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Power BI Embedded Analytics vs SAP Crystal Reports comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Power BI Embedded Analytics
Ranking in Reporting
19th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (27th)
SAP Crystal Reports
Ranking in Reporting
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

VishnuReddy2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting Enterprise Architect at R2V2.ai
Embedded analytics has unified diverse data sources and supports real-time operational decisions
I find Power BI Embedded Analytics to be a fairly good reporting tool and dashboarding tool. The color palette and everything about it is good. It would be beneficial to have reporting on top of a data warehouse, a lake house, or directly on an Excel-based solution. If Power BI can come as a full stack similar to SAP Analytics Cloud, it can embed with Azure very quickly. However, the full suite provided by SAP, starting from ERP through reporting, is somewhat loosely coupled, which can be helpful for some clients. Overall, Power BI is a very good tool for reporting. Embedded analytics may lack some features from the modeling perspective, such as dimension modeling, and there are multiple factors that lead us to prefer analytics on top of the warehouse rather than going for embedded analytics.
Salman Mukhtar Baig - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP Technical Manager at VS Furniture Middle East
Unlock data insights with seamless integration and robust reporting features
I assess the impact of SAP Crystal Reports' dynamic parameters on the customization and flexibility of my reports as very good. Sometimes it creates a problem when it suddenly closes during work due to improper shutdowns, but most of the time it's beneficial since I can fetch the data in one report very efficiently, which is great for the company. The sub reports in SAP Crystal Reports help me enhance the depth and detail of my reports by allowing me to use multiple sets of records, especially when I have very large requirements, such as company dashboards that show what sales, purchases, productions, and HR are doing. Using sub reports as the main report is very beneficial because I can pull multiple department data into the main report. Over the years, SAP Crystal Reports has had a very positive impact and benefits. It's a powerful tool to design any kind of report if you have knowledge of the database, and it can attach to both HANA and SQL databases. I can also connect this data with Excel, which makes it a very powerful tool for me.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The positive impact Power BI Embedded Analytics has made in my organization is the gain of time, the sharing of the same data, and the same information for all the stakeholders, leading to better decisions."
"What I appreciate most about Power BI Embedded Analytics is that it is tightly integrated with Microsoft, which is a strong feature."
"It is an user-friendly solution."
"The ability to create reports via the GUI with click and drag at the table level as well as from SQL via Command objects."
"What I like about it is that it's easy to use and it provides good connectivity to various databases."
"If you want a full package of collecting, analyzing and presenting, then this is the package for you."
"I have done incredible, innovative things with Crystal Reports, but only because I knew it so well and could synthesize breakthrough ideas on how to give the customer what they wanted."
"The most valuable features for us are its ability to provide reports on what's going on in the database and to schedule reports for end users."
"The most valuable feature is that from a user's point of view, it is easy to use and requires just a simple click to generate a report."
"Enterprise is simply the best report delivery product on the market."
 

Cons

"Embedded analytics may lack some features from the modeling perspective, such as dimension modeling, and there are multiple factors that lead us to prefer analytics on top of the warehouse rather than going for embedded analytics."
"However, the majority of technical support is in another country which can cause problems scheduling a contact time and can hamper verbal communication."
"The functionality is not evolving much over newer releases."
"The sales, operations, and IT areas could use improvement."
"From our experience with it, we would like the ability to change reports en masse in case of backend changes."
"Long, complex, crosstab reports are nearly impossible, and with Crystal it is nearly impossible to work with the raw, row-by-row data."
"It's always been known to crash unexpectedly, so get in the habit of frequent saving."
"Charts and Graphs are the only reason I don’t give the product a 10/10."
"When we first started using Crystal Reports 2008, we had multiple stability issues. It seemed like at least once a day (usually more than that), it would crash on us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We pay fifteen hundred dollars as licensing fee."
"The cost of licensing can be a significant factor to consider when upgrading or transitioning to a new version of SAP Crystal Reports. It's important to evaluate the benefits and features offered by the new version against the associated costs to ensure it aligns with your organization's needs and budget."
"SAP Crystal Reports is a very expensive solution."
"This product costs a lot of money."
"I feel that SAP Crystal Reports is a reasonably priced product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Power BI Embedded Analytics?
Power BI Embedded Analytics is perfect right now as they continuously introduce new features, though it would be beneficial if they included an artificial intelligence assistant in the DAX syntax t...
What is your primary use case for Power BI Embedded Analytics?
My main use case for Power BI Embedded Analytics is that in my day-to-day work, I use Power Query to prepare data and Power BI Embedded Analytics Desktop, spending my time all day to create visuals...
What advice do you have for others considering Power BI Embedded Analytics?
An example of a decision our team made because of a Power BI Embedded Analytics report is when we decided to focus on selling a unique numeric product and avoid selling the physical product after u...
What needs improvement with SAP Crystal Reports?
SAP Crystal Reports could be improved with more modern user-friendly interfaces and better integration with cloud platforms and AI tools. It would be beneficial to have easier integration with Azur...
What is your primary use case for SAP Crystal Reports?
I have been using SAP Crystal Reports for six months. I am using SAP Crystal Reports to develop data-driven reports and use customer data printing. When I use SAP Crystal Reports for customer data ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Crystal Reports?
I am aware that the pricing of SAP Crystal Reports gradually changes. When I bought it last time, I don't remember the exact price, and I need to check the current price on the portal. SAP Crystal ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
City of Buenos Aires, ASR Group, Citrix, EarlySense, Usha International Limited, Automotive Resources International (ARI), LivePerson, Coelba (Grupo Neoenergia), RZD Russian Railways, National Basketball Association - NBA, TALLY WEiJL, El Machetazo, Young Heroes, Mozzart, Mitsui Knowledge Industry (MKI) , Surgutneftegas Open Joint Stock Company, The VELUX Group, AOK Bundesverband, AL-KO KOBER GROUP
Find out what your peers are saying about Power BI Embedded Analytics vs. SAP Crystal Reports and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.