# Fluent Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is Fluent the right Document Management solution for you? Explore 41 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/82535/Windward-Studios/reviews --- Fluent 4.8 (41) 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 Fluent Ease of use 4.5 Customer Service 4.9 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews CH Christopher H Sr BANon-Profit Organization Management, 5,001 - 10,000 employeesUsed the software for: 6-12 months. “The built-in error messaging and cc to help desk is very handy (requires more advanced users to decipher). “ December 23, 2020 Bob G Senior Product ManagerInsurance, 1,001 - 5,000 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months. “So, immediately they reduced my investigation time, by being so upfront. “ March 15, 2021 NS Natalie S AnalystBusiness Supplies and Equipment, 11 - 50 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “Avoids the need for complex html coding to build nice looking reports.“ March 3, 2021 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 41 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use JC L. National GIS Manager Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Happy with Windward" January 10, 2019 5.0 NCC has been using Windward products as the reporting component of our land information system for over a decade now. It has always worked well for us, and we're planning to continue using it following a major system upgrade this coming year. Customer service and tech support has been great over the years, so we're pretty happy. Their developers have been responsive to requests from us regarding certain features, which is really nice. Pros Integration into Microsoft Word is great. Very easy connection to our corporate SQL Server databases, and report authoring is very intuitive. Our developers have no issues working with the engine component either. Cons We've had no real issues with the software suite since we acquired it. Review Source Response from Apryse January 11, 2019 Thank you for the nice words and we love having you as a customer. And you've had some great suggestions for us for features over the years. VR Verified Reviewer Senior Product Manager Insurance Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Windward: A Cool Breeze and Breath of Fresh Air" March 15, 2021 5.0 When I was first tasked to find a new DocGen provider I muted my mic on Teams and cursed. Then I hit the internet and kept seeing a name pop up in the best of list round-ups, Windward. In the search for the perfect DocGen solution, I learned that simply searching for dynamic document generation turned up a lot of results that made it hard to find what we were looing for. I found that if I looked specifically for dynamic document elements, my search was greatly narrowed down and Windward allows for the most dynamic document elements of any other provider I looked into. Their test documents revealed that they were considering nearly every test case I was hoping to prove out. So, immediately they reduced my investigation time, by being so upfront. They can control for tables, images, text, colors, graphs, whole pages of a document and all of the elements within the document with variables in the data I pass. We had a use case scenario they said they had never heard before and sat with us to work through the problem and then came back with alternate solution that was perfect. Windward not only has exceeded any expectations, but they've absolutely impressed me with their service and their feature-rich product. As a company, we wanted a solution that could take us to the next level. Windward has helped us create proposals for our clients that look like they were crafted by hand specifically for that client. Windward makes our company look great. Pros Windward has more features than we ever could have expected. I'm truly amazed at their granular document control features, the pride they take in their product, and the level of service they provide. They worked with us through the two week trial as if we were paying customers. I found their price to be half that of their next closest competitor in features. And I love that we have unlimited document generation. I couldn't find that with any other competitor. The designer application as a Word plugin really speeds up the process of the template creation and allows me to get a template created by another team, like the marketing department, and then add the data within the same document. Cons Biggest con is that they are not cloud based for Windward Core. However, they understand this and worked with us to make sure that the setup was clean and easy, and honestly the server requirements are so low they could be run on a laptop (or a tablet, but let's not get crazy). However, the trade off is the price and the unlimited document count. Also, though we had security concerns, at first, it became obvious that we didn't need to be concerned because you don't pass them any data. So, what was a hard sell for my team, became a huge positive, to me. Reason for choosing Fluent Formstack, Docusign, Templafy, Docmosis, Newgen Review Source GF Gary F. Owner Used the software for: ### "Combine hundreds of MS Word reports, tens of thousands of lines of code, a report in seconds!" June 10, 2015 4.0 We're thrilled to have found this product! We recently finished a large PHP project and used Windward Reports (Autotag and Javelin