Limits and measured behavior

Clear limits for local spreadsheet reconciliation.

MatchDock's reconciliation engine and its XLSX exporter have different measured costs. This page separates them, states the current safeguards, and identifies exactly which browser environments have been tested.

Reconciliation

Indexed, deterministic work

Parsing, normalization, indexing, matching, and result preparation run locally in dedicated browser workers.

Large XLSX export

More time and memory

Workbook generation streams XML and compression in a dedicated export worker. The compressed output remains in memory until download.

Current input caps

These safeguards stop processing before known browser-risk boundaries are exceeded.

2 MiB Free
1,000 data rows per source (CSV or XLSX)
1,000,000 Pro CSV
100 MiB per file
500,000 Pro XLSX
50 MiB per file
500
columns per source on both plans

These parser safeguards are not a promise that every dataset within the applicable caps will fit available browser memory. Wider rows, large cell values, complex rules, XLSX parsing, and duplicate-heavy results can require more resources.

Each source must meet both its format's byte and data-row limits; the header is excluded. For the largest reconciliations, a modern Chromium-based desktop browser is recommended. Performance depends on browser, hardware and dataset shape. Chromium has complete 1M CSV reference evidence; Firefox has representative evidence through 500k, and Playwright WebKit evidence is not native Safari 1M certification.

Reconciliation is not export

Reconciliation

Parsing and reconciliation use dedicated Web Workers. Indexed exact-key matching avoids a quadratic row-by-row comparison path. Results remain in browser memory, processing can be cancelled, and short visible pauses remain possible at the measured maximum.

XLSX generation and download

XLSX generation runs in a dedicated export Web Worker, consuming bounded row batches from the result Worker. A physical sheet-limit preflight runs before writing; an unrepresentable workbook is rejected without truncation. Evidence Package is an explicit ZIP alternative with a manifest and eight evidence CSVs, recommended for very large evidence and required when XLSX sheet limits are exceeded. There is no silent fallback. Compressed output still occupies browser memory until download.

Documented reference run

Measured 200k scenario

These observations come from one run on an Apple M4 Mac with 16 GiB of memory. Each source was a narrow 2.6 MiB CSV with 200,000 exact-match rows and two columns.

Isolated Node measurement

Parsing + reconciliation
approximately 0.98 s
RSS after reconciliation
approximately 675 MiB
XLSX generation
approximately 15.6 s
Peak RSS after export
approximately 2.8 GiB
Generated workbook
approximately 67.9 MiB

Playwright browser observations

Clean run
Chromium 3.27 sFirefox 4.54 sWebKit 5.02 s
Export/download
Chromium 11.61 sFirefox 14.67 sWebKit 22.75 s
Longest heartbeat gap
1.04 s1.51 s2.14 s

What can increase memory and time

  • Wider rows and more columns
  • Larger raw cell values
  • XLSX parsing
  • Complex normalizations and comparison rules
  • Duplicate or ambiguous key groups
  • Large result sets and workbook exports
  • Other memory-intensive browser tabs

Current browser evidence

Automated engine coverage and native browser checks are reported separately.

Chromium
Playwright Chromium engine
Representative automated coverage; not an exact native Chrome or Edge test.
Firefox
Playwright Firefox 153
Automated engine coverage; the native Firefox application was not installed.
WebKit
Playwright WebKit 26.5
Automated engine coverage, including the maximum-size scenario.
Safari 26.5.2
Native Safari smoke test
Focused demo workflow only; not the full automated 200k scenario.

Native Chrome, Edge, and Firefox were not tested on the measurement Mac. Playwright WebKit is not presented as an exact native Safari test.

Functional boundaries

  • CSV and standard XLSX only
  • One selected sheet per source
  • Basic reconciliation uses deterministic 1:1 matching
  • One to five mapped key fields
  • Absolute and percentage numeric tolerances on compare fields
  • At most one tolerant date-key field
  • No dynamic or per-row tolerances; no currency conversion
  • NUMBER uses exact decimals within 38 significant digits, 18 fractional places and absolute values below 10^38; no textual scientific notation
  • Typed XLSX numbers depend on the delivered reader value; lost original digits cannot be restored. Use CSV/text cells for exact decimal digits
  • Advanced supports configured fuzzy candidates with human confirmation; no AI matching
  • Advanced supports groups, subsets and N:M; N:M requires human confirmation
  • Password-protected workbooks are unsupported
  • Pro supports up to 25 saved workflows

If a large export cannot finish

Close other memory-intensive tabs. If available, return to the source step and use a smaller source extract. Reconciliation results may remain usable even when a very large XLSX export exceeds browser resources.

Do not interpret a costly export as evidence that matching itself failed; the two stages have different measured costs.

Use the limits to choose the right starting point.

Try the synthetic demo first, or start locally with two CSV or standard XLSX exports.

Read the help guide