Grist

Grist is a modern relational spreadsheet. It combines the flexibility of a spreadsheet with the robustness of a database to organize your data and make you more productive.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/118367/151245587-892e50a6-41f5-4b74-9786-fe3566f6b1fb.mp4

Features

(By popular request: we have a specific write-up of Grist vs Airtable that may be helpful). Grist is a hybrid database/spreadsheet, meaning that:

• Columns work like they do in databases. They are named, and hold one kind of data.
• Columns can be filled by formula, spreadsheet-style, with automatic updates when referenced cells change.

Here are some specific feature highlights of Grist:

• Python formulas.
  • Full Python syntax is supported, and the standard library.
  • Many Excel functions also available.
• A portable, self-contained format.
  • Based on SQLite, the most widely deployed database engine.
  • Any tool that can read SQLite can read numeric and text data from a Grist file.
  • Great format for backups that you can be confident you can restore in full.
  • Great format for moving between different hosts.
• Convenient editing and formatting features.
  • Choices and choice lists, for adding colorful tags to records without fuss.
  • References and reference lists, for cross-referencing records in other tables.
  • Attachments, to include media or document files in records.
  • Dates and times, toggles, and special numerics such as currency all have specialized editors and formatting options.
  • Conditional Formatting, letting you control the style of cells with formulas, to draw attention to important information.
• Great for dashboards, visualizations, and data entry.
  • Charts for visualization.
  • Summary tables for summing and counting across groups.
  • Widget linking streamlines filtering and editing data. Grist has a unique approach to visualization, where you can lay out and link distinct widgets to show together, without cramming mixed material into a table.
  • The Filter bar is great for quick slicing and dicing.
• Incremental imports.
  • So you can import a CSV of the last three months activity from your bank...
  • ... and import new activity a month later without fuss or duplicates.
• Integrations.
  • A REST API, Zapier actions/triggers, and support from similar integrators.
  • Import/export to Google drive, Excel format, CSV.
  • Can link data with custom widgets hosted externally.
• Many templates to get you started, from investment research to organizing treasure hunts.
• Access control options.
  • (You'll need SSO logins set up to make use of these options)
  • Share individual documents, or workspaces, or team sites.
  • Control access to individual rows, columns, and tables.
  • Control access based on cell values and user attributes.
• Can be self-maintained.
  • Useful for intranet operation and specific compliance requirements.
• Sandboxing options for untrusted documents.
  • On Linux or with docker, you can enable gVisor sandboxing at the individual document level.
  • On OSX, you can use native sandboxing.

If you are curious about where Grist is going heading, see our roadmap, drop a question in our forum, or browse our extensive documentation.

Using Grist

There are docker images set up for individual use, or (with some configuration) for self-hosting. Grist Labs offers a hosted service at docs.getgrist.com.

To get Grist running on your computer with Docker, do:

docker pull gristlabs/grist
docker run -p 8484:8484 -it gristlabs/grist

Then visit http://localhost:8484 in your browser. You'll be able to create, edit, import, and export documents. To preserve your work across docker runs, share a directory as /persist:

docker run -p 8484:8484 -v $PWD/persist:/persist -it gristlabs/grist

Get templates at templates.getgrist.com for payroll, inventory management, invoicing, D&D encounter tracking, and a lot more, or use any document you've created on docs.getgrist.com.

If you need to change the port Grist runs on, set a PORT variable, don't just change the port mapping:

docker run --env PORT=9999 -p 9999:9999 -v $PWD/persist:/persist -it gristlabs/grist

To enable gVisor sandboxing, set --env GRIST_SANDBOX_FLAVOR=gvisor. This should work with default docker settings, but may not work in all environments.

You can find a lot more about configuring Grist, setting up authentication, and running it on a public server in our Self-Managed Grist handbook.

Building from source

To build Grist from source, follow these steps:

yarn install
yarn run build:prod
yarn run install:python
yarn start
# Grist will be available at http://localhost:8484/

Grist formulas in documents will be run using Python executed directly on your machine. You can configure sandboxing using a GRIST_SANDBOX_FLAVOR environment variable.

• On OSX, export GRIST_SANDBOX_FLAVOR=macSandboxExec uses the native sandbox-exec command for sandboxing.
• On Linux with gVisor's runsc installed, export GRIST_SANDBOX_FLAVOR=gvisor is an option.

