excel. Demo: https://ryuu12358.github.io/Frockly/ GitHub: https://github.com/ryuu12358/Frockly Write-up: https://note.com/ryuu12358/n/naa65d9d5facd (Japanese)

    Dec 2025 · its alternatives →

  15. 15ZB

    I created this a year or so ago but recently made updates and I thought people might like to know that it exists. I made this to easily send links or text to someone else verbally, like over the phone or over voice chat (which is what I made it for). The goal is to be able to tell the link to someone else without being ambiguous or needing to spell it out, so I grabbed the words off a Grade 5 level dictionary. I understand that the domain itself doesn’t qualify but I’m trying to get a better domain.

    2013 · zigg.be · its alternatives →

  16. 16ZA

    Hi everyone, I've made an early version of ZigFormer, a small LLM implemented in Zig with no dependencies on external ML frameworks like PyTorch or JAX. ZigFormer is modelled after a textbook LLM (like GPT-2 from OpenAI) and can be used as a Zig library as well as a standalone application to train a model and chat with it. This was mainly an educational project. I'm sharing it here in case others find it interesting or useful. Link to the project: https://github.com/CogitatorTech/zigformer

    Nov 2025 · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    While speccing out this spreadsheet tool, I realized that I never had to think about the keybindings. It all just came naturally from Vim. Normal/insert/visual modes, hjkl navigation, dd/yy/p, :w, :q. The usual muscle memory works. It supports CSV/TSV import and export, and a native .cell format that preserves formulas. The formula engine handles SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, MIN, MAX, and IF with range references. The codebase is a Cargo workspace: a pure cell-sheet-core library (no TUI dependency) and a cell-sheet-tui crate on top of ratatui. Early days, but it's usable. To…

    Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    I wanted something lighter than zig autodoc so I've implemented (and golfed a bit) a custom parser using parser combinators in JS. It's not 100% correct and it's also not meant to be, all I care about is if it can parse my own Zig code, not any valid Zig code. There are also some bugs, and I don't intend to support, nor develop this much further, consider it vaporware which you are free to fork and use it for something, or just have some fun reading the code and figuring out how it works (I certainly had a lot of fun implementing it - no LLMs, so it was a nice exercise too). BTW: I know it's…

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    Hey HN, this is a small project myself and closer friends have been building on our free time (https://github.com/Dr-Nekoma/lyceum), it finally reached 0.1.0, we are open to feedback! The original idea was to experiment with Zig + Raylib, eventually we wrote a small server in Erlang as well. We started by first interacting with Erlang via its C bindings, but this eventually led to some of us to prototyping our own tooling to better integrate Zig types with Erlang, we called such tool "zerl" as its avaliable here…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    An alternative to stack traces for your Go errors. Contribute to bracesdev/errtrace development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    HypergraphZ – directed hypergraph library in Zig with Python bindings - yamafaktory/hypergraphz

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    HypergraphZ – directed hypergraph library in Zig with Python bindings - yamafaktory/hypergraphz

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23
    Statsig▲78

    A modern and intuitive product experimentation platform

    2021 · statsig.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24
    Zigpoll▲73

    Hey everyone I’m a solo founder and developer, and I’ve been building software since 2011. Over the years, I watched customer feedback tools go from simple and focused to bloated, enterprise-heavy platforms. Tons of features, endless configuration… and yet I kept using maybe 10% of what was there. The rest mostly got in the way. So I decided to build the feedback tool I actually wanted to use. That became Zigpoll — a fast, focused survey and feedback platform designed for real-world businesses. It does the essentials really well: post-purchase surveys, attribution insights, customer feedback…

    2019 · zigpoll.com · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →