Sheetz Benchmarks — Java Excel Library Comparison: Code Simplicity & Performance

How does Sheetz compare to Apache POI, EasyExcel, FastExcel, and Poiji? This project answers that question with side-by-side code comparisons and reproducible JMH performance benchmarks across 1K, 10K, and 100K rows.

TL;DR

• Sheetz needs 1 line to read or write Excel. Apache POI needs 25+. EasyExcel needs 12+ (with listener).
• At 100K rows, Sheetz writes are 5.8x faster than Apache POI thanks to automatic SXSSF streaming.
• FastExcel and EasyExcel have faster raw throughput, but require significantly more code and lack features like validation, multi-format support, and automatic type conversion.

New to Sheetz? See the main repo for docs and API reference, or browse 8 runnable examples.

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Libraries Compared

Library	Version	API Style	Read	Write	Annotations	Validation
Sheetz	1.0.1	One-liner, annotation-based	Yes	Yes	@Column	Built-in
Apache POI	5.2.5	Manual cell-level API	Yes	Yes	None	None
EasyExcel	4.0.3	Annotation + listener pattern	Yes	Yes	@ExcelProperty	None
FastExcel	0.19.0	Lightweight cell-level API	Yes	Yes	None	None
Poiji	5.2.0	Annotation-based (read-only)	Yes	No	@ExcelCellName	None

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Code Comparison

The question: How many lines does it take to write 10 products to Excel and read them back?

Library	Write	Read	Total Lines	Notes
Sheetz	1	1	~15	One-liner read & write
Apache POI	~25	~20	~60	Manual workbook/sheet/row/cell
EasyExcel	~3	~12	~30	Separate model + listener pattern
FastExcel	~18	~15	~45	Cell-by-cell positional API
Poiji	—	~1	~15	Read-only library

Sheetz — 1 line write, 1 line read

Sheetz.write(products, "products.xlsx");
List<Product> result = Sheetz.read("products.xlsx", Product.class);

That's the entire implementation. No workbook objects, no cell iteration, no type casting.

Apache POI — ~25 lines write, ~20 lines read

// Write — manual workbook creation
try (Workbook workbook = new XSSFWorkbook()) {
    Sheet sheet = workbook.createSheet("Products");
    Row headerRow = sheet.createRow(0);
    headerRow.createCell(0).setCellValue("Product Name");
    headerRow.createCell(1).setCellValue("Price");
    // ... create each header cell manually

    for (int i = 0; i < products.size(); i++) {
        Row row = sheet.createRow(i + 1);
        row.createCell(0).setCellValue(products.get(i).name);
        row.createCell(1).setCellValue(products.get(i).price);
        // ... set each cell manually
    }
    workbook.write(new FileOutputStream("products.xlsx"));
}

// Read — manual row/cell iteration
try (Workbook workbook = new XSSFWorkbook(new FileInputStream("products.xlsx"))) {
    Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheetAt(0);
    for (int i = 1; i <= sheet.getLastRowNum(); i++) {
        Row row = sheet.getRow(i);
        Product p = new Product();
        p.name = row.getCell(0).getStringCellValue();
        p.price = row.getCell(1).getNumericCellValue();
        // ... extract each field manually
    }
}

EasyExcel — 3 lines write, ~12 lines read (listener pattern)

// Write
EasyExcel.write("products.xlsx", ProductEasyExcel.class)
        .sheet("Products").doWrite(data);

// Read — requires listener pattern
List<ProductEasyExcel> result = new ArrayList<>();
EasyExcel.read("products.xlsx", ProductEasyExcel.class,
    new ReadListener<ProductEasyExcel>() {
        public void invoke(ProductEasyExcel data, AnalysisContext ctx) {
            result.add(data);
        }
        public void doAfterAllAnalysed(AnalysisContext ctx) {}
    }).sheet().doRead();

FastExcel — ~18 lines write, ~15 lines read

// Write — cell by cell
Workbook wb = new Workbook(outputStream, "App", "1.0");
Worksheet ws = wb.newWorksheet("Products");
ws.value(0, 0, "Product Name");
ws.value(0, 1, "Price");
// ... set each header and data cell by position

// Read — cell by cell
ReadableWorkbook wb = new ReadableWorkbook(inputStream);
Sheet sheet = wb.getFirstSheet();
sheet.openStream().skip(1).forEach(row -> {
    Product p = new Product();
    p.name = row.getCellText(0);
    p.price = Double.parseDouble(row.getCellText(1));
    // ... parse each cell manually
});

View all comparison source code

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Performance Benchmarks (JMH)

All benchmarks measure average time per operation (lower is better) using JMH 1.37.

Environment: JDK 11.0.30 (OpenJDK), Apple Silicon (macOS), 2 forks, 3 warmup iterations, 5 measurement iterations

📊 Visual Summary

The charts below are generated from the JMH results in results/results.txt.

