Looker vs SAP Crystal Reports: Which is a better fit?

I love the ability to visualize all of the data in one space. Dashboard creation is easy and so useful.

Can get a bit confusing and confining with more complex queries/analysis. Machine written sql can be annoying.

We use ours with Redshift and Aurora and they take most advantage of both systems. Their super awesome customer support - always available chat who are really good at what they are doing.

To be fair, if you have a terrible underlying data warehouse, then all Looker will do is expose that.

It’s a good option if you want to do dashboards connected to google sheets. Also a good alternative to PowerBi.

Unfortunately, their documentation could use some improving as often I find myself confused and unsure what to do with their docs.

Looker has been a great and useful tool for out business. Where we've found challenges is in the specific data dictionary and set-up, which internally was not well prepared prior to implementation.

I dislike how long it can take certain reports in Looker to load.

Ramesh R

Associate Manager

Best class application to build reports , easy and with great features , One of my best development tool.

Some functions are hard to find and error messages are very vague. If the error messages could help pin point the errors a little better it would be easier.

I've used versions 5 up to 2013 - the power to do amazing formulas and formatting is awesome (from about 2010 to version 2013). Also, the ability to connect to almost any data source is great.

Crystal Reports is now owned by SAP, so beware of the horrible contractual and licensing agreements that may apply.

Talk of it's report features, various charts, user friendliness, ease of use, pricing, you will love it. Big ups to the developers because they've made my work very easy.

It has a weak data security model. The developer has to change permissions for different files.

Each version has improved while maintaining ease and approachability. I highly recommend this software to anyone in need of an ad-hoc or print-ready formatted reporting solution.

The lack of online dashboarding--with Power BI and other analytics moving into this space, I'm not sure if Crystal survives.