Rest Services) as the reporting engine. Much of those reports employed some very large and complex scenarios. "Many" logical branches (If, Case, Loops). What the reporting package didn't have, we were able to create and add in the form of our own C# custom functions to fill the gap to handle everything from JSON Arrays to specialized functions to manage complex English linguistics. The ability to create a live report (WYSIWYG) right within Word, use styles and native MS Graphs lets Windward reports really shine through! You'll love it! While we built our reports upon one data source (MySQL), the package itself easily handles dozens of data types to import and work with. The speed at which we are seeing these reports generate is also worth noting. Extremely fast considering the number of iterations for the number of calculations. Autotag (the report designer add-in) also allows for variables to easily get passed into the reports and lets you create PODS to share variables and data you've used between users and designers. The real magic though is their fantastic support team backed by some A1 developers. What we didn't understand, Windward always explained to us and if something didn't work in the product, support made sure we had a work around or the product itself was able to perform at the required level. If you're looking for a reporting solution that backs onto Microsoft Office, can be built in as a service to run independently or from a user workstation (Autotag), I highly recommend you check out Windward Reports before investing time in other products! Of course, every rose has a few thorns and Autotag is without exception. We did find a few things! 1. Expect a learning curve. Debugging a report or figuring out why a report might not run can be challenging as your reports grow in complexity. 2. Graphs do not always appear as they should when output into PDF and other formats. However, Windward is addressing this now developing a new PDF engine to output with. 3. If you use a lot of complex formatting and styles, expect some challenges and minor nuances. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Founder and Managing Director Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Enabling Technology making document generation easy" January 25, 2019 5.0 Pros 1\. The ease and speed of the design of our document and report templates. Directly from our Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), we have our analysts designing the templates. 2. Linking to numerous data sources and enabling of ODATA querying. 3. Wrappped as a webservice can be used by any 3rd party system in your organisation to become your universal document and report generation system. 4. Bring reporting capabilities to legacy and new systems. Cons Documentation could be updated for even more improved guidance in more complex templating and integration projects Review Source Response from Apryse February 8, 2019 Thank you for the nice review. And we are working to improve the documentation even more - there's (always) a lot more we can do with it. Christopher R. DevOps Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Awesome Service for Report Generation" January 24, 2019 5.0 The experience has been excellent! Support is superb! Pros This service is easy to use. I have worked with windward for nearly 2 years now and each version gets better. They update nearly every 2 weeks and the integration with Word and Excel makes it easy to create reports with some advanced Microsoft Word features such as Charts. Cons They documentation was not great although in recent months documentation has taken a full overhaul and is getting better each day. Review Source Bert V. Enterprise Architect Retail Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Very useful tool to create business documents" December 19, 2019 5.0 Creation of complex business documents, from various database datasets. Pros Full features of Word with rich set of rendering features, especially on variable sized, multidimensional arrays. Cons Initially the online documentation was somewhat difficult to navigate Reason for choosing Fluent Rich features, JSON based Rest interface, on premise model, licence without volume restrictions. And not to forget, excellent support. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Director Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Template design made easy" January 8, 2019 4.0 Windward studios is an interesting product if you want to flexible yet sound template making without the help of IT. The support team reacts very quickly although they can not always accommodate. Pros Windward offers the possibility to let skilled users create and maintain templates for their organization without the help of IT, unless new data input is needed. Cons We had some issues with license pricing being far less attractive in an otherwise beneficial technical setup, without change in number of users. Review Source Response from Apryse January 9, 2019 Thank you for the very nice review. On your comment about the pricing, we have now switched to subscription pricing which both delivers a lower price point and allows you to easily adjust your pricing month to month to match your needs. Please let me know if this does not address this issue for you. DI Denis I. Enterprise Publishing Lead Developer Public Safety Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "The best Publishing tool" April 23, 2019 5.0 