Write Performance — 100K rows (ms/op, lower is better)

FastExcel   ████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  309ms
EasyExcel   █████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  542ms
Sheetz      ██████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  423ms  ← auto SXSSF streaming
Apache POI  ██████████████████████████████  2453ms ← no streaming, loads to memory

Read Performance — 100K rows (ms/op, lower is better)

FastExcel   █████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  210ms
EasyExcel   ████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  334ms
Apache POI  ██████████████████████████░░░░  1097ms
Poiji       █████████████████████████░░░░░  1042ms
Sheetz      ██████████████████████████████  1285ms  ← with type conversion & mapping

Generate PNG charts: paste results/results.txt into https://jmh.morethan.io

Write Performance (ms/op — lower is better)

Library	1K rows	10K rows	100K rows
FastExcel	6.48 ± 1.47	31.95 ± 1.00	309.70 ± 17.59
EasyExcel	11.44 ± 0.50	58.60 ± 1.54	542.84 ± 33.32
Sheetz	23.15 ± 0.62	232.51 ± 18.70	423.75 ± 20.14
Apache POI	22.46 ± 0.53	217.17 ± 9.59	2,453.35 ± 112.24

At small file sizes, Sheetz and Apache POI are comparable. At 100K rows, Sheetz is 5.8x faster than POI because it automatically switches to SXSSF streaming — something POI requires you to configure manually.

Read Performance (ms/op — lower is better)

Library	1K rows	10K rows	100K rows
FastExcel	2.43 ± 0.12	24.88 ± 1.75	210.17 ± 4.10
EasyExcel	4.91 ± 0.55	42.66 ± 6.87	334.17 ± 15.53
Apache POI	10.86 ± 0.46	106.02 ± 9.11	1,097.20 ± 79.91
Poiji	12.26 ± 0.40	114.92 ± 1.97	1,042.16 ± 50.28
Sheetz	13.18 ± 0.58	128.35 ± 12.95	1,285.89 ± 64.96

For reads, FastExcel and EasyExcel are faster at raw throughput. Sheetz performs comparably to Apache POI and Poiji while offering annotation-based mapping, automatic type conversion, and built-in validation that those libraries don't provide.

🎯 When to Choose Each Library

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    DECISION GUIDE                       │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                         │
│  Need maximum raw throughput?                           │
│  → FastExcel (fastest reads & writes)                   │
│                                                         │
│  Need minimal code + all features?                      │
│  → Sheetz (1-line API, validation, 19 converters)       │
│                                                         │
│  Already using POI everywhere?                          │
│  → Sheetz (wraps POI, drop-in for new code)             │
│                                                         │
│  Processing 1M+ rows, memory is critical?               │
│  → Sheetz.stream() or FastExcel                         │
│                                                         │
│  Need annotation-based mapping + read speed?            │
│  → EasyExcel (but requires listener pattern)            │
│                                                         │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Sheetz's read speed is comparable to Apache POI and Poiji. The difference from FastExcel/EasyExcel is the overhead of automatic type conversion, annotation processing, and validation — features those libraries don't provide. If you need those features, Sheetz gives them at no extra code cost.

Full raw JMH output is available in results/results.txt.

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How to Run

Prerequisites

• Java 11+
• Maven 3.6+

Code Comparison Demos

Each comparison class has a main() that writes products to Excel and reads them back, showing the actual code needed for each library.

# Clone and compile
git clone https://github.com/chitralabs/sheetz-benchmarks.git
cd sheetz-benchmarks
mvn compile

# Run any comparison
mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="io.github.chitralabs.sheetz.benchmarks.comparison.SheetzComparison"
mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="io.github.chitralabs.sheetz.benchmarks.comparison.ApachePoiComparison"
mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="io.github.chitralabs.sheetz.benchmarks.comparison.EasyExcelComparison"
mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="io.github.chitralabs.sheetz.benchmarks.comparison.FastExcelComparison"
mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="io.github.chitralabs.sheetz.benchmarks.comparison.PoijiComparison"

JMH Performance Benchmarks

# Build the benchmark JAR
mvn clean package

# Run all benchmarks (full run — takes ~30 minutes)
java -jar target/benchmarks.jar

# Quick smoke test (~2 minutes)
java -jar target/benchmarks.jar -f 1 -wi 1 -i 1

# Run only read or write benchmarks
java -jar target/benchmarks.jar ReadBenchmark
java -jar target/benchmarks.jar WriteBenchmark

# Run with a specific row count
java -jar target/benchmarks.jar -p rowCount=10000

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Methodology

Setting	Value
Framework	JMH 1.37 (OpenJDK Microbenchmark Harness)
Mode	Average time per operation (Mode.AverageTime)
Forks	2 (separate JVM processes)
Warmup	3 iterations, 1 second each
Measurement	5 iterations, 1 second each
Row counts	1,000 / 10,000 / 100,000 (via @Param)
Data	Fixed random seed for reproducibility
File format	.xlsx (OOXML) for all libraries
Fairness	All libraries read/write identical data; test files generated once in @Setup

Results will vary by JVM version, OS, and hardware. Run the benchmarks yourself to get numbers for your environment.

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Project Structure

src/main/java/io/github/chitralabs/sheetz/benchmarks/
├── comparison/          — Side-by-side code demos (each has main())
│   ├── SheetzComparison.java
│   ├── ApachePoiComparison.java
│   ├── EasyExcelComparison.java
│   ├── FastExcelComparison.java
│   └── PoijiComparison.java
├── jmh/                 — JMH performance benchmarks
│   ├── ReadBenchmark.java
│   ├── WriteBenchmark.java
│   └── DataGenerator.java
└── model/               — Shared data models
    ├── Product.java            (Sheetz + Poiji annotations)
    ├── ProductEasyExcel.java   (EasyExcel annotations)
    └── ProductPoi.java         (Plain POJO for manual APIs)

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Links

• Sheetz — main library
• Sheetz Examples — 8 runnable demos
• Sheetz on Maven Central

License

Apache License 2.0 — free for commercial and personal use.

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If these benchmarks helped you evaluate Sheetz, consider giving the main repo a star. It helps other developers discover the project.