# SAP Crystal Reports Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is SAP Crystal Reports the right Reporting solution for you? Explore 175 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/212107/SAP-Crystal-Reports/reviews --- SAP Crystal Reports 4.3 (175) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/212107/SAP-Crystal-Reports/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Reviews of SAP Crystal Reports Ease of use 3.7 Customer Service 3.9 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews Gareth R Inventory ManagerApparel & Fashion, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “It’s a powerful tool for creating detailed, formatted reports, though it can be a bit complex at first.“ March 19, 2026 FT Francesco T Software DeveloperInformation Technology and Services, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “unfriendly interface and difficulties in debugging and creating complex reportsdifficulty managing embedded images and field management logic to review compared to competitive products“ August 30, 2023 Gareth R Inventory ManagerApparel & Fashion, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “What I liked most about SAP Crystal Reports was the level of control it gives over both data and presentation.“ March 19, 2026 Heena K Client Services Lead- EMEAMarketing and Advertising, 1,001 - 5,000 employeesUsed the software for: 6-12 months. “a. Way too expensive for unlimited access license, not right for small-med enterprises “ August 18, 2024 Garrett V IT OfficerBanking, 11 - 50 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “My experience with Crystal Reports has been positive and I keep going back to the product if I ever need to develop reporting and I do not have time to code a new program.“ March 5, 2025 MA Malik A Senior Software EngineerComputer Software, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “there is no propper way to implement wilth angular, if I am wrong please correct me“ July 12, 2022 RH Richelle H Proposals Project ManagerInformation Technology and Services, 10,001+ employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “SAP Crystal Reports has helped me tremendously with keeping up with our services time and making sure that I am billing correctly.“ June 16, 2025 LB Liam B IT & Project ManagerTransportation/Trucking/Railroad, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “their pricing model is very outdated.“ February 12, 2023 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 175 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use Ramesh M. Associate Manager Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Crystal Reports Review" January 15, 2019 5.0 Best class application to build reports , easy and with great features , One of my best development tool Pros Lots of features , using it from years and made 500+ reports , simple loving it Can connect many different databases and support connection providers supports sub reports , drill down reports and Hyperlink Conditional formatting and Reports wizards It's fast and never hangs Good support even with integration with Microsoft tools used for creating dashboard , charts Cons I think it needs some kind of subscription features like SSRS It's little time consuming to format and align tables ,texts ,lines Review Source Caroline I. SAP B1 Consultant Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "One of the Best Business Intelligent Reporting Tools for SME's" September 25, 2018 4.0 Crystal Reports helps us have a more detailed look of our company and helps us make informed decisions on what we need to do to improve various components of our business. Pros I like that Crystal reports have a very strong capabilities like sorting of data. You are also able to retrieve most of your company' data for analysis using the tool. Crystal reports helps us create highly formatted and detailed reports - much more that what we are able to get from the SAP Business One software itself. Another awesome thing about Crystal reports is that it is that the process of creating reports is easy once you get used to the mechanisms of the tool. For example, once you pull a certain aspect of a specific set of data, yo can reuse it and only change a variable according to your new needs. Crystal Reports are also pretty affordable for small and medium sized companies. Cons Though the initial purchase of crystal reports can be quite affordable, the tool gets expensive when you need to buy the server which is quite costly but essential for scheduled notifications and other benefits. Review Source MC Miranda C. IT Director Retail Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Outdated software." February 6, 2025 2.0 It used to work fine until the software became outdated. Pros It connected to our POS system to make reports. Cons When we upgraded out POS system we are no longer about to send out reports. It was hard to actually make reports with the report builder. Review Source Rohit S. Operations Manager (Systems - Philanthropy) Used the software for: 2+ years ### "My organization uses Crystal Reports as a primary reporting tool for our Oracle 12c database." October 11, 2017 5.0 Pros It is difficult to make a sophisticated tool like Crystal Reports intuitive, but once you know the layout of how to add and view tables and links, it is quite easy. There is a lot of flexibility as well. Cons There were some hick ups when we upgraded to Oracle 12c, but this could be because we were not using the most current version of Crystal Reports. Review Source Angie B. Accounts Receivable/Payable and