Great experience working with Winward. Very responsive team, They really care about your experience. Most of the time I am dealing with very complex situations and they never brushed me off. Great product, great support and I see that product is changing all the time to evolve to better and better version. Pros I like the ease of implementation to most applications on the market. It is very intuitive to use within well established Microsoft office Desktop applications like Word, Excel and Power Point. Most of the time Admin Users don't even need programming background to get started. Cons Like any other products bugs come up once in a while but Winward Customer Care team along with developers are doing superb job handling each situation with exemplary attitude. Review Source Response from Apryse April 27, 2019 Thank you very much for the wonderful review Xen S. Business Analyst Telecommunications Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Awesome Product" January 3, 2019 5.0 Implementing Windward to manage our invoicing and customer communications is a breath of fresh air! Unlike XSL templates, anybody can easily create and update templates using the Report Designer. It is a piece of cake – it didn’t require me technical knowledge or even a formal training… just applied simple logic and it was like something I’ve been doing for years! As a portfolio lead and business analyst, I’ve seen quite a lot of applications/tools that end up making the business adjust to satisfy how the application works. But not Windward, it is an application that adjusts to work for the business! Pros I like that even a non-technical person can use the product. And that the licensing model is perpetual! Cons Having the Report Designer integrated with MS Office is a PRO. However, it is also a CON because of MS Office's limited design capabilities. Review Source Response from Apryse January 4, 2019 Thank you for your incredibly nice words. And I agree, using Office as the design tool has both large advantages and some disadvantages. Ruben D. online marketer Marketing and Advertising Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Great tools to manage documents" November 6, 2019 5.0 Pros I've been using windward studios for over 7 months now. i was having problem on how to edit my documents and customize it, however with winward studios i've been able to do my job in a very effective way. it also helps me create templates easily. Cons N/a i didn't find anything in particular that i did not like, beside a bit more tools on templates creation, like pictures, backgrounds, and formats Review Source PS Paul S. Principal Used the software for: ### "Best Customer Service Ever" October 20, 2014 5.0 We are not a large client to Windward, but they always make us feel that way. Every time we have a question or suggestion, we get an impressively timely response. Even things that other vendors might charge us for, if Windward feels it would improve the product, they roll it into the next release. Their service greatly exceeds that of vendors we pay seven figures a year. From a product respective, it is exactly what they advertise. A Microsoft Office design environment for enterprise data. And the server engine makes Crystal Reports look like a dinosaur from a speed perspective. The major downside I've seen has been in the server pricing which only has a "per core" option. This has caused us to have to engineer our datacenter / redundancy design differently than if we did not have this constraint. Review Source AA Anil A. CEO Used the software for: ### "Powerful form rendering engine" October 23, 2014 5.0 CodeObjects is a cloud based SaaS solution for insurance process management that goes beyond the core of policy, billing, and claims to include all the ancillary functions. One of the ancillary services that we provide is document generation and we use Windward for this. Before windward we were using an Adobe based document rendering engine. Switching to windward helped us with the following: - Reduced the time it takes to create document templates by about 80% - Reduced the time it takes to configure complex form generation rules by more than 80% - On an average our customers were able to learn the windward tool by about 70% faster compared to the Adobe product. Overall it provided a great advantage to us in this competitive Landscape. Review Source DP David P. Supply Chain Manager Used the software for: ### "PSiDEO's review of Windward Solutions" October 29, 2014 5.0 PSiDEO has been successfully collaborating with Windward Solutions for many years as well as using Windward's products in its own solution with satisfaction for the same period. Additionally to performing products, Windward has also supported PSiDEO's activities by being open and flexible with its business models and negotiation schemes to ensure both companies business operations and needs are met in a collaborative and efficient way. Review Source TP Ted P. COO Used the software for: ### "Easy to use, learning curve minimal." May 22, 2015 5.0 In the set up we had a few questions on some very detailed modifications and the customer service was amazing!!!! It was very easy and turn around time on customer request was the best we have experienced. Review Source CH Christopher H. Sr BA Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "WIndward Studios Designer has all of the functionality you need to generate reports from a Database" December 