A terminal spreadsheet editor with Vim keybindings
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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 try it out: cargo install cell-sheet-tuiFeedback of any kind is greatly appreciated!
HN · launched Apr 27, 2026 · 126 upvotes (top 8%) · 0 views
Niche: spreadsheet tools and extensions · 138 launches, 6 in the last 7 days ▼ -67% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Prosumer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 138 launches in spreadsheet tools and extensions →
Could you build this?
Yes A terminal spreadsheet with Vim keybindings can be quickly vibe-coded using standard TUI libraries like Ratatui or Bubbletea, combined with basic tabular data structures and CSV parsers.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: visidata - supports pipe-delimited files, stays running for faster searches, ironcalc - Rust-based Excel parity engine, sc-im - similar spreadsheet software written in C, Lotus 1-2-3 clone
Concerns raised: Does not support pipe-delimited files with embedded newlines (FDA format), Numerically unstable SUM/AVERAGE algorithms - should use Kahan summation, Keystroke doubling bug in Windows Terminal, Limited file format support - needs XLSX and ODS
Feature requests: Support for XLSX and ODS file formats, String equality operator for formulas like IF(A1=C3,A2,0), Vim-style fill operation with visual selection and anchor key, Vim plugin integration for .csv files, Scripting support with stable API
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 138 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #10 of 139 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 169 days after the earliest competitor.
- Xleak · hn · 2025-11-09 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- Recalc · hn · 2026-11-08 · 37 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- DSS, a lightweight TUI spreadsheet editor and dashboard in Go · hn · 2026-04-26 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- Frockly · hn · 2025-12-25 · 56 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- GridCraft · ph · 2026-10-23 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- LearnExcel · ph · 2026-10-21 · 71 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- LocalSheet · ph · 2026-10-12 · 3 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- Excel Formula Translator · ph · 2026-09-26 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.43
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