Operations Manager Consumer Goods Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great reporting system! " October 23, 2018 4.0 Pros Crystal reports are a great way to see your data in many different ways. Customization is fairly easy with some training. Cons We have always had an issue with our reports reconciling to our system. They take some training to get them set up correctly. Review Source Carlos R. Head of Industrial Metrology Lab Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Useful tool if you need to process data from a DB and present them in various ways in reports." January 18, 2018 4.0 Pros The Crystal is used in my laboratory to generate the calibration certificates that are delivered to the clients with each team. It allows a great configuration both of appearance and of manupulation and access to databases where all the data is saved. It is really a useful and powerful tool and that can be used with little training, reading the manuals of the software. Cons The software allows you to do many things as you know more about SQL and the like. It is necessary to learn a little about the operation of the DBs to squeeze the potential of the Crystal Review Source Paul Z. Owner and Creative Force Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Top of the line reporting tool" February 27, 2018 5.0 Robust and good looking reports for all areas of my business and clients Pros This report writer is extremely easy to use. It provide good looking reports that are robust and allow easy integration into my visual studio applications. The ease of programming with crystal's api base gives me full control of how my reports are to behave without having to pass parameters in to the report. Cons API programming on subreports can be tough but once learned, it's not too bad. Also, I found dynamic database connections are tricky due when working in domains. But again, once learned, it is easy to continue Review Source Darian R. Cat Herder Design Used the software for: 2+ years ### "It's like Word, but frustrating" June 12, 2018 3.0 Generated invoices and various other documents to support our company. Pros Flexible tie in to your existing system and infrastructure is a plus, it handles many different criteria and complex output. Cons This is a product that has been around a long time. And it does a lot. But it does not look good doing it. The output never quite matches the template thing, and the customization is tedious beyond imagine. Review Source Reginald L. B. Program Coordinator Higher Education Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "A Bit Difficult " March 3, 2020 3.0 Overall I was used to using it, but I am happy we no longer use this system. Pros The main pro for me was it made producing student evaluations easier. They would come out individually per course section. Which saves me time on editing and uploading to faculty review documents. Cons The system was slow and many times did not work. The program my university used didn’t have a download option, we could only select to print. Which meant that the reports were processed and printed I would have to go back and scan them and send them back to me. Review Source Cam P. Network Support Specialist Mental Health Care Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Great alternative to Pentaho" February 14, 2018 4.0 Pros There are so many features that crystal has over their competitors, many of them being small, yet they have such big impact when reporting. Cons Wish crystal reports wasn't so resource hungry, but besides that everything else seems to be pretty good! Review Source VR Verified Reviewer IT Officer Banking Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Crystal Reports is robust yet easy to use" March 5, 2025 5.0 My experience with Crystal Reports has been positive and I keep going back to the product if I ever need to develop reporting and I do not have time to code a new program. Pros Crystal Reports is very friendly for the non programmer. For someone working in the analytics industry and not well versed in programming, this product works very well. Cons Sometimes the groupings can be confusing and the hierarchy of where to put the groups in the report. Review Source DD David D. Report Developer Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Crystal Reports Helps Companies See Through To Their Business Info" November 19, 2015 5.0 Pros Learning Crystal Reports is only part of the educational process for learning Business Intelligence Reporting. You need to have the fundamental ability to become familiar with how a business operates, how it uses information. You need to be able to translate a company's requirements for managing and and acting on information to the technical organization and structure of its data systems. To be a successful report developer you need to be able to speak both languages. There are some great resources out there for Crystal Reports professionals, such my own Crystal Reports group on LinkedIn, where developers meet and share ideas as well as where employers and recruiters come to find them. There is also the Crystal Reports Users Group Crystal Users group, both hosted by Yahoo Groups, which have been serving and supporting Crystal Reports professionals for over a decade. Plus many web sites, online tutorials, video tutorials, skills training and more. Just don't forget that there are two sides to Business Intelligence Reporting - and Crystal Reports is only one of them. Crystal Reports is a highly featured and flexible business intelligence tool that has been around for over 2 decades. It