23, 2020 4.0 We reduced the time to generate 100+ page contracts from 24 hours via cut and paste methods (and an average 15 days turnaround, to literally 5 minutes and 1 day turnaround. At 8 Contract updates per month average, we estimate that 1 person-year will drop to a week or so. The PMO sponsors are thrilled; they free up to do higher value work. The ROI is hugely compelling. Pros There are so many. Connecting to 1 or more data sources is straightforward. The Wizard lets even non-SQL practitioners build the logic via the Wizard. In-line previews are so useful. The ability to establish Office formatting at the field level is impeccable once you understand it. Our developers wanted to build it in house, but my estimate it would have taken 4-6 developer years to have even an MVP candidate (and that would still have only yielded about 50-70% of the functionality you get from this COTS product). The built-in error messaging and cc to help desk is very handy (requires more advanced users to decipher). Compatibility with the MSFT XML mapping is very impressive. WIndward's on-boarding support was great, and you get a lot of time from a dedicated SE to ramp up. Cons Minor things: - the license key failed a few times- but Windward resolved the same day each time. - the built-in help, documentation and Wiki blog posts are extensive but sometimes out-dated. - Not really a con, but: the functionality is so extensive that it took me (an Advanced Office user with moderate SQL skills) about 6 months to deploy operationally. As with Analytics, make sure the DB schema and data is robust, then prepare to roll up your sleeves to earn your rewards. Review Source Response from Apryse December 29, 2020 Thank you for your very kind words, CS Clint S. Senior Programmer Insurance Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Meets all our needs" September 24, 2019 5.0 Pros The Windward report designer has many features allowing our business analysts to create the report/document templates need for our business. Also, the Windward RESTful engine is very easy to implement and integrate with other systems. Windwards support is excellent as well. Cons Needs better support for JSON data sources. Reason for choosing Fluent It had everything we were looking for in a document generation solution. Review Source Response from Apryse November 3, 2019 Hi Clint; Thank you for the very nice review. On your request for additional support for JSON datasources, please email me (david@windward.net) to give me specifics. Or you can make suggestions at http://ideas.windwardstudios.com/ We're always working on improving the product. thanks - dave HALEH M. developer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Windward Studios" February 14, 2020 5.0 I use this tool (Auto tag) weekly to design reports and have different outputs such as \*.docx, \*.xlxs, ... Pros This is a powerful tool to design and generate a word, excel, pdf, ... reports and connecting to different data sources such as JSON, XML, SQL,... Cons Totally I haven't found any negative point with this tool which has stopped me working as I can generate different reports based on my data Review Source RS Robert S. Strategic Program Manager Hospital & Health Care Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Windward document generation" January 23, 2019 5.0 The purchase of the software was straight forward. Software and licenses were easy to install. Windward software is as advertised. Support is great. Windward recommended a professional services vendor that delivered as well as the Windward product. I strongly recommend Windward as a document generation solution. Pros Windward design studio has put the ability to develop new documents in the hands of operations, and frees engineering resources. The engine delivers output as promised. We have not seen the engine struggle to produce everything sent that way. The support is great. We encountered our barcode was custom and needed Windward support. They responded quickly, worked through the issue and after a few attempts solved the issue, quickly. Cons Support was responsive but encountered a barcode issue that required multiple attempts to solve. It is a reality of software, but is the only con I could provide. Review Source RD Rob D. Lead Information Analyst Hospital & Health Care Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "A great piece of kit" August 22, 2016 4.0 I have been using Windward for nearly 2 years now and it has been the root cause of us being able to achieve what we set out to do. Needing to eradicate a number of repetitive Excel based reports, Autotag allowed us to build robust templates and improve our reporting ability and have greater control over our data. Pros I love the fact that it sits in Microsoft products so easily. I feel this helps reduce a lot of the burden of learning a new piece of software as you are halfway there through your knowledge of programmes such as Word and Excel. Cons Like most reporting software there are a few nuances that need to be understood to be able to work around them, but ultimately there are only a few of these and they generally aren't of a critical nature. Review Source SP Suresh P. Associate Director Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A powerful tool for automating the doc generation. " February 19, 2019 5.0 We use the Java engine to generate docs (PDF & Word) through a web application, and it's quick and straightforward