July 3, 2026
Spreadsheet soap opera
Show HN: OM Core – multidimensional models without spreadsheet cell formulas
A bold bid to kill spreadsheet chaos has commenters asking: is this the future or just more work
TLDR: OM Core is a new open-source tool trying to replace messy spreadsheet formulas with a cleaner system for business models. The early community reaction instantly turned into a bigger fight over whether spreadsheets need saving at all — or whether AI and code will wipe them out anyway.
A new open-source project called OM Core just strutted onto Show HN with a big promise: stop building important business models around fragile little spreadsheet boxes. Its creator says the idea is simple in theory but spicy in practice — instead of tying everything to cell locations, you describe the business logic in a cleaner, more structured way, then let the grid be just a view. In plain English: the spreadsheet is no longer the boss.
And the tiny but telling comment thread instantly went into "spreadsheet end times" mode. The creator, cloudcell, came in with a calm, almost vulnerable pitch, saying it’s early alpha software and asking spreadsheet survivors whether the idea even makes sense. That alone gave the launch a bit of underdog energy: not “we solved finance forever,” but “please tell me if this is understandable before I embarrass myself.”
Then came the classic internet escalation. One commenter dropped a link to a post predicting that AI-generated code will replace spreadsheets entirely, basically tossing a grenade into the room: why build a better spreadsheet model at all if code is about to eat the whole category? That’s the real drama here. Is OM Core a rescue mission for spreadsheet-weary workers, or a bridge technology before everything becomes code and prompts? Even with only a couple comments, the mood is deliciously tense: one side wants salvation from formula hell, the other is already planning the spreadsheet funeral.
Key Points
- •OM Core is an open-source alpha multidimensional modeling engine for structured financial, operational, and analytical models.
- •The system models data and logic with dimensions, cubes, groups, hierarchies, rules, and views instead of spreadsheet cell formulas.
- •The article says OM Core separates model structure, business logic, layout, presentation, calculation flow, and user interaction.
- •The current repository contains the full alpha application stack, including engine, command tools, REPL, GUI/TUI, runtime, scripting, plugins, storage-adapter, examples, and tests.
- •OM Core currently runs from source on Linux, macOS, and Windows, using uv to manage its Python environment and start scripts for different runtime modes.