is database independent, meaning you can develop reports against just about any database or structured file format, from Microsoft SQL and Oracle, to flat file to text file to spreadsheets to anything for which you can access via ODBC, DAO, XML, OLE DB, JDBC and many more protocols. Crystal Reports integrates seamlessly into SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise products as well as other SAP data management products. Reports can link tables internally within the design template, or developers can build their own external SQL Queries, views, stored procedures or universes and build their reports off those data sources. Crystal also allows developers to script their custom own SQL-based query in the Database Editor. And if your data source changes, Crystal provides tools for mapping your existing report over to the new similarly structured data source. Record selection formulas can help filter out unwanted data to improve the efficiency of report performance. Crystal Reports has a highly flexible report design editor that features multi-pass linear data processing, allowing analysis to be performed while reading records as while printing records. Data may be grouped or sorted based on raw data or on formulas that can analyze and manipulate record data for customized processing. Crystal Reports allows developers to create virtually any kind of data-based report, from tabular column listings to data-driven letters to charts, cross-tabs, free-form and (pre-printed) form-fitting solutions. Extensive summary functions, running totals, and a rich formula programming language (Crystal also supports Basic syntax) provide unlimited opportunity to manage and manipulate raw data for analysis and presentation to the customer, be it a management report, operations report or customer-facing report. With sub-reports, it is possible to link together tangentially Connected Data sources, expanding the opportunities of publishing relevant information onto a single page or report. Individually formattable multi-section detail, page and group headers and footer sections allow the developer to play with suppression, paging and other formatting options and formulas. Crystal Reports is a WSIWYG design tool, allowing you to see what you are doing as you do it. Whether you use the the grid or guidelines with the Design Tool, or the size and alignment tools with the Preview Tool, Crystal lets you create the report as you want to see it. You can integrate external images, files, or even BI products, such as Crystal Dashboards (Xelcius). Through the use of parameters, reports can be designed to include user input in the record selection, formatting and operation of the report. Reports can be generated for printing, export to Adobe Acrobat, to Microsoft Excel or many other formats. Crystal can also be easily linked into 3rd party applications through XML, Java, Visual Studio or other APIs. Crystal Reports can also be easily delivered through the Crystal Reports Server or the Business Objects Enterprise Server, providing a hosting platform for both scheduled automation and on-demand report generation. Cons For someone experienced in business intelligence, databases or programming, Crystal Reports is relatively intuitive, though it will take time and experience to learn how to fully leverage every feature. There are included tutorials that teach the basics, but real world situations often defy the simplicity of the provided solutions. There are plenty of third-party resources from Yahoo and LinkedIn groups to user support web sites and video, instructional and printed training materials. Crystal is not something that the home user can jump into. The license is relatively expensive and does not include a database server, database or other data source. Licensing for enterprise environments can get pricey quickly. While many employers hire report developers directly, there is a large community of professional report developers who work contracts, either independently or through contract employment agencies. In most cases, the employer provides the licensed Crystal Reports tool, but if a company has only infrequent report development needs, they may expect the consultant to provide their own copy of the software. SAP is really not set up for supporting the individual, however, preferring to engage the company in business-licensed products. Crystal Reports has incredible flexibility but their are limitations, mostly in formatting. Working with lines and boxes is not as flexible as, say, Microsoft Word. Charts and graphs have many features and options but they can be difficult to try and force your data to conform to the usage requirements. Graphics cannot be edited in-template, and some image formats are not supported (though you can easily convert an image to a supported format). The design tool can have issues with orphaned text at the bottom or the top of a page. While you can include comments in formulas, there is no ability to provide comments to the actual data, static, calculated value or other objects within the report design. Rules applied to the selection and manipulation of data can have unexpected results, leading to manual troubleshooting of report design and database queries. Like any piece of template design software, there are bound to be situations where you want to do something a certain way that is not supported by Crystal Reports, which can lead to frustration. But there are usually ways to think outside of the box to accomplish what you want. Crystal Reports is getting a little long in the tooth. While still one of the