Alternative to BIRT Reports

While BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) pioneered open-source reporting, **over 68% of BIRT users now seek alternatives** (Gartner 2024) due to outdated architecture, stagnant innovation, and restrictive deployments. If you’re struggling with BIRT’s limitations, it’s time to embrace a next-generation solution that delivers both traditional reporting and modern analytics.

Why Do Businesses Need an Alternative to BIRT Reports?

BIRT was once a trailblazer in open-source reporting. However, with the rapid evolution of business needs, companies are facing new demands that traditional tools like BIRT struggle to meet. Here’s why businesses are making the shift:

  • Abandoned Community Edition: Only 2 minor updates since 2022 with critical security patches delayed
  • Modern UX Expectations: Users now expect intuitive simple interfaces, drag-and-drop capabilities, and seamless navigation. In a fast changing world affected a lot by AI, BIRT’s developer-heavy approach no longer appeals to end users.
  • Demand for Real-Time Data Access: Businesses want real-time insights, while BIRT largely focuses on static reports.
  • Scalability & Integration Gaps: As organizations scale and adopt new data systems, BIRT’s integration capabilities fall short.
  • Hidden Costs: Enterprise licensing requires proprietary plugins ($15K+/year) for basic cloud deployment
  • Architectural Obsolescence: No containerization support (Docker/Kubernetes) and single-server limitations
  • Mobile Blindspot: Zero responsive design for reports viewed on tablets/phones
  • AI Gap: No NLP/GenAI capabilities despite 89% of enterprises prioritizing AI analytics (Forrester 2025)

What to Look for in an Alternative to BIRT Reports

When evaluating an alternative, it’s important to look beyond basic reporting. Here are key features and capabilities you should prioritize:

  • Active support from the community and company
  • Regular upgrades, bug fixes, new features, enhancements and releases
  • FLAT Transparent pricing will always be helpful as it will help to scale the BI adoption without ever increasing licensing costs
  • Support of canned reporting for creating those traditional pixel perfect reports also
  • Self-Service BI: Empower non-technical users to create reports without coding.
  • Modern Visualizations: Support for advanced charts, maps, and dashboards.
  • Data Source Compatibility: Especially with the new age databases which are coming into picture.
  • Interactive & Embedded Analytics: Easy embedding in portals or products.
  • Scalability: Support for high-volume data processing and multi-user environments.
  • Automation & Scheduling: Built-in scheduling and alerting mechanisms.

Helical Insight: The Best Alternative to BIRT Reports

Enter Helical Insight, a modern, open-source Business Intelligence platform that offers a robust, scalable, and flexible solution for enterprises of all sizes. Unlike BIRT, Helical Insight is designed with both developers and business users in mind — making it the best alternative to BIRT Reports available today.

Why Helical Insight Stands Out:

  • Canned Reporting Module: Generate pixel-perfect, production-grade reports like invoices, POs, delivery notes.
  • Workflow Engine: Automate tasks and integrate custom logic into reports.
  • Self-Service Interface: Create reports without coding.
  • Developer Friendly: API-driven architecture and extensibility via JavaScript, HTML, and plugins.
  • Embedded Analytics: Easily integrate reports into web or mobile apps.

How Helical Insight Solves BIRT Reports Limitations

Requirement BIRT Shortfall Helical Insight 6.0 Advantage
Licensing OSS core + paid extensions Free version. Enterprise version with FLAT PRICING
Deployment Windows bound Windows, Linux, CentOS, MAC, Docker, Kubernetes
Reporting Static PDFs only
  • Pixel-perfect multi-page reporting with export to PDF, Excel, ODT, PPT, etc.
  • Dashboards and charts with drill-down, drill-through, cross-filtering, interactivity
  • GenAI integration for conversational chat-based analysis
Innovation No roadmap since 2021 Strong roadmap: minor releases every 3 months, major every 6 months. Includes canned reporting, GenAI, in-memory engine, workflows, and more.
Embedding Complex Java integration Multiple embedding, integration, and SSO methods available
User Types Developers only Developers and non-tech business users
Scheduling Lack of modern scheduling tools Inbuilt scheduling, emailing, alerts, and job automation

FAQ: Alternative to BIRT Reports

What is the best open-source alternative to BIRT Reports?

Helical Insight is the leading open-source alternative to BIRT Reports, offering canned reporting, modern dashboards, and an intuitive UI.

Can Helical Insight handle pixel-perfect reporting like BIRT?

Yes, Helical Insight supports pixel-perfect, production-grade reports for documents like invoices, POs, and certificates.

Is it difficult to migrate from BIRT to Helical Insight?

Migration is straightforward with Helical Insight’s support team and documentation, and it offers greater flexibility post-migration. Though there is no direct utility to migrate them. But the UI is very intuitive of Helical Insight. Further, Helical Insight can also help with a training plan, migration assistance as well. Also, in the BIRT you must have created the reports with the SQL, hence that SQL can also be used here thus further reducing the time required to migrate them.

Does Helical Insight support real-time reporting?

Absolutely. It connects to real-time databases and offers dynamic, live dashboards.

Can business users create reports without IT help in Helical Insight?

Yes, the self-service module allows non-technical users to create, customize, and view reports without coding. This comes with a low code no code interface to create reports. Further Open source BI Helical insight is also working on GenAI integration which can allow chat based data analysis, prescriptive and descriptive analysis, recommendation and much more.

Is Helical Insight suitable for embedded analytics?

100%. It offers out-of-the-box embedded analytics and customization options for SaaS products and web apps. There are various kind of embedding options like iframe, webservices, object tag, embed tag as well as various kind of SSO options like JWT, oauth, oauth 2.0, custom token based SSO, SAML, okta etc.