to implement. Overall it's a great tool to create automated reports for web applications. Pros Good customer support Continuous improvement on the features Cons You need to tweak the template a lot to get a pixel-perfect output for both Word and PDF. Review Source Response from Apryse November 3, 2019 Hi Suresh; Thank you for your very nice review. I understand your desire to get pixel-perfect output easier. Unfortunately on that we're all at the mercy of Adobe Acrobat & Microsoft Word. thanks - dave EB Ed B. Contract Engineer Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "AutoTag templates - " March 11, 2019 5.0 Superior service. Originally, the engine server failed to generate document output for our AutoTag templates. Windward analyzed and found that an exception was being thrown: "please see 'v16 RD exception received.txt'." They resolved the issue quickly with a patch and later added the fix to an updated formal version of the engine. The support team member helping me was very helpful and courteous. I have found the tag tree very helpful since it allows me to copy and paste code from other tags. I can then make some quick modifications to that code to suit the tag I am currently working on. Pros The tag tree is very helpful for making quick modifications to the coding. The wizard is very handy in creating code for the tags. Cons More complex coding is sometimes easier to modify manually, then view in the wizard. Review Source Response from Apryse November 3, 2019 Ed - thank you for the very nice review. And I agree, our support team rocks. I'm very proud of them. VR Verified Reviewer Research Associate Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Enterprise Reporting " November 6, 2017 5.0 Quick to use but powerful and customizable. Easy to integrate with a nice API. Pros Really great people behind the scenes who are willing to help and knowledgable about how to best utilize the software. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer CTO & EVP Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Review for Windward Java Engine" January 31, 2019 5.0 We need to create commercial quality operation reports. Windward is a perfect fit. It reduced our report development time a lot. The support is very good. Pros 1\. Never crash 2. Easy to use and set up 3. Able to support complex reporting logics 4. Fairly fast 5. Good support Cons 1\. Need to use Word/Excel to build the report, no web based report builder for Java Engine. It can be a good thing, as most of our reports are in PDF, Word or Excel format. 2. It doesn't have built-in JSON format, we have report data that are in JSON format. Review Source Response from Apryse February 5, 2019 Thank you for your very nice review. On the JSON issue we do support JSON datasources (added about 3 years ago). Please upgrade to version 15 or later to see this functionality. Again, thank you for the very nice review. WM Will M. Senior User Interface Developer Used the software for: ### "Powerful and smart reporting system" June 19, 2015 5.0 I've worked with a number of different report tools. Nothing I've seen comes close to Windward. I'm only bummed I didn't find them 2 years ago. I make complex report outputs that need to pack in a lot of data, and communicate complex results graphically. My biggest issues with other systems are overflow, brittleness, and overall template hell. With Windward, I'm no longer getting pages with large empty patches. Editing in Word, I get to leverage a ton of power that's built into Word. Not every permutation you can think of in Word works properly, but so much of it does, that you can pretty much do any graphic layout. Word makes styling tables and whatnot a breeze. And you can leverage things like font/paragraph styles, which is really great. It's super easy, intutive, and flexible. Bottom line for me - in 5 days, I was able to generate a beautifully branded template with full-bleeds, nested tables and loops, and fairly complex conditionals. This new template was a substantial improvement on my previous report templates using other systems. And I did it in a fraction of the time. That's the product, but the customer support also deserves some serious kudos. Whenever I've had any issue, they have been super on top of it. Their response has been immediate and they're actively developing to meet my stated needs. When the issue has been tough, they've offered work-arounds until their team gets the issue fixed. I'd highly recommend Windward. Review Source BL Ben L. Head of Development Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Powerful reporting to improve your products or services in a snap" June 20, 2016 5.0 We replaced a self built reporting system in our SaaS product with the Windward solution, when we were struggling to find another solution which could do the same. The engine integrated with our data sources in a snap, and AutoTag allowed us to replicate the reports quickly. We now have a hybrid system, which sometimes has to use our older reporting engine (for very specialised reports) but uses the Windward engine as much as possible. Pros Integration was quick and painless, and the ease of building new templates with Autotag has really taken the pain out of rolling out new reports for customers. Cons Nothing really, the costs can look high, but talk to Windward to see what other options there are. And it really is worth the money. Review Source Similar Products Featured