Tablecruncher is Going Open Source — Here's Why

Apr 25 2025

After several years of development, experiments, and feedback from hundreds of users, I’ve decided to open source Tablecruncher.

The original idea behind Tablecruncher was simple: create a lightweight, blazingly fast CSV editor for macOS that “just works” — even with huge files and weird encodings. What started as a hobby project in C++ quickly turned into a useful tool for people dealing with real-world, messy data.

Now, it’s time for the next step: Tablecruncher is now free to use, and the source code will be published under the GPL v3 license.

Why open source?

Honestly, because it feels right.

The app was always more of a passion project than a business. I loved building it, refining it, and hearing from people who found it useful. But maintaining a commercial product, with pricing, licenses, and payment infrastructure, takes time and energy — and that’s not where I want to spend my creative efforts anymore.

Instead, I want to:

  • make Tablecruncher available to more people, without barriers;
  • share the code with curious developers (and maybe future contributors);
  • and focus on writing and thinking more about the problems the app was built to solve.

What about Tablecruncher Version 2?

Over the past two years, I shared plans for a complete rewrite of Tablecruncher — Version 2 — built in Python with a richer UI and additional features. I even released seven beta versions, and a few of you tested them (thanks again!).

But with the open-sourcing of the original V1 codebase, development of V2 has now been officially discontinued.

The simple reason: V1 works. It’s fast, stable, and does what it was meant to do. Rather than chase perfection in a new tech stack, I’ve decided to polish and share what already delivers value.

What’s next?

Once the open source release is fully live, you can expect:

✅ macOS version available now (with free license code)
🪟 Windows version coming soon
🐧 Linux version also planned

All platforms will be based on the original V1 codebase, now being prepared for public release under the GPL.

If you want to stay in the loop, or just enjoy reading about how to fix data instead of fighting it, I’d love for you to join my newsletter The Missing Header.

Thanks for using Tablecruncher — and for supporting this weird little project over the years.

— Stefan

BTW: The GitHub repository is already online — there’s no source code yet, but you can already use it to report issues, follow updates, or star the project if you’d like to support it.