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One example is https://www.pyxll.com/ which lets you write Excel Add-ins using Python.

I've never used it myself, but I have tried to use the Excel JS API, and it was quite a pain.

Yes. I believe the way Excel hosting other languages inside it as scripting addon is via the COM Automation Server interface again. The other language needs to implement as a COM Automaton Server. Excel then instantiates the other language's Automation Server as an embedded COM object and calls its interface, which can call the functions implemented with the language.

The approach used by pyxll is higher performance. It uses the Excel C API. Excel add-ons can be written as native DLLs known as XLLs.

Good to know.

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