What types of visualizations does Helical Insight offer?

Helical Insight supports more than 50+ visualization options which includes table, crosstab, pie, donut, line, bar, grouped bar, stacked bar, 100% bar, treemap, area, map, waterfall, radial, gauge, bullet, card, trend card, KPI widget, sankey, circle packing, bubble and much more. Further, there are even options to allow you to integrate an external JS based visualization also.

Is Helical Insight more actively developed than BIRT?

Yes, Helical Insight has an active roadmap, frequent releases, and professional support. Every 3 months you can see a new release happening.

How does Helical Insight handle scheduling and automation?

Built-in job scheduler, alerts, and report distribution make automation seamless.

Please register here for free trial : https://www.helicalinsight.com/register/ . You can also reach out on support@helicalinsight.com so that our team can help you with a customized demo, FREE POC, as well as provide assistance with migration plans.

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Helical Insight’s self-service capabilities is one to reckon with. It allows you to simply drag and drop columns, add filters, apply aggregate functions if required, and create reports and dashboards on the fly. For advanced users, the self-service component has ability to add javascript, HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3 and AJAX. These customizations allow you to create dynamic reports and dashboards. You can also add new charts inside the self-service component, add new kind of aggregate functions and customize it using our APIs.
Helical Insight’s self-service capabilities is one to reckon with. It allows you to simply drag and drop columns, add filters, apply aggregate functions if required, and create reports and dashboards on the fly. For advanced users, the self-service component has ability to add javascript, HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3 and AJAX. These customizations allow you to create dynamic reports and dashboards. You can also add new charts inside the self-service component, add new kind of aggregate functions and customize it using our APIs.
Helical Insight, via simple browser based interface of Canned Reporting module, also allows to create pixel perfect printer friendly document kind of reports also like Invoice, P&L Statement, Balance sheet etc.
Helical Insight, via simple browser based interface of Canned Reporting module, also allows to create pixel perfect printer friendly document kind of reports also like Invoice, P&L Statement, Balance sheet etc.
If you have a product, built on any platform like Dot Net or Java or PHP or Ruby, you can easily embed Helical Insight within it using iFrames or webservices, for quick value add through instant visualization of data.
If you have a product, built on any platform like Dot Net or Java or PHP or Ruby, you can easily embed Helical Insight within it using iFrames or webservices, for quick value add through instant visualization of data.
Being a 100% browser-based BI tool, you can connect with your database and analyse across any location and device. There is no need to download or install heavy memory-consuming developer tools – All you need is a Browser application! We are battle-tested on most of the commonly used browsers.
Being a 100% browser-based BI tool, you can connect with your database and analyse across any location and device. There is no need to download or install heavy memory-consuming developer tools – All you need is a Browser application! We are battle-tested on most of the commonly used browsers.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
A first-of-its-kind Open-Source BI framework, Helical Insight is completely API-driven. This allows you to add functionalities, including but not limited to adding a new exporting type, new datasource type, core functionality expansion, new charting in adhoc etc., at any place whenever you wish, using your own in-house developers.
A first-of-its-kind Open-Source BI framework, Helical Insight is completely API-driven. This allows you to add functionalities, including but not limited to adding a new exporting type, new datasource type, core functionality expansion, new charting in adhoc etc., at any place whenever you wish, using your own in-house developers.
It handles huge volumes of data effectively. Caching, Pagination, Load-Balancing and In-Memory not only provides you with amazing experience, but also and does not burden the database server more than required. Further effective use of computing power gives best performance and complex calculations even on the big data even with smaller machines for your personal use. Filtering, Sorting, Cube Analysis, Inter Panel Communication on the dashboards all at lightning speed. Thereby, making best open-source Business Intelligence solution in the market.
It handles huge volumes of data effectively. Caching, Pagination, Load-Balancing and In-Memory not only provides you with amazing experience, but also and does not burden the database server more than required. Further effective use of computing power gives best performance and complex calculations even on the big data even with smaller machines for your personal use. Filtering, Sorting, Cube Analysis, Inter Panel Communication on the dashboards all at lightning speed. Thereby, making best open-source Business Intelligence solution in the market.
With advance NLP algorithm, business users simply ask questions like, “show me sales of last quarter”, “average monthly sales of my products”. Let the application give the power to users without knowledge of query language or underlying data architecture
With advance NLP algorithm, business users simply ask questions like, “show me sales of last quarter”, “average monthly sales of my products”. Let the application give the power to users without knowledge of query language or underlying data architecture
Our application is compatible with almost all databases, be it RDBMS, or columnar database, or even flat files like spreadsheets or csv files. You can even connect to your own custom database via JDBC connection. Further, our database connection can be switched dynamically based on logged in users or its organization or other parameters. So, all your clients can use the same reports and dashboards without worrying about any data security breech.
Our application is compatible with almost all databases, be it RDBMS, or columnar database, or even flat files like spreadsheets or csv files. You can even connect to your own custom database via JDBC connection. Further, our database connection can be switched dynamically based on logged in users or its organization or other parameters. So, all your clients can use the same reports and dashboards without worrying about any data security breech.
Our application can be installed on an in-house server where you have full control of your data and its security. Or on cloud where it is accessible to larger audience without overheads and maintenance of the servers. One solution that works for all.
Our application can be installed on an in-house server where you have full control of your data and its security. Or on cloud where it is accessible to larger audience without overheads and maintenance of the servers. One solution that works for all.
Different companies have different business processes that the existing BI tools do not encompass. Helical Insight permits you to design your own workflows and specify what functional module of BI gets triggered
Different companies have different business processes that the existing BI tools do not encompass. Helical Insight permits you to design your own workflows and specify what functional module of BI gets triggered