Why Bold Reports for Enterprise Reporting

Bold Reports is a reporting platform built for pixel-perfect, paginated documents invoices, statements, compliance filings not dashboards. It includes a web-based report designer, an embeddable viewer SDK, a report server with scheduling and multi-tenancy, and a data integration layer. It runs on-premises, in Docker, on Kubernetes, or in the cloud natively supporting RDL and RDLC.

Yes. Bold Reports supports native RDL and RDLC compatibility, allowing organizations to migrate existing SSRS reports while preserving report definitions and layouts. It also provides modern deployment options, application embedding capabilities, multi-tenant support, and customizable reporting experiences.

Bold Reports provides an SDK for JavaScript, React, Angular, Vue, Blazor, ASP.NET Core, and WPF. Add the viewer component to your app, point it at your Report Server with a bearer token, and reports render inline with your product branding no iframes pointing to an external portal, and no redirect required.

· Embedding documentation · Try the embedding demos

Bold Reports offers a free Community License for small teams and a 30-day free trial of the full platform with no credit card required. Paid plans start at $499 per month On-Premises or $999 per month on Cloud, each including 100 users, with no per-developer fees, so the cost stays predictable as your team grows.

The core difference is the report format. Telerik and DevExpress store reports in their own proprietary definition formats. Bold Reports is built natively on RDL and RDLC the open, documented standard also used by SQL Server Reporting Services.

That has three practical consequences. If you already have an SSRS or RDL report estate, those files open in Bold Reports directly, rather than being recreated in a proprietary format. Your reports stay portable, RDL is an open standard, so you're not tied to one vendor's format to read your own reports. And if you ever move on, you leave holding files any RDL-compatible tool can open.

All three products offer a report server, a web designer, embeddable viewers, and pixel-perfect paginated output. If native RDL/RDLC compatibility matters to your team especially coming from SSRS that's where Bold Reports is different.

Bold Reports vs. Telerik Reporting

Yes. Bold Reports supports OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SAML, Windows Authentication, Active Directory integration, JWT authentication, and role-based access control. It also includes row-level security and tenant-level access controls for secure report access.

Bold Reports supports RDL and RDLC, the report formats also used by SQL Server Reporting Services, and runs on Windows, Linux, Docker, Kubernetes and in the cloud. Microsoft's documentation describes SSRS as a set of on-premises tools and services for creating, deploying and managing paginated reports. Bold Reports adds embedding SDKs and built-in multi-tenancy; see the SSRS alternative page for the full comparison.

Bold Reports pricing is published and set per user or per application rather than per developer, so the number of developers on a team does not change the price. Cloud starts at $999 per month and On-Premises at $499 per month, each including 100 users. Telerik Reporting pricing is published by Telerik, so check its current price list before comparing totals. See Bold Reports pricing and the Telerik Reporting alternative page.

Microsoft's public documentation, as of October 2026, describes Power BI paginated reports as RDL (.rdl) files authored in Power BI Report Builder and published to the Power BI service (source: Microsoft Learn, "What are paginated reports in Power BI?"). Bold Reports also produces paginated reports from RDL and RDLC, so the comparison is about deployment, licensing and embedding.

Deployment. Power BI's paginated reporting runs through the Power BI cloud service. Bold Reports runs wherever you need it on-premises, in your private cloud, or fully air-gapped so data that can't leave your network doesn't have to.
Licensing. Microsoft's documentation, as of October 2026, states that license requirements for Power BI paginated reports are the same as for Power BI reports; see Microsoft Learn for current terms. Bold Reports is licensed per user with 100 users included, or On-Premises per application with unlimited users.
Embedding. If your goal is to embed pixel-perfect reporting inside your own application white-labeled, multi-tenant, on your infrastructure that's the workload Bold Reports is built around.

Power BI remains an excellent choice for interactive, self-service analytics and dashboards. Many teams run both.

Bold Reports vs. Power BI

Yes. Bold Reports helps organizations modernize legacy reporting environments by supporting paginated reporting, modern .NET applications, web-based report design, and embedded reporting experiences. It enables teams to preserve existing reporting workflows while adopting modern reporting technologies.

Bold Reports supports export to PDF, Excel (XLS and XLSX), Word (DOCX), CSV, HTML, and image formats (PNG, JPEG). Reports can be exported on demand or scheduled for automatic delivery by email, making it suitable for both developer-driven and business-user-driven reporting workflows.

Bold Reports connects to SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQLite, SSAS, REST APIs, OData, JSON, XML, CSV, and Excel out of the box. Bold Data Hub extends this with ETL-style transformation and staging for more complex data pipeline requirements across 25+ connectors.

Yes. Bold Reports runs on Windows, Linux, Docker, and Kubernetes with full feature parity. In an on-premises deployment, report data can remain inside your own network. This makes it suitable for regulated industries, government, and enterprise environments that cannot use cloud-hosted reporting services.

Yes. Bold Reports supports on-premises deployment, data residency requirements, audit logging, role-based security, and air-gapped environments. These capabilities help organizations meet security, compliance, and governance requirements across regulated industries.

Comparisons on this page are based on publicly available information as of October 2026 and may change. Product names are trademarks of their respective owners; their use here does not imply affiliation or endorsement. Last updated: October 2026.

Comparison scope: Bold Reports 15.1 (Cloud and On-Premises editions) compared with SQL Server Reporting Services (SQL Server 2022 Reporting Services documentation), Power BI paginated reports (Power BI service), Crystal Reports 2020, Telerik Reporting and DevExpress XtraReports, using each vendor's public documentation. Key for the table above: "Yes" = listed in the vendor's public documentation; "Varies" or "Often" = depends on the product or edition; other entries are described in the cell.

Sources: SSRS documentation, Power BI paginated reports documentation, SAP Crystal Reports documentation, Telerik Reporting documentation.

Roadmap and release cadence: the current Bold Reports release is 15.1.10; see the Bold Reports roadmap and product updates. Total cost of ownership: Bold Reports pricing is published, starting at $499 per month for 100 users; see Bold Reports pricing. A detailed comparison sheet is available on request.

Migration path: see the SSRS migration guide and the Crystal Reports migration guide.

Bold Reports embeds in web applications through SDKs for JavaScript, React, Angular, Blazor, ASP.NET Core and WPF, and its viewer and designer components work with RDL and RDLC reports. Both Bold Reports and DevExpress XtraReports offer embeddable viewers; the choice depends on whether your team needs RDL/RDLC compatibility. See the DevExpress Reports alternative page for details.