Hexagonal grids are valuable in two-dimensional applications involving Laplacian. The methods and analysis are investigated in current work in both linear and nonlinear problems related to anisotropic Laplacian. Ordinary and compact hexagonal grid finite difference methods are developed by elementary arguments, and then analyzed by perturbation for standard Laplacian. In the anisotropic case, analysis is done through reduction to the standard one by using Fourier vectors of mixed types. These hexagonal seven-point methods, with established theoretic stabilities and accuracies, are numerically confirmed in linear and semi-linear anisotropic Poisson problems, and can also be applied in time-dependent problems and in many applications in two-dimensional irregular domains.