Top 10 Reporting Tools to Replace SSRS

For nearly two decades, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) has been the go-to reporting solution for many organizations using the Microsoft ecosystem. It provided paginated reports, scheduling, and basic dashboards. However, with SSRS support reaching its end of life, businesses need a modern alternative that can handle today’s needs.

Modern reporting needs

  • Cloud + on-premises flexibility
    Deploy where your data lives — hybrid and multicloud support.

  • Interactive dashboards beyond static reports
    Exploration, drill-downs, and real-time visuals for modern users.

  • Scalability without per-user licensing burden
    Cost models that scale with usage, not headcount.

  • Embedding and customization options
    White-labeling, SDKs, APIs, and UI extensibility for product teams.

  • AI/ML integration for smarter insights
    Built-in analytics, forecasting, and natural language exploration.

This article highlights the top 10 reporting tools to replace SSRS in 2025 and why one tool in particular,
Helical Insight, stands out as the best choice for organizations seeking a modern, flexible, and cost-effective reporting platform.

1. Helical Insight: Best SSRS Replacement

Top 10 Reporting Tools to Replace SSRS

  • Create pixel-perfect paginated reports (invoices, statements, government reports, regulatory forms).
  • Schedule reports and distribute them via email, FTP, or exports.
  • Export in multiple formats: PDF, XLS, DOCX, CSV, HTML.

🔹 Advanced Beyond SSRS

  • Interactive dashboards with drag-and-drop visualization.
  • Support for ad-hoc reporting (business users build reports without coding).
  • Advanced analytics with SQL + machine learning integration.

🔹 Cost-Effective

  • Flat pricing → No per-user or per-core licensing.
  • Community edition (free) → Ideal for startups.
  • Enterprise support without vendor lock-in.

🔹 Flexible Deployment

  • On-premises, private cloud, or hybrid — unlike Power BI Premium which pushes cloud adoption.
  • Works with any database (SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, NoSQL).

🔹 Embedding & White-Labeling

  • Perfect for ISVs and enterprises that want to embed reporting inside their applications.
  • Full white-label support → brand it as your own.

🔹 Extensible & Developer-Friendly

  • Built-in workflow engine for custom automation (like report distribution with approval chains).
  • APIs and scripting for extending functionality.
  • Cross-database joins (query across different sources in one report).

👉 In short: Helical Insight covers every scenario where SSRS is used and adds modern BI capabilities on top.

Click here to free download and try at your end.

2. Power BI Report Server

Top 10 Reporting Tools to Replace SSR

The official Microsoft successor to SSRS.

  • Supports paginated reports (via RDL files) and Power BI dashboards.
  • Seamless integration with SQL Server and Microsoft ecosystem.
  • Deployment is on-premises (good for regulated industries).
  • Challenge: Requires Power BI Premium licensing (costly).
  • Best fit if you’re heavily tied to Microsoft stack and willing to pay premium.

3. Tableau

Top 10 Reporting Tools to Replace SSRS

A global leader in BI and visualization.

  • Strong interactive dashboards and visual exploration.
  • Broad support for connectors, cloud, and on-prem deployment.
  • Pixel-perfect reporting is limited → not an SSRS equivalent for regulatory or compliance reporting.
  • Challenge: Expensive per-user licensing makes migration from SSRS costly.

4. Qlik Sense

Top 10 Reporting Tools to Replace SSRS

Known for its associative data engine and fast exploration.

  • Good for enterprise analytics and visualization.
  • AI-assisted data discovery.
  • Paginated reporting requires Qlik NPrinting (additional licensing).
  • Better for analytics than SSRS-style reporting.

5. Looker (Google Cloud)

Top 10 Reporting Tools to Replace SSRS

Modern, developer-focused BI platform.

  • Cloud-native with strong integration into Google ecosystem.
  • LookML (a modeling layer) enables governance + customization.
  • Great for embedded analytics.
  • Challenge: Expensive and not ideal for organizations needing on-prem or pixel-perfect reports.

6. TIBCO Jaspersoft

Top 10 Reporting Tools to Replace SSRS

One of the closest open-source SSRS-like reporting tools.

  • Known for pixel-perfect reporting and embeddability.
  • Strong enterprise adoption history.
  • Supports multiple export formats, scheduling, embedding.
  • Challenge: UI feels dated; community edition is limited.

7. Pentaho (Hitachi Vantara)

Top 10 Reporting Tools to Replace SSRS

A legacy reporting + ETL suite.

  • Combines reporting + data integration.
  • Longstanding SSRS alternative for enterprises.
  • Reports can be pixel-perfect but less modern in design.
  • Challenge: Slow innovation, less community support today.

8. Apache Superset

Top 10 Reporting Tools to Replace SSRS

A modern open-source BI project from Apache.

  • Free, fast-growing community.
  • Great for SQL-savvy teams.
  • Easy to set up dashboards for analytics.
  • Challenge: No strong pixel-perfect/paginated reporting like SSRS. Better for visualization, not regulatory reporting.

9. Zoho Analytics

Top 10 Reporting Tools to Replace SSRS

Cloud-based BI tool targeting SMBs.

  • Easy to use, affordable pricing.
  • Good for dashboards, KPIs, data blending.
  • Limited on-premises deployment options.
  • Challenge: Lacks enterprise-level flexibility and paginated reports.

10. Mode Analytics

Top 10 Reporting Tools to Replace SSRS

Modern reporting + analytics collaboration tool.

  • Strong SQL + Python/R integration for data teams.
  • Combines notebooks and visualizations.
  • Cloud-first, easy to share reports.
  • Challenge: Not built for pixel-perfect SSRS-style reporting.

You May Also Like

Leave a Reply

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