
Ask HN: End-to-end encrypted online spreadsheet tool - kanjus
I&#x27;m trying to identify end-to-end encrypted alternatives to the tools used by an NGO I work with that deals with sensitive data.<p>Tools for cloud storage, email, instant-messaging, collaborative text editing, hard drive encryption abound, they&#x27;re free, easy to use, secure, and overall amazing (more in first comment). The one obstacle I haven&#x27;t been able to tackle in several days of searching is an alternative to Google Sheets (spreadsheets and databases are pretty similar for my use case).<p>My criteria:<p>- security (E2E encryption, 2-factor authentication, not US-based)<p>- collaborative real-time editing<p>- ease-of-use, low maintenance<p>- small volume (10 sheets, 20 columns and 10k rows each) is sufficient<p>- simple data analysis (searching, filtering, count)<p>Optional features: differently-typed cells (dropdown, checkbox), forms to add new data-points.<p>Spreadsheets are so commonly used that all flavours should exist, but I wasn&#x27;t able to find a tool that fulfills all criteria (more in first comment). I can think of 3 reasons:<p>- there is an insurmountable technical difficulty in creating a tool that is both collaborative and encrypted: can&#x27;t be that though, since encrypted Google Docs&#x2F;Trello clones are easy to find ([CryptPad](https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cryptpad.fr&#x2F;), [Keybase](https:&#x2F;&#x2F;keybase.io&#x2F;))<p>- the need is covered by encryption tools for databases: these require a lot of technical knowledge (renting servers, hosting databases, deploying encryption, etc.), surely a no-code tool would already exist?<p>- I haven&#x27;t found the tool: wouldn&#x27;t it  be included in Keybase or the like though?<p>The second option seems the most likely, in which case I&#x27;d be happy if someone could tell me the easiest way to build an encrypted database, as I have never done something like that (I&#x27;m familiar with Python, know that SQL exists, and can probably follow instructions to deploy something on a server), but I would really need this tool to be low&#x2F;no-maintenance<p>Cheers
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kanjus
Tools for cloud storage
([Tresorit]([https://tresorit.com/)](https://tresorit.com/\))), email
([Protonmail]([https://protonmail.com/)](https://protonmail.com/\))), instant-
messaging ([Signal]([https://signal.org/)](https://signal.org/\))),
collaborative text documents
([CryptPad]([https://cryptpad.fr/)](https://cryptpad.fr/\))), hard drive
encryption ([VeraCrypt]([https://veracrypt.fr/)](https://veracrypt.fr/\)))

What I was able to find to replace Google Sheets:

\- Google Sheets clones with a few additional collaborative features
([Zoho]([https://www.zoho.eu/sheet/)](https://www.zoho.eu/sheet/\)))

\- ways to encrypt spreadsheets

\- online databases
([Airtable]([https://airtable.com/)](https://airtable.com/\)))

\- ways to encrypt databases on servers
([Acra]([https://github.com/cossacklabs/acra)](https://github.com/cossacklabs/acra\)))

\- kinda secure databases
([KoBo]([http://kobotoolbox.org/](http://kobotoolbox.org/)) not actually
encrypted but at least managed by UNHCR)

