Alternatives to Crystal Reports for .NET compatible paginated reporting tools?

Question

Alternatives to Crystal Reports for .NET compatible paginated reporting tools?

jkiel 11

We're looking at tools for creating paginated reports. We have a couple of parameters:

There needs to be up-to-date .NET libraries so we can have run the reports via C# wrappers in our code.
Allows for pulling data from SQL Server

We're looking for a low-code (or no-code) reporting solution so that these reports could be created by someone with SQL knowledge, but no knowledge of .NET.

We've been using Crystal Reports for years, and it has worked fine for us, but its libraries are no longer being updated to keep up with .NET, so we're looking to move on.

We've looked at SSRS and Telerik, which are possibilities since they meet our criteria, but we've found both to have their limitations or challenges, so we wanted to explore other options before making a commitment.

I realize many businesses are discussing BI tools for creating dashboards (we use Power BI ourselves, and it works nicely for this purpose). But sometimes we need a paginated report, such as a printable picking list or delivery certificate, and BI tools seem less ideal for creating something like this.

Any suggestions on tools to look at for this would be much appreciated!

Joyzhao-MSFT 15,651 Reputation points

2022-08-10T08:35:48.06+00:00

Hi @jkiel ,
Has your issue been resolved?
If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know.
If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Regards,
Joy

3 answers

Your answer

Joyzhao-MSFT 15,651 Reputation points

2022-08-10T08:35:48.06+00:00

Hi @jkiel ,
Has your issue been resolved?
If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know.
If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Regards,
Joy

Answer 1

Hi @jkiel ,

a bit late, but it might still help.

One option that seems particularly aligned with your requirements is the reporting component List & Label from combit, which you can find on the Visual Studio Marketplace. It is designed specifically for this kind of application-embedded, paginated reporting scenario: you can integrate it into .NET applications and run reports from C#, while reports can be designed independently by users who don't need to know .NET. SQL Server is supported as a data source as well.

It also focuses strongly on the type of reports you mention—printable, precisely formatted documents such as picking lists, delivery notes/certificates, forms, labels, and similar outputs—rather than primarily being a dashboard/BI tool. That may make it a better fit for your use case than Power BI, while offering an alternative to SSRS and Telerik.

Answer 2

Deleted

This answer has been deleted due to a violation of our Code of Conduct. The answer was manually reported or identified through automated detection before action was taken. Please refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.

Comments have been turned off. Learn more

Answer 3

Hi @jkiel ,
Visual Studio is the best comprehensive IDE for .NET and C++ developers on Windows. And you only need to add Microsoft Reporting Service Project Extension on Visual Studio to create SSRS paginated reports.
As shown below:

For more information, please refer to:
Download SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) for Visual Studio.
Reporting Services in SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT).
Best Regards,
Joy

If the answer is the right solution, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.