Compare SQL Server Reporting Services to Crystal R

Question

Which of Crystal Reports and SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) is better to use?

Answer 1

I feel like a martian having an extensive and positive (but sometimes complex) experience with Crystal Reports, which is now completely integrated in our user interface (VBA), where requested reports parameters and filters are transparently inherited from the user interface ...

Answer 2

I agree with @Carlton partly for the reasons he describes. I also think that reporting services is a more mature product (even though Crystal Reports has been around longer). The Test and deploy model is pretty hearty, and the built-in ability to track report usage is very helpful.

I also find it much easier to design reports in Reporting Services - Microsoft has learned how to build a good IDE, whereas the Crystal IDE has always seemed like an after thought (though that's better than an afterbirth, which is what it used to be).

Edit: Additional thoughts I also think that in a Windows shop, SSRS offers all kinds of sweet integrations with the OS and SQL Server. You can rely on SQL assemblies for built-in code reuse fairly easily in SSRS, and the integration with the Active Directory security model makes securing your reports very easy.

Answer 3

Man...my company has sooo many crystal reports...and the company before that had lots too. From version 8.5 to 11.5. They kind of already have their foot in the door so to speak. I think the CrystalReportViewer is a steaming piece of crap but it does work(for the most part).

After reading some of these answers, I'm switching to SSRS for my next reporting project! The writing is on the wall...MS will drop Crystal from VS and replace with SSRS. The only thing that's going to suck is when MS starts charging for it.

EDIT: Messing around with SSRS today and it looks quite promising. I must say the designer is taking some getting used to...CR Designer has it beat in ease of use. You can tell this is designed for programmers where as CR is geared toward report designers.

EDIT2: SSRS really fails to meet my reporting needs. Designing reports sucks when you want to preview and no parameter prompting available for standalone. Is there a better way to design them...preferably not in VS?

Answer 4

Did you think about an alternative? If you want to use the features of Crystal Reports but don't want to pay so much for it you could have a look at Crystal-Clear which is an Java based reporting tool supporting Crystal Reports templates too. It comes with a GUI-designer and data sources are also configurable per system. (Almost ODBC-like, you just set a name for the connection and the connection is configured on the system.)

Answer 5

If you're considering SSRS and are concerned about the fact that it's "free" but you need to either buy and additional SQL Server license or distribute SQL Express, then you might be interested in Data Dynamics Reports

It offers all that is in SSRS and adds Master Reports, Themes, Calendar data region, Data Visualization (Databar, Sparkline, Iconset, ColorScale, ...), complete object model for maximum programming flexibility, royalty free end user report designer, barcode report item, excel template export and data merging, and much more. You can download a trial from Data Dynamics (now GrapeCity) and try it with few reports, you will not be disappointed.

Answer 6

I've used both (Crystal Reports 2008 and SSRS 2008) because I did not notice this thread in time.

Apart from the setup which was a bit easier with CR, I could not notice a single feature where CR is at least on par with SSRS. Yes, Crystal Reports is really that bad.

In my opinion the absoultely worst part in CR is the IDE. But there are also other killer features, such as poor SQL performance and horribly looking graphs (at least in the CR version that comes with VS 2008) are also notable "killer" features.