worlds' most popular reporting tools, It hasn't received a major update in many years, while Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services as well as open-source and other business intelligence competition products have grown in popularity, and it shows. The user interface and feature set hasn't significantly changed in quite a while. Of course, it was already pretty rich and complete, but it lacks the feel and finish of many current generation software products. There is also no version available for the Apple Mac, which means no support for iOS devices. Some feel that SAP doesn't see the Crystal product line as the best place for its R&D investments, pushing more data analytic based products such as Web Intelligence. I think there is room and demand for both and wish SAP would wow me with an upgrade that would transform Crystal Reports into a new generation of business intelligence reporting that sets the bar for everyone else. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer SAP LEAD - REPORTING Oil & Energy Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A Reporting tool that does it jobs with no frills" April 15, 2022 5.0 A good reporting tool for small and medium sized companies, though the new generation reporting tools like Tableau can replace this, the crystal reports are cost effective and efficient. Pros simple and cost effective tight integration with sap easy deployment and scalability Cons user interactiveness on report designs, lacks ease of use for end users to build reports of their own. Review Source WI Wassim I. Associate Professor Computer Networking Used the software for: 2+ years ### "SAP Crystal Reports: Reporting that Stands in the Age of Cloud Computing" July 17, 2023 4.0 Great experience. A great reporting tool for serious developers who need full control on the structure, layout, and format of their reports. Great integration with RDBMS databases. Pros I use SAP Crystal Reports in supporting my application reporting needs by integrating it with the Oracle Database via a JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) driver. The integration is very simple and resembles the same JDBC code that we use when connecting from a Java application or server component to the Oracle database. Very nice formatting features that can simply help lay the relational tabular data from multiple SQL views or queries to the report generation engine. Performance is extremely high even with large data sets which makes it a great tool for supporting real-time reporting. I know that Crystal Reports can integrate with other databases via custom plugins. I actually used it back in the day with MS-SQL Server and the experience was great as well. Cons 1\. The price is a bit high for single user licenses.2. Adding permissions to a category of reports is not that easy to configure. It has to be done on a report-by-report basis. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Application Services Analyst Hospital & Health Care Used the software for: 2+ years ### "High Performance Rigid Reporting" June 10, 2021 4.0 Although we have many reporting tools, we rely on SAP Crystal reports for our basic reporting requirements because of it's availability and flexibility. The reporting is very much reliable, quick and dynamic. Pros Data Synchronization with different data sources. Using this for a long time, I am quite impressed with the way it performs with different data sources. Cons The User Interface is very simple and outdated. It can be made more futuristic. Review Source FT Francesco T. Software Developer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "SAP Crystal Reports ...not so good" August 30, 2023 2.0 Pros fast loading software but with big limitations in editing multiple files at the same time and in the management of embedded graphics Cons unfriendly interface and difficulties in debugging and creating complex reportsdifficulty managing embedded images and field management logic to review compared to competitive products Review Source CA Catarina A. SAP Consultant Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "My review of SAP Crystal Reports" August 27, 2019 5.0 I work with this software every day and personally I think it's a perfect mix between the world of programming and design. It allows us to give a personal touch to everything we do. Perfecting as time goes on. It's how to ride a bike. It makes connections to multiple databases and is very accessible. Very good indeed. Pros SAP Crystal Reports is one of the tools I most enjoy working with. Sincerely. It's linked to SQL - we can get our signature on a report that looks vulgar - through code. We were able to do 1001 things, and really have a style. It is an art, combined with the fact that it is programming. It is fabulous. I really love working with Crystal - it's my weakness of how good it is. Cons Like any software, if the code is too heavy, or if it is a very complex procedure, crashes a little. But nothing special. Tolerable and irrelevant in the case. Review Source UW Umar W. Software Engineer Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best Business Reporting Tool" July 24, 2019 5.0 My overall experience has been just excellent with this. Its a complete business solution in market at the time. Pros Almost every business application requires reports of their data on daily/monthly basis. They require reports not only in tabular form but also they need visual digrams to analyze performance of their business. As a developer i always use crystal reports to develop complex reports that require charts and grouped data for readability and correct and ultimate analysis. Its easy to develop and connect with underlying datatables. Any kind of complex colored, tabular and visual report can be generated from this.i really love it. Cons Its my favourite reporting engine and there is nothing to be liked least about it. I used it from beginning and got fan of it. