Connecting your spreadsheets directly to your data source lets you build dynamic spreadsheets that automatically update. It's a big win for efficiency and data governance. But bringing more and more data from multiple sources into your spreadsheet can cause Excel and Google Sheets to slow down or crash. That's why enterprises and big data users turn to Row Zero, a next-gen spreadsheet built for big data that is 1000x more powerful than traditional spreadsheets and connects directly to your database or data warehouse.
In this guide we compare Row Zero vs Coefficient.io, a popular add-in for Google Sheets and Excel. While both dynamically connect your spreadsheets to your data sources, there are clear reasons to choose one over the other. Skip to a section below or continue for the full guide.
- What is Row Zero?
- What is Coefficient.io?
- Biggest difference between Row Zero and Coefficient
- Power and Speed Comparison
- Data Connectivity Comparison
- Coefficient Pricing vs Row Zero
- Feature Comparison
- Choosing Row Zero or Coefficient
- Other Coefficient Alternatives
- Conclusion
What is Row Zero?
Row Zero is the best spreadsheet for big data. Row Zero works like Excel and Google Sheets but is specifically engineered for big data and connectivity. It can handle billion row sheets (1000x Excel's limit) and connects directly to your data sources, so you can build dynamic pivot tables, charts, models, and metrics on top of your data that auto-update as source data updates. Row Zero is free to try and is a powerful Coefficient alternative for big data.
What is Coefficient?
Coefficient.io is a sidebar app for Google Sheets and Excel that makes it easy to connect your spreadsheet to any data source, import live data, and automate spreadsheet workflows. It's a popular Google Sheets and Excel add-on that sits on top of your existing spreadsheet. Like Row Zero, Coefficient is also free to try. Coefficient.io supports a big library of data connectors (Salesforce, Quickbooks, Stripe, etc.) and makes it easy to automate spreadsheet workflows and trigger alerts to Slack or email. Coefficient also offers a large selection of pre-built templates and integrates with ChatGPT to let you prompt ChatGPT from your spreadsheet. 
Biggest difference between Row Zero and Coefficient
Row Zero is a next-gen spreadsheet built for big data, speed, and connectivity. It works like Google Sheets and Excel but is dramatically more powerful and faster when working with big data.
Coefficient is an add-on to Google Sheets and Excel. With Coefficient you get the perk of staying within your current spreadsheet but are capped by the performance limitations of Excel and Google Sheets.
Limitations of Excel and Google Sheets
Excel and Google Sheets were not built for big data or connecting live to your data sources. That's why add-ins like Coefficient.io and alternatives like Coupler.io exist. And while add-ins like Coefficient make it easy to connect to your data sources, you are still stuck with the same fundamental limitations of Excel and Google Sheets. Excel supports a max of 1,048,576 rows and slows down as you approach those limits, incorporate add-ins and connect to external data, and do heavy computations. Similar to Excel, Google Sheets has a data size limit of 10 million cells and in practice may slow down once you get into 10s or 100s of thousands of rows, use add-ins, connect to external data, or build complicated analysis.
Power and Speed Comparison
Row Zero is the world's fastest and most powerful spreadsheet. Row Zero is specifically engineered for big data. You can import massive multi-GB files or connect to your data warehouse and import entire data tables and still have room to build auto-updating pivot tables, charts, and dashboards. Enterprise plans can support billion row datasets which is 1000x bigger than Excel's max row limit of ~1 million rows. 
Since Coefficient.io is an add-in to Google Sheets and Excel, users are capped by the limitations of these spreadsheets. For many users, this may not be a problem. If you are an enterprise or big data user, you may start to hit performance limitations as you start to connect to more data sources, import larger datasets into your spreadsheet, or build analysis on top of your connected data.
It's important to note that Coefficient has a fairly small Import Size limit of 5,000 rows on Free and Starter ($49/month) plans and Export Size limits of 100 rows on Free and 500 rows on Starter. To get "unlimited" import and export sizes, you'll need to be on a Pro plan at $99/month per user or Enterprise. With Row Zero, you can easily import millions of rows on the free plan, but need to be on a Business plan ($15/month) to write-back to your data warehouse.
