Why FastExcel Is the Next‑Gen Java Excel Library After EasyExcel’s Sunset

On November 6, Alibaba's Java Excel library EasyExcel announced it will stop adding new features and enter maintenance mode, fixing bugs only.

EasyExcel is known for fast, concise processing and low memory usage, e.g., reading a 75 MB file (460 k rows, 25 columns) with 16 MB memory in 23 seconds.

It has over 30k stars and 7.5k forks on GitHub, with more than 3,000 closed issues over six years.

Good news: the author created a new project, FastExcel.

FastExcel is open‑source under the MIT license, fully compatible with EasyExcel, and can be adopted by simply changing the Maven/Gradle dependency.

All EasyExcel features are supported.

Migration requires only package name and dependency changes.

Provides additional innovations and improvements.

Version 1.0.0 adds reading specific rows and converting Excel to PDF.

Key characteristics of FastExcel include high‑performance read/write with low memory consumption, a simple intuitive API, and stream‑based processing for massive datasets.

To use FastExcel, add the dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>cn.idev.excel</groupId>
    <artifactId>fastexcel</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
</dependency>

Or for Gradle:

dependencies {
    implementation 'cn.idev.excel:fastexcel:1.0.0'
}

Migration steps:

1. Change dependency

Replace EasyExcel dependency with FastExcel dependency as shown.

<!-- easyexcel dependency -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.alibaba</groupId>
    <artifactId>easyexcel</artifactId>
    <version>xxxx</version>
</dependency>

<!-- fastexcel dependency -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>cn.idev.excel</groupId>
    <artifactId>fastexcel</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
</dependency>

2. Change imports

Replace EasyExcel package imports with FastExcel imports.

// replace easyexcel package with FastExcel
import com.alibaba.excel.**;

import cn.idev.excel.**;

3. Directly depend on FastExcel without code changes

You can add FastExcel alongside EasyExcel, but long‑term replacement is recommended.

4. Prefer FastExcel classes

FastExcel classes retain EasyExcel classes for compatibility but new features will appear only in FastExcel.

Simple example to read an Excel file:

// implement ReadListener
public class DemoDataListener implements ReadListener<DemoData> {
    @Override
    public void invoke(DemoData data, AnalysisContext context) {
        System.out.println("Parsed a row: " + JSON.toJSONString(data));
    }
    @Override
    public void doAfterAllAnalysed(AnalysisContext context) {
        System.out.println("All data parsed!");
    }
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
    String fileName = "demo.xlsx";
    // read Excel file
    FastExcel.read(fileName, DemoData.class, new DemoDataListener())
            .sheet().doRead();
}

Simple example to create an Excel file:

// data class
public class DemoData {
    @ExcelProperty("String Title")
    private String string;
    @ExcelProperty("Date Title")
    private Date date;
    @ExcelProperty("Number Title")
    private Double doubleData;
    @ExcelIgnore
    private String ignore;
}
// write Excel file
public static void main(String[] args) {
    String fileName = "demo.xlsx";
    // create sheet named "Template" and write data
    FastExcel.write(fileName, DemoData.class)
            .sheet("Template")
            .doWrite(data());
}