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Owner Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Reporting system is comprehensive, but difficult to use." July 26, 2018 3.0 Pros The ability to customize reports is helpful. Comprehensive. The system has the ability to report on many aspects of business. Cons Difficult to learn report writing requirements. Trial and error yields unproductive data reporting. Once parameters are established for requests, downloading data fields is sometimes slow. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Business analyst Health, Wellness and Fitness Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Crystal, commonly used with sql commands" July 18, 2019 4.0 Report writer and user for over 10 years , great product Pros Its comprehensive, well know and used across industries so many designers. Basic graphing but robust reporting. Cons Could be more user friendly, you need about six months to get good at it Review Source MA Malik A. Senior Software Engineer Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Crystal report is the best tool for reporting agent " July 12, 2022 4.0 So far i have worked with many reporting tools but crystal report make my life easy Pros it has asperate server to host the reports basicaly a engine we call the BO Server Cons there is no propper way to implement wilth angular, if I am wrong please correct me Reason for choosing SAP Crystal Reports easy to create sub reports and drill down reports, crystal report designer allows you to design a properly algined report Review Source CH Cami H. Controller Wholesale Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Daily Use" October 24, 2018 4.0 Pros We currently are using the 8.5 version. We are able to use it for almost anything that we can possibly think of with our Oracle software. There isn't too much that we aren't able to filter, twist, and turn to create some sort of report that we are needing. It might take a few minutes to figure out the best way, but we eventually get to something. Cons The biggest con that I've come across is the exporting of the data into any Excel format. It seems to not carry over the same formats that we've already set in Crystal Reports. Smaller cons are things like maybe being able to filter the same data selection in more than one way or maybe also offering a "Contains" option. Review Source CH Carl H. Business Process Analyst Utilities Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Crystal Reports - Enterprise version" November 10, 2016 4.0 Having been a user of Crystal Reports 2008 through 2011, I am a big fan of Crystal Reports. We have now migrated to Crystal Enterprise version and there are some big gains and a few misses with this version. The ease of use for beginners is much greater in the Enterprise version. If you are just starting out, the Enterprise version is a nice package. It features drag and drop capability, easy navigation, and plenty of customization for your visualization. There are still some nagging spots that have not been cleaned up, primarily in the formatting areas. Small things like drawing borders or creating grids are more hassle than they are worth. And if you make a small change in the report it could easily throw off your formatting and you will need to touch all those pieces again. However, the power of Crystal Reports makes it well worth the minor annoyances. It delivers a powerful tool for delivering standard visualizations. It packs plenty of power that can satisfy almost any requirement. Pros 1) Ease of use. 2) Clean and standard reporting. 3) Multitude of ways to deliver your reports. Email, ftp, on demand, etc. Cons 1) Minor annoyances that can crop up out of nowhere; typically involving formatting. 2) For as mature as the product is, it still tends to crash more often than I would like. Review Source kG karen G. AP Specialist Construction Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Great software for printing checks" May 12, 2022 5.0 Pros Our company prints our checks with SAP Crystal Reports. The checks look very professional and it is very easy to use. We have four companies that we use SAP Crystal for printing checks and it is very easy to jump from one company to the next and the checks look so good. This software is used with our Spectrum accounting software. Cons I don't know how I would contact support if I needed it for this software. If we have issues, we have to get help from an IT person at our work. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer IT Used the software for: 2+ years ### "It generates the reports needed, but with a somewhat dated interface" July 16, 2018 4.0 Pros Connects to SQL and it gets the data as needed, and with the right formulas and know how, you can customize the reports to your liking get as specific as you need. Cons Dated interface and not the most user friendly. If you have never used it, getting it set up and running might be a little confusing, but if you know some basic SQL, you can make it do what you need. Review Source Similar Products Featured ## Send me user reviews about this product ### Fill out the form and we'll send a list of the top-rated software based on real user reviews directly to your inbox.