[hermitcrab]

PowerQuery is powerful, but also compromised by the fact it is so closely tied to Excel. If you want to do data transformation tasks (such as joins) on your Excel data and you don't want to learn R or Python+Pandas then you might be better off doing it in a no-code tool designed explicitly for the task, for example Alteryx (if you have deep pockets) or Easy Data Transform (if you don't).

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

There is another reason that is less often openly disclosed, but very much in play. I recently proposed RStudio or Python/Panda combo to deal with some of the limitations of Excel ( which also conveniently bypasses Alteryx's cost ), but the response I got was somewhat surprising, because it revolved around and I am paraphrasing 'will others be able to learn and use it'. And here is the rub. Excel has a lot of online tutorials and in some ways it is a known quantity. And, well, some people don't want to learn new thingsshrug.

[hermitcrab]

No code data wrangling tools are significantly easier to learn than R or Python+Pandas. That is their main selling point (inevitably they trade some flexibility for this) and there is a range of them to cover all budgets.