ActiveReports vs ReportServer

ActiveReports is a developer reporting solution for.NET and JavaScript, with report designers, viewers and controls for building reporting into applications. ActiveReports.NET targets web and desktop applications and provides design options in Visual Studio, for web and desktop end users, and as a standalone tool. Supported layouts include continuous-page, fixed-page, dashboard and banded-list reports. Web integrations include ASP.NET MVC, Blazor, Razor Pages, React, Angular and Vue; desktop options include WinForms and WPF. ActiveReportsJS supports Angular, React, Svelte, Vue, Nuxt, Vite and Next.js. Its designer and viewer can be embedded in client-side applications without server-side dependencies and connected to APIs or databases through JavaScript. ActiveReports.NET Standard lists more than a dozen export formats, including PDF, Excel, Word and HTML. Linux deployment is described with rendering, printing and exporting. Standard-use components process application-supplied data within the customer’s environment after integration and deployment, while customers manage security in their final application and deployment environment. The listed starting price is $899 per year, and a 30-day trial is available.

ReportServer is an open-source business intelligence platform for companies, with reporting, analysis and distribution tools. It supports Eclipse BIRT, JasperReports, SAP Crystal Reports, script reports, ad-hoc analyses, Mondrian OLAP and Excel or Word reporting. Dynamic Lists produce ad-hoc reports in Excel, PDF or XML, while configurable dashboards can contain reports and HTML5 micro-apps. Reports can run on recurring schedules, as can maintenance scripts. Access controls combine hierarchical objects, user groups, ACLs, ACEs and user variables. Authentication supports usernames and passwords, with Active Directory or scripted single sign-on integration options. The platform connects to relational databases including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, SAP HANA and Google BigQuery, and can send data to services such as FTP, email, Amazon S3, OneDrive/SharePoint, Google Drive and local filesystems. It runs as a Java Servlet web application with metadata in a relational database. Community Edition is free under an AGPL license; Enterprise Edition is €3,999, paid once, including one year of upgrades, with a €1999 renewal.