If you're using Coefficient and not running into performance issues, then Row Zero's big horsepower won't do much for you. If Excel or Google Sheets plus Coefficient is too slow or can't handle your data sizes, then Row Zero is a good Coefficient alternative for you.
Data Connectivity Comparison
While Row Zero has built-in connectors to data warehouses and databases, Coefficient.io supports a much larger set of data sources including SaaS tools like Salesforce and BI tools like Tableau. However, the data limits mentioned above mean you're limited on how much data you can actually import from these sources with Coefficient. If you don't work with big data and want a lot of data connectors, Coefficient is the clear winner for connectivity. If you want to import large data sets from your data sources and/or primarily work with data from your data warehouse, then Row Zero may be the better choice.
Coefficient Pricing vs Row Zero
There is a pretty big difference between the cost of Coefficient.io and Row Zero. Both are free to try and while the free plans have limitations, they allow you to experience the core value props of each tool so you can decide if you want to upgrade. Coefficient paid plans start at $49/month on an annual plan for Starter but this has some significant limitations - import size is limited to 5,000 rows and you're limited to 3 data connectors and do not get multi-user features. The Pro plan starts at $99/user per month and Enterprise pricing varies. Row Zero's paid plans start at $8/month for Pro and $15/month for Business with Enterprise pricing custom.
You can review Coefficient pricing here. 
And view Row Zero pricing here. 
Feature Comparison
Both Row Zero and Coefficient support some of the same features like dynamically connecting your spreadsheet to your data source. However, there are several significant differences in features.
Unique Row Zero features
Row Zero makes it easy to work with big data in a spreadsheet with seamless connectivity to data sources, support for various file types, and the power to handle big data.
Big data power and speed - Row Zero built a new spreadsheet from the ground, specifically engineered for big data power and speed. Row Zero enables billion row data sets (1000x Excel's limits) on Enterprise plans and is significantly faster than Google Sheets and Excel for working with big data.
Dynamic connections to data sources - Row Zero spreadsheets connect live to your data source and can be refreshed/automated to pull in new data. You can easily pull in millions of rows of data and still have room to do complex analysis on it. Everything you build on top of connected data stays in sync and automatically updates. So you can create auto-updating pivot tables, charts, dashboards, and analysis that dynamically update with source data. With Row Zero, you can import entire database tables into the spreadsheet so you can work with big data live or use it as a powerful spreadsheet GUI for your database or data warehouse.
Excel-compatible - Unlike BI tools or other big data tools, Row Zero matches the experience of Google Sheets and Excel, so you can do big data analysis in the comfort of a spreadsheet that you already know how to use.
Modern security and data governance - Row Zero is a cloud spreadsheet that securely connects to your data sources, so you can eliminate ungoverned CSV downloads, email attachments, and locally stored Excel files. Row Zero is HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant. Enterprise plans enable single sign-on (SSO) and advanced access controls that can optionally restrict data export / sharing and enforce data deletion rules . With Row Zero, you can significantly improve data governance across your spreadsheets. Row Zero empowers orgs to make their "source of truth" data easiest and default for all teams.
Native Python integration: Row Zero spreadsheets have a built-in Python code window, which allows you to write custom spreadsheet functions, import data through Python packages, and import popular Python libraries like pandas and numpy. Here are some examples: yfinance, nfl-data-py, pybaseball.
Supports big files and formats - Row Zero makes it easy to open massive CSV, TXT, parquet, JSONL, and TSV files. Row Zero automatically unzips and opens .gz files and .zip files. And if your Excel file is too big or slowing down, you can simply upload your XLSX file to Row Zero and keep working in a faster, more powerful spreadsheet.
Unique Coefficient features
Coefficient is an Excel and Google Sheets add-in that makes it easy to connect to your data sources to automate data workflows and build dynamic dashboards and reports. Here's a review of Coefficient.io features:
- Data connectors - Coeffiecient.io powers a large selection of data connectors for Google Sheets and Excel. You can connect to popular SaaS tools (Salesforce, Hubspot, Quickbooks, etc.), databases (Postgres, MySQL, etc.), data warehouses (Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, etc.), and BI tools (Tableau, Looker, etc.). Connecting to a data source is simple and only takes a minute. View all supported data connectors here.
