Hey! Which reporting tools should I use for .NET?

At the beginning, this question was very easy answer. At the present, this still very very easy to answer as many reporting tools, components, libraries were released for Microsoft .NET platform.

While it’s very easy to answer, but which one would be the most recommended for .NET developer? This question is hard to answer as in real world, you have many factors to made a decision for one product.

Let’s list the major players on the market…

1. Crystal Reports

While this is the most famous on reporting solution, I always try to avoid this when consulting with my customers. Their designer and functionality definitely is the best. But when I want to deploy it to web server. In some case, this is impossible! as they need you to run some executable files at the web server. So, you can’t do any method of reporting solution at server side except purchasing the most scalable edition. (Enterprise edition) Which the cost is too high if you’re not in a large company. So, I never install it in my Visual Studio box anymore. Waste my space!

2. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services

This is a great bundled product with SQL Server 2005 as you don’t have to pay for it if you have SQL Server 2005 as your database server. This is a Windows services came with SQL Server 2005. So, if your organization already paid for SQL Server license. Just use it! It was designed to work in server side in nature. Learn about it deeply and you’ll get a great reporting tool in hand. Integration with ASP.NET is very easy as Visual Studio 2005 already provided the Report Viewer for developer. Just a few lines of code and you’ll get all done.

But in personally, I still avoid this as when I do consult with some organization. They use shared hosting somewhere not acquired personal web server at organization. So, they don’t have any permission to install any additional services in to web server. SQL Server 2005 reporting services is not suit for this case!

3. ActiveReports for .NET

This product maybe the most popular 3rd party component for reporting solution. But it still not suit for shared hosting and it’s a combination of managed & unmanaged resources. You can see they required some interop library to work and I don’t like those unmanaged. Why do I get back to the past? Avoid…

4. DevExpress XtraReports

This is a good product but it needed many runtime to execute on the web server. So, I avoid it. In Windows application platform, It has very cool report designer for end-user. This is what I’m very interesting on.

Honestly! I don’t make a choice for these big four report tools.

I have to say that, in my experiences on application implementation and consulting. Most of my customers who want the solution for reports are just needs only the simple-to-not too complex reports. So, most of cases. I avoid from Crystal Reports as It has too many functionality. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is ok and enough.

Then I captured myself to summarize what I really want from reporting solution?

1. Clean and lean report designer that working in Visual Studio 2005.

2. Dynamic report processing with ease. (Sending parameters)

3. Can be rendered to Adobe PDF format as It’ll be used on web.

4. XCopy method of deployment which will work on any shared hosting.

5. Purely built by .NET framework, I don’t like unmanaged code to run & leak in the background.

No product can made me do a decision to buy even I already have a budget in my pocket! OMG! What the xxxxxxx!

So, what I’m using when customers needed for reporting solution?

At the past of my bad days. I use some PDF & XLS generation library to build reports. Not bad? ^_^

But as I’ve said, the bad days was passed. Now I’m very happy with reporting solution from Telerik’s.

Why I’m happy with it?

1. A bit bias, as I’m very happy with their ASP.NET Ajax controls suite before. (I’m writing about it here) With quick response on support team. When Telerik released their reporting component. I just grab it for test immediately.

2. It had all functionality that I needed. (You can see at the list above)

3. The XCopy deployment is very very easy just grab a single DLL with your application both for web and windows platform.

Conclusion

Now, I’m very happy with it and never look back to those Crystal Reports, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services and any others. One problem that I found about Telerik’s Reporting is that it still stated as “New” component as it recently released just a few months.

The limitation that you got to stuck when you making a decision is that Telerik’s Reporting didn’t work with Business Intelligence reports. (Which Crystal Reports, ActiveReports and XtraReports did the same!) If you want to work with Business Intelligence reports for now, please go with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services for now or customize yourself. (As I’m developing the Ajax-based B.I. reports viewer)

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