Helix app icon - free GraphPad Prism alternative

Helix

Scientific data analysis,
simplified.

Organize, analyze, and visualize scientific data from raw numbers to publication-ready charts. Powered by three trusted open-source engines: Jspreadsheet CE for tables, WebR (R running in WebAssembly) for statistics, and Plotly for graphs, all seamlessly wrapped and cooked in a modern app vibe-coded via Glaze.

Think of it as a free, minimalist, and private alternative to GraphPad Prism for macOS.

Download in Glaze

Key Features

Release Notes

v4.0 — Latest
  • NEW: Pie and Donut charts for Column tables — each column becomes a slice sized by its total or mean, with optional percentage labels.
  • NEW: One-click Dose response curve for XY tables — fits a sigmoidal 4-parameter (4PL) model and shows the EC50 and Hill slope directly on the graph, with no separate analysis to set up.
  • NEW: Heatmap for Multiple Variables tables — color-codes every value across variables and subjects, with selectable color scales (Viridis / Red-Blue / Heat), optional value labels and a legend.
  • NEW: Survival curve (Kaplan-Meier) for XY tables — step curve with censored-subject tick marks, supporting two data formats: one-row-per-subject event codes, or raw survivor counts per timepoint.
  • NEW: Identify outliers (ROUT method) for Column tables — flags outliers column-by-column with a robust fit and false-discovery-rate control (adjustable Q), following the published Motulsky & Brown method, and lists exactly which rows to exclude.
  • FIXED: Dose response curves silently failing to fit real data — the fit now keeps an X=0 control/vehicle point instead of rejecting the whole dataset, defaults to the raw-concentration model, and shows an inline message when a model genuinely can't fit the data.
  • FIXED: Survival curves misreading "number still alive at each timepoint" data as event codes — a new Data format switch (Event codes / Survivor counts) makes both conventions plot correctly.
  • FIXED: Dose response Model button labels being clipped in the side panel.
  • IMPROVED: Clearer color selection — the chosen color is now a larger dot while the others shrink and dim, consistently in the graph's Colors panel and the spreadsheet's right-click Color menu.
v3.0
  • NEW: Add a linear regression fit line with 95% confidence band and curve equation (Y = aX + b) directly on XY scatter graphs.
  • NEW: Customize graph colors: set a color per data series from the graph's new Colors panel, and highlight individual points by coloring single cells directly from the spreadsheet's right-click menu.
  • FIXED: The linear/nonlinear regression wizard incorrectly listing the renamed X column as a Y-data-set choice (it matched X by its default name instead of its position, so renaming X broke the exclusion).
  • IMPROVED: Live size readout while resizing: dragging a graph's X/Y axis now shows the current width × height (px) in a small pill that fades out when you stop — handy for matching one graph's size to another.
  • IMPROVED: Softer graph fills (50% opacity) so fill and outline read distinctly.
  • IMPROVED: New app icon.
v2.0
  • NEW: Exclude data from analyses and graphs — select cells, rows, or columns and press ⌘E (or right-click, or Edit ▸ Exclude / Include). Excluded values stay in your table but are dropped from every stat and graph.
  • NEW: "Appearance" section in the graph Format panel, with two minimalist native −/+ steppers for axis thickness and font size.
  • NEW: Each section title in the graph Format panel is now a clickable header that collapses or expands its section.
  • FIXED: The "Plot" section no longer shows up empty for XY graphs.
  • FIXED: The X and Y axis Min/Max fields now snap their auto defaults outward to clean whole numbers.
  • FIXED: Long X-axis labels no longer disappear or block you from shrinking a graph.
v1.0
  • Initial Release: Core scientific spreadsheet, R statistical testing via WebR, Plotly graphing, and native .hlx project format.

Data Organization

  • Three-pillar structure — Tables → Analyses / Graphs, with every analysis and graph linked back to its source table
  • 4 table types — Column, XY, Grouped, Multiple Variables — each offering the analyses and graphs that fit its data shape
  • Spreadsheet-style grid — Copy/paste, undo/redo, multi-cell selection, row/column deletion
  • Data exclusion — selectively exclude data points from graphs and statistical analyses

Statistical Analyses

  • Smart guided wizards propose the right test for your table type
  • Column tables — descriptive statistics; compare two groups (Student's t, Welch's t, Mann-Whitney, paired t, Wilcoxon); compare multiple groups (one-way ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis, repeated-measures ANOVA, Friedman); one-sample t test; identify outliers (ROUT method, Motulsky & Brown, with adjustable false-discovery-rate Q)
  • XY tables — correlation, linear regression, nonlinear regression (straight line, sigmoidal 4PL, semilog, hyperbola, polynomials), area under the curve
  • Grouped tables — two-way ANOVA, multiple t tests
  • Multiple Variables tables — correlation matrix, multiple regression
  • Across all tests — post-hoc comparisons (Tukey, Bonferroni, Dunn's) and multiple-comparison corrections (Holm, FDR / Benjamini-Hochberg)

Graphs

  • Column tables — individual values, box & violin plots, mean ± error bars, pie and donut charts
  • XY tables — scatter, bar, and area plots; dose-response curves (one-click sigmoidal 4PL with EC50 and Hill slope on the graph); Kaplan-Meier survival curves (censored-subject ticks, from event codes or survivor counts)
  • Grouped tables — grouped scatter, bars, lines, stacked bars, horizontal bars
  • Multiple Variables tables — heatmaps with selectable color scales (Viridis / Red-Blue / Heat), optional value labels and a legend
  • Shared across every graph: Custom colors — assign a color to each data series, or highlight individual data points; colors are shared by every graph drawn from the same table
  • Regression overlay — draw a linked linear-regression fit line, 95% confidence band, and equation with R² directly on scatter plots
  • Interactive rendering — zoom in and out, adjust axes thickness and font size
  • Resizable graphs — drag any axis to resize, with a live size readout to match dimensions across graphs
  • Axis control — manual or automatic min/max/step
  • Error bars — SD, SEM, or none
  • Significance annotations — stars or p-values with pairwise comparisons
  • Export to PNG, JPG, or SVG; copy to clipboard

Projects & Interface

  • Native .hlx project format (JSON-based, fully portable) — open and edit with any text editor
  • Native menu bar with keyboard shortcuts
  • Decimal separator conversion — automatically convert commas to periods in all spreadsheet numbers (required for R compatibility)
  • Light, dark, or automatic theme