Online spreadsheet vs Ragic

Summary: Ragic is a database software, not a spreadsheet. Database can contain complex data relations and execute complicated queries.

For years when we’re doing demos and explaining what Ragic is, one question just keep coming back to us. When this question is asked, it’s either we haven’t done a good job explaining what Ragic is, or the person doesn’t understand the difference between a spreadsheet and a database.

Yes, the question is “What’s the difference between Ragic and an online spreadsheet?”

The biggest difference is the ability to search complex data. Of course, you can use filter to search on a spreadsheet, provided that each entry is a row in a table. But what if your data is a bit more complex than that? What if an entry is a sales order that contain multiple item lines? If you use one worksheet to describe one order, how in the world do I search for orders from a certain customer or product? The search ability on a spreadsheet is very limited, due to its document oriented nature, it’s not born to process complex data and queries. On the other hand, databases is made to process complex queries!

Ragic is not a spreadsheet software, it’s a database software. We only make it to look like a spreadsheet so business users can feel at home with it. Underneath this user interface surface, Ragic has nothing to do with spreadsheet. The leap that Ragic took from a spreadsheet to a database can be seen at the moment you go from the page of single customer detail to the listing of all your customers from. You can query all your data any way you want in the listing page, while each entry can be as complex as you want, with as many levels of detail information as you need.

Wasn’t this most database software do? Yes, that’s why we’re a database, not a spreadsheet. But it has never been a database system that can be built so simply, just like using a spreadsheet.