Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services vs Sisense comparison

Microsoft SQL Server Report...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Sisense and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) are two competing products in the business intelligence and reporting sectors. Sisense appears to have the upper hand with its ease of use and support, although SSRS has strong integration into the Microsoft ecosystem and is known for its stability.

Features: Sisense is noted for its powerful visualization capabilities, ease of deployment, and ability to combine disparate data sources. SSRS stands out in report design, database connectivity, and provides reliable management dashboards, especially beneficial within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Room for Improvement:Sisense could improve in providing more flexibility for advanced users and more native support for statistical tools like R. SSRS users desire enhanced integration capabilities, simpler setup processes, and more advanced visualization features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Sisense offers flexible deployment options including on-premises, public cloud, and private cloud solutions. It is praised for its customer service and technical support. SSRS is primarily an on-premises solution with hybrid and public cloud options, with customer support being satisfactory but with a need for faster resolutions.

Pricing and ROI:Sisense is regarded as more expensive than competitors like Tableau and Power BI but is justified through reduced manual labor and increased efficiency. SSRS is seen as budget-friendly yet expensive under its licensing model. Both products' ROI depends significantly on specific business needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services vs. Sisense Report (Updated: December 2025).

Microsoft SQL Servering Services vs. Sisense

December 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

ROI

Sentiment score

5.3

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services enhances usability, saves time, and improves decision-making and efficiency with streamlined reporting processes.

Sentiment score

7.0

Results with Sisense vary; some see immediate benefits, while others struggle to measure improvements or efficiency gains.

Any tool which obviates the need for a lot of coding will definitely save at least 60-70% of effort.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report

Consulting IT Head at MYKLaticrete

Due to the data presented to stakeholders, they are able to make informed decisions that impact the day-to-day operations of the client, giving them more insights into what's happening within their organization.

System Integration Specialist at a non-profit with self employed

I have seen a return on investment in that we can manage the Sisense environment with a very small number of users.

For more quotes and insights, download the Sisense report

Project Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.7

Technical support receives mixed reviews; some praise its responsiveness, others face challenges, with satisfaction ratings between seven and nine.

Sentiment score

7.6

Sisense is praised for exceptional, responsive customer service and skilled technical support, focusing on client success and prompt assistance.

Reaching out to Microsoft took a prolonged time to the extent that we were wondering why Microsoft was unable to get its own logs to us.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report

Consulting IT Head at MYKLaticrete

I have not reached out to tech support at Microsoft for Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services because it is my job to know how to get this tool to work.

Romario Martin

Database Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

The support was very good.

Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

We typically get responses within 24 hours.

For more quotes and insights, download the Sisense report

Project Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

6.5

SQL Server Reporting Services offers moderate scalability, with challenges in horizontal scaling, preferring smaller deployments over enterprise ones.

Sentiment score

7.4

Sisense scales well for medium to large businesses, handling over 100 million data loads despite increased querying times.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report

It is scalable to a very large extent and we can integrate any third-party tools.

Project Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Sisense works really well for simple to medium use cases and scales well.

For more quotes and insights, download the Sisense report

System Integration Specialist at a non-profit with self employed

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.2

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is highly stable, with minor issues mainly related to upgrades and large datasets.

Sentiment score

7.8

Sisense is generally stable and reliable, with occasional data import and dashboard load issues mitigated by caching.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Sisense report

Room For Improvement

SQL Server Reporting Services needs better visualization, integration, and performance to compete with alternatives, plus improved support and pricing.

Sisense users face dataset handling issues and seek improvements in speed, interface, integration, customization, and documentation.

The initial setup for Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is not an issue for me; however, I find it challenging when we want to secure the endpoint, such as using bindings and so forth.

Romario Martin

Database Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

I am thinking that with all the Copilot integration within the Microsoft environment, that could be integrated as well, so that you could issue a prompt and it generates designs.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report

Consulting IT Head at MYKLaticrete

I would like to see an improvement in the live data connection, specifically making the process faster.

Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

It could provide more connectors to integrate with emerging different data sources to exponentially increase the amount of data it can handle.

System Integration Specialist at a non-profit with self employed

I give Sisense a nine because the integration with some third-party tools is good.

For more quotes and insights, download the Sisense report

Project Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Setup Cost

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services offers moderate pricing and good value, though the licensing model can be complex and costly.

Sisense offers competitive pricing with extensive features, ideal for mid-size and large organizations, but less affordable for smaller businesses.

