Best Python libraries for reading and editing Excel files (worth paying for?)

Requested by a visitor · October 25, 2026

We asked 10 models: Which Python libraries for Excel files are worth using? Each named its own top 10.

Asked 4 ways: List request · Buyer asking for advice · Search query · Worth paying for?. Share of voice pools every wording.

Agreement between models

78%

Same model, run twice

85%

Different picks

25

When agreement between models is well below a model's agreement with itself, the split reflects real differences in taste rather than randomness.

This question was also asked with web search on. See which products change when the models look things up first.

The consensus

Each cell is the position that model gave the pick; blank means it left the pick off. Click a row for each model's reasoning.

#	Pick	Score	Listed by	Claude Haiku 5.5	GPT-6 Luna	Gemini 4 Argon	Qwen 3.8 Flash	DeepSeek V4 Pro	GLM-5.3	Kimi K3	MiniMax M3	Mistral Large 4	Nemotron 3 Ultra
1	openpyxl		10/10	1	1	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
2	pandas		10/10	2	2	1	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
3	XlsxWriter		10/10	3	3	3	3	4	3	3	3	3	5
4	xlrd		10/10	4	6	7	4	6	4	4	4	4	4
5	xlwings		10/10	6	8	4	9	3	5	7	6	5	3
6	pyxlsb		7/10	7	4	6		5		6	7	8
7	pyexcel		9/10	5		8	7	8	10	9	5	9	6
8	calamine		6/10	10	5	9	5	9		8
9	xlwt		6/10		9				8	5	10	6	8
10	Polars		4/10		7	5		7					7
11	PyExcelerate		4/10		10		6				8		10
12	fastexcel		1/10						6
13	pylightxl		1/10									7
14	python-docx		1/10						7
15	DataFrame Excel Writer		1/10	8

10 lower-scoring picks are not shown; every ballot below lists them in full.

Every ballot

Hover a pick to find it on the other ballots. Marked picks appear on no other ballot.

Claude Haiku 5.5

1. openpyxl
2. pandas
3. XlsxWriter
4. xlrd
5. pyexcel
6. xlwings
7. pyxlsb
8. DataFrame Excel Writer
9. xlsxwriter-helper
10. calamine

93% with consensus · 97% self-consistent

GPT-6 Luna

1. openpyxl
2. pandas
3. XlsxWriter
4. pyxlsb
5. calamine
6. xlrd
7. Polars
8. xlwings
9. xlwt
10. PyExcelerate

87% with consensus · 64% self-consistent

Gemini 4 Argon

1. pandas
2. openpyxl
3. XlsxWriter
4. xlwings
5. Polars
6. pyxlsb
7. xlrd
8. pyexcel
9. calamine
10. Spire.XLS for Python

75% with consensus · 95% self-consistent

Qwen 3.8 Flash

1. openpyxl
2. pandas
3. XlsxWriter
4. xlrd
5. calamine
6. PyExcelerate
7. pyexcel
8. Python-Excel
9. xlwings
10. xlsx2csv

88% with consensus · 88% self-consistent

DeepSeek V4 Pro

1. openpyxl
2. pandas
3. xlwings
4. XlsxWriter
5. pyxlsb
6. xlrd
7. Polars
8. pyexcel
9. calamine
10. openpyxl-image

88% with consensus · 92% self-consistent

GLM-5.3

1. openpyxl
2. pandas
3. XlsxWriter
4. xlrd
5. xlwings
6. fastexcel
7. python-docx
8. xlwt
9. odfpy
10. pyexcel

89% with consensus · 60% self-consistent

Kimi K3

1. openpyxl
2. pandas
3. XlsxWriter
4. xlrd
5. xlwt
6. pyxlsb
7. xlwings
8. calamine
9. pyexcel
10. msoffcrypto-tool

94% with consensus · 99% self-consistent

MiniMax M3

1. openpyxl
2. pandas
3. XlsxWriter
4. xlrd
5. pyexcel
6. xlwings
7. pyxlsb
8. PyExcelerate
9. formulas
10. xlwt

93% with consensus · 92% self-consistent

Mistral Large 4

1. openpyxl
2. pandas
3. XlsxWriter
4. xlrd
5. xlwings
6. xlwt
7. pylightxl
8. pyxlsb
9. pyexcel
10. pyxlsb2

92% with consensus · 89% self-consistent

Nemotron 3 Ultra

1. openpyxl
2. pandas
3. xlwings
4. xlrd
5. XlsxWriter
6. pyexcel
7. Polars
8. xlwt
9. tablib
10. PyExcelerate

86% with consensus · 78% self-consistent

Who agrees with whom

Overlap between two models' lists, weighted toward the top · 100 means identical · Color runs from 64 (lightest) to 96 (darkest)

	Claude Haiku 5.5	GPT-6 Luna	Gemini 4 Argon	Qwen 3.8 Flash	DeepSeek V4 Pro	GLM-5.3	Kimi K3	MiniMax M3	Mistral Large 4	Nemotron 3 Ultra
Claude Haiku 5.5		82	70	86	83	86	89	96	89	84
GPT-6 Luna	82		71	85	86	79	87	83	82	76
Gemini 4 Argon	70	71		64	76	66	70	70	69	67
Qwen 3.8 Flash	86	85	64		77	83	86	88	83	79
DeepSeek V4 Pro	83	86	76	77		79	83	82	82	88
GLM-5.3	86	79	66	83	79		87	87	90	83
Kimi K3	89	87	70	86	83	87		89	93	81
MiniMax M3	96	83	70	88	82	87	89		90	85
Mistral Large 4	89	82	69	83	82	90	93	90		84
Nemotron 3 Ultra	84	76	67	79	88	83	81	85	84