Is BIRT a good replacment for Jasper Report?

hq4ever

Hello Everyone,

We have Jasper Reports integrated into our application.
The solution is good, but not great !

I'm currently evaluating other reporting alternative, one of which is obviously Eclipse BIRT.


What would you suggest, I'm open to any comment regrading Jasper vs. BIRT dilemma.



Thank you,
Maxim.

Virgil Dodson

Hi Maxim,

I don't know what kind of problems you are having with Jasper, but I can give you a few of the features below that make BIRT unique.

First, BIRT seperates data collection from layout which gives a couple advantages like multiple data sources and joint data sources.

BIRT also provides a modern web-like report design environment that is closer to building a web page, versus the typical banded report writer that is closer to a printed page. This means you can use grids, and nested grids to help you layout the page you need without fancy tricks to get the data in the various places it is needed in the report.

BIRT supports reusability with templates (custom report starting points) and libraries (reusable report pieces).

As for extensibility, BIRT has places all throughout the report processing where Expressions are used instead of hard-coded values. You can also over-write the methods used for processing the report with scripting in JavaScript, or by call Java Event Handlers. Finally, there are various extension points in BIRT where you can write custom plug-ins for data sources, report items, charts, and output types.

There are several wizards in BIRT that make report design easier, like a chart wizard and a wizard to help drill from one report to another.

These are what I can think of of the top of my head. Others who have used Jasper in the past may have other BIRT features they like too.