Otherwise, you need to write a lot of code or API calls to generate reports if using some other tool outside of the ecosystem, which definitely requires additional effort and therefore additional cost and time.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report

Consulting IT Head at MYKLaticrete

There was no significant difference in pricing between Sisense and ThoughtSpot.

Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that pricing is a little bit higher when compared to other applications, but that justifies the use case.

For more quotes and insights, download the Sisense report

Project Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Valuable Features

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services provides intuitive usability, robust security, and seamless integration, enhancing report creation, visualization, and deployment.

Sisense excels with multi-source integration, ease of use, fast deployment, data visualization, and robust real-time analytics support.

The best features of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services are that it is easy to get the reports out because it is integrated with SQL and we have many of these tables.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report

Consulting IT Head at MYKLaticrete

I had been trying to develop a solution using SSRS to view some data while allowing me to modify data and update the table in the back end, but it seems SSRS isn't the tool for that.

Romario Martin

Database Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sisense positively impacts our organization by speeding up the process of getting and presenting the data to customers or stakeholders.

System Integration Specialist at a non-profit with self employed

The time taken to create the reports and dashboards has been drastically reduced by at least 40%.

Project Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

It offers two ways to access data: by cubing the data or hitting it live.

For more quotes and insights, download the Sisense report

Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft SQL Server Report...

Ranking in Reporting

4th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Sisense

Ranking in Reporting

14th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (17th), Cloud Analytics (5th), Data Visualization (13th), Embedded BI (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is 2.7%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sisense is 2.1%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services	2.7%
Sisense	2.1%
Other	95.2%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Reports generation is efficient and saves effort, but integrating new features could enhance overall experience

Consulting IT Head at MYKLaticrete

I haven't contacted Microsoft technical support because of this tool, but for some other things I have, and I found them quite lacking. We had trouble with Azure Firewall, where we wanted logs from our VMs, but reaching out to Microsoft took a prolonged time to the extent that we were wondering why Microsoft was unable to get its own logs to us, which occurred a few months back. I would rate Microsoft support around 6.5 to seven, as they don't directly interact with medium-sized MSMEs, always referring to their partners, so it differs based on the partner's level of relationship with Microsoft.

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Has improved project turnaround time with customizable dashboards and faster data delivery to stakeholders

System Integration Specialist at a non-profit with self employed

Sisense has some limitations, especially in rendering tables or graphs. For example, if you want to perform custom sorting or searching based on multiple columns, that becomes quite tricky. Providing more control over how the data is sorted or filtered would be quite useful. Additionally, it could provide more connectors to integrate with emerging different data sources to exponentially increase the amount of data it can handle. Sisense should provide more support for CI/CD, as we found the CI/CD approach quite limited, which is something that can be worked on. Some data scientists suggested more features can be offered by providing different models for data analytics. Sisense can improve by adding more features for handling complex schemas and making the pricing straightforward. The dashboarding features are good enough, but additional features could make it even more attractive. Also, CI/CD support or source control support would be really helpful.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	28
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?

I mainly use the solution for the ease of reporting and for executive dashboards.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?

I would consider it cost effective for our environment, and we don't have to invest in another big tool to generate these reports, making it all integrated and easier. Otherwise, you need to write ...

What needs improvement with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is not difficult to use, but my main issue is troubleshooting whenever there is any problem, as the logs can be unclear. Perhaps I don't have enough experien...

What needs improvement with Sisense?

What is your primary use case for Sisense?

Sisense was used for one of our clients to enable analytics and dashboards for their applications, which were supposed to get the data from different partners for that specific client. Sisense is w...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sisense?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that pricing is a little bit higher when compared to other applications, but that justifies the use case.

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Product Reports

Microsoft SQL Servering Services

January 2026

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report

Download Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services product report

Download Sisense product report

January 2026

Also Known As

SQL Server Reporting Services, Microsoft SSRS, SSRS, MS SQL Server Reporting Services

No data available

Overview

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.

We do business in 170 countries and are made up of 114,000 passionate employees dedicated to fulfilling our mission of helping you and your organization achieve more.

Microsoft

Sisense is an end-to-end business analytics software that enables users to easily prepare and analyze large, complex datasets. Sisense’s Single-Stack BI software includes data preparation, data management, analysis, visualization and reporting capabilities.

Sample Customers

CMS Wire, The New York Times

Ebay, WIX, Wave Accounting, ESPN.com, Magellan Luxury Hotel, Paylogic, Sony, Merck, EDA, One Hour Translation, NASA, Plastic Jungle, Philips, Yahoo