These sandboxing methods have been written for our own use at Grist Labs and may need tweaking to work in your own environment - pull requests very welcome here!

Logins

Like git, Grist has features to track document revision history. So for full operation, Grist expects to know who the user modifying a document is. Until it does, it operates in a limited anonymous mode. To get you going, the docker image is configured so that when you click on the "sign in" button Grist will attribute your work to you@example.com. Change this by setting GRIST_DEFAULT_EMAIL:

docker run --env GRIST_DEFAULT_EMAIL=my@email -p 8484:8484 -v $PWD/persist:/persist -it gristlabs/grist

You can change your name in Profile Settings in the User Menu.

For multi-user operation, or if you wish to access Grist across the public internet, you'll want to connect it to your own Single Sign-On service. There are a lot of ways to do this, including SAML and forward authentication. Grist has been tested with Authentik, Auth0, and Google/Microsoft sign-ins via Dex.

Translations

We use Weblate to manage translations. Thanks to everyone who is pitching in. Thanks especially to the ANCT developers who did the hard work of making a good chunk of the application localizable. Merci bien!

Why free and open source software

This repository, grist-core, is maintained by Grist Labs. Our flagship product available at getgrist.com is built from the code you see here, combined with business-specific software designed to scale it to many users, handle billing, etc.

Grist Labs is an open-core company. We offer Grist hosting as a service, with free and paid plans. We also develop and sell features related to Grist using a proprietary license, targeted at the needs of enterprises with large self-managed installations. We see data portability and autonomy as a key value Grist can bring to our users, and grist-core as an essential means to deliver that. We are committed to maintaining and improving the grist-core codebase, and to be thoughtful about how proprietary offerings impact data portability and autonomy.

By opening its source code and offering an OSI-approved free license, Grist benefits its users:

• Developer community. The freedom to examine source code, make bug fixes, and develop new features is a big deal for a general-purpose spreadsheet-like product, where there is a very long tail of features vital to someone somewhere.
• Increased trust. Because anyone can examine the source code, “security by obscurity” is not an option. Vulnerabilities in the code can be found by others and reported before they cause damage.
• Independence. Grist is available to you regardless of the fortunes of the Grist Labs business, since it is open source and can be self-hosted. Using our hosted solution is convenient, but you are not locked in.
• Price flexibility. If you are low on funds but have time to invest, self-hosting is a great option to have. And DIY users may have the technical savvy and motivation to delve in and make improvements, which can benefit all users of Grist.
• Extensibility. For developers, having the source open makes it easier to build extensions (such as the experimental Custom Widget). You can more easily include Grist in your pipeline. And if a feature is missing, you can just take the source code and build on top of it.

Reviews

• Grist on ProductHunt
• Grist on AppSumo (life-time deal is sold out)
• Capterra, G2, TrustRadius

Environment variables

Grist can be configured in many ways. Here are the main environment variables it is sensitive to:

Sandbox related variables:

Forward authentication variables:

When using forward authentication, you may wish to also set the following variables:

• GRIST_FORCE_LOGIN=true to disable anonymous access.
• GRIST_IGNORE_SESSION=true to ignore any user identity information in a cookie. Only do this if you use forward authentication on all paths. You may not want to use forward authentication on all paths if it makes signing in required, and you are trying to permit anonymous access.

GRIST_FORWARD_AUTH_HEADER is similar to GRIST_PROXY_AUTH_HEADER, but enables a login system (assuming you have some forward authentication set up).

Google Drive integrations:

Database variables:

Testing:

Tests

Tests are run automatically as part of CI when a PR is opened. However, it can be helpful to run tests locally before pushing your changes to GitHub. First, you'll want to make sure you've installed all dependencies:

yarn install
yarn install:python

Then, you can run the main test suite like so:

yarn test

Python tests may also be run locally. (Note: currently requires Python 3.9.)

yarn test:python

For running specific tests, you can specify a pattern with the GREP_TESTS variable:

env GREP_TESTS=ChoiceList yarn test
env GREP_TESTS=summary yarn test:python

License

This repository, grist-core, is released under the Apache License, Version 2.0, which is an OSI-approved free software license. See LICENSE.txt and NOTICE.txt for more information. If you have received a version of Grist with an ext directory, the material within it is separately licensed.