- Live dashboards and automated workflows - Like Row Zero, Coefficient lets you build dynamic dashboards and reports that automatically update as source data updates. With Coefficient, you can schedule hourly data updates and also automate snapshots of data which can be useful if you want a data snapshot for monthly reports or quarter close.
- 2-way data sync - Coefficient lets you add, edit, and overwrite data in your business systems directly from your spreadsheet for several connectors including Salesforce, Hubspot, Snowflake, and Postgres.
- Trigger alerts and recurring digests - You can trigger alerts from your spreadsheet to Slack and email and/or set up daily or weekly digests
- AI spreadsheet assistant - Coefficient integrates your spreadsheets with ChatGPT so you can use AI to write SQL, build formulas, or create charts and pivots.
- Templates, dashboards, and calculators - Coefficient.io offers a wide selection of pre-built spreadsheet templates and dashboards designed for specific data sources like Salesforce, Hubspot, and Google Analytics as well as pre-built spreadsheet calculators for business metrics like LTV and Rule of 40.
When to choose Row Zero over Coefficient
Big data power and speed - If you need a faster and more powerful alternative to Excel and Google Sheets to work with your connected data, Row Zero is best. Row Zero is specifically engineered to handle much larger datasets than Excel and Google Sheets.
Price - While data size and connector need will likely determine your choice, Row Zero is considerably less expensive than Coefficient if both suit your needs.
Data governance - Row Zero's connectors focus on pulling your data from a central data source or "source of truth" like a data warehouse (e.g. Snowflake) or a database (e.g. Postgres). From a security and data governance standpoint, some companies may prefer to ensure data is getting sourced from their central data source and then disable data export from all of their tools in their tech stack, so data isn't fragmented across dozens of tools. Coefficient also supports connecting to these centralized data sources like Snowflake, but if that is how data will flow in your organization, then you don't have a need for connectors to all of the end user tools and may want to go with a less expensive option like Row Zero or another Coefficient alternative.
When to choose Coefficient over Row Zero
You don't work with big data - If you don't need to actually work with large datasets in your spreadsheet, either because your datasets are only thousands of rows or you just want to pull in summary or filtered data from larger data sets, then Coefficient may be the best option for you. While more expensive, you can continue working within Excel or Google Sheets and get some bonus features like built-in connection to ChatGPT and pre-built templates and dashboards.
You don't have a data warehouse - Many larger companies pull data from all of their SaaS tools like Salesforce, Stripe, Shopify, and Hubspot into a central data warehouse and then use that as their "source of truth" where teams pull data from to analyze data or build reports and dashboards. If your company doesn't have a data warehouse and uses a lot of different tools, then Coefficient can be a great way to centralize that data into Google Sheets or Excel.
You need more connectors - Row Zero's connectors focus on pulling your data from a central data warehouse (e.g. Snowflake) or a database (e.g. Postgres). Coefficient has a large library of data connectors to the most popular tools like Salesforce, Hubspot, Quickbooks, etc. The more connectors you need, the more value you'll get out of Coefficient vs alternatives.
Both Row Zero and Coefficient are free to try so it's pretty easy to try both and see which better suits your needs.
Other Coefficient Alternatives
Coupler.io may be the most direct Coefficient competitor. Like Coefficient, Coupler is an add-on to Google Sheets and Excel and is very focused on data connectivity. Both have similar pricing and hundreds of thousands of downloads in the Google Workspace Marketplace. If you don't work with big data and want to stay within the Google Sheets ecosystem, your best bet is to go to the Google Workspace Marketplace and search for what you need. There is a similar app marketplace for Excel. Some data sources like Salesforce and Hubspot have dedicated connectors that you can use for free with your existing plan. You can also search for "data connectors" and get several popular options that could be cheaper alternatives to Coefficient and Coupler.
Conclusion
Coefficient.io brings a large selection of data connectors to your existing spreadsheets in Excel and Google Sheets. If you don't work with big data, then Coefficient could be a great option for you. If Coefficient is too slow, your spreadsheets are crashing, or you're hitting data size limits, Row Zero is a great alternative to Coefficient and Google Sheets (or Excel). Row Zero works like Excel and Google Sheets but is specifically engineered to handle much bigger datasets and securely connect to your data sources. It's a great Excel alternative and Google Sheets replacement for big data users. You can try Row Zero for free to get started.