Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

SAP Crystal Reports vs Sisense comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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
5.7
SAP Crystal Reports greatly enhances ERP reporting and efficiency, offering ROI over 1000%, despite costly user training.
Sentiment score
7.0
Sisense streamlines report processes, saves time, and benefits decision-making, though effectiveness varies by user experience and region.
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.
I have seen a return on investment in that we can manage the Sisense environment with a very small number of users.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.7
SAP Crystal Reports customer support is inconsistent, with mixed reviews, leading users to favor online resources and self-help solutions.
Sentiment score
7.6
Sisense's customer service is praised for responsiveness, expertise, and effective communication, supporting client success despite occasional delays.
I have not encountered any problems requiring assistance.
The support was very good.
We typically get responses within 24 hours.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
SAP Crystal Reports supports scalability and is suitable for medium to large enterprises, with room for scalability improvements.
Sentiment score
7.4
Sisense is scalable and user-friendly, but querying time increases with more data; security requires careful management.
It is scalable to a very large extent and we can integrate any third-party tools.
Sisense works really well for simple to medium use cases and scales well.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
SAP Crystal Reports is stable on Windows, with Unix challenges and improved performance on specialized servers post-2011.
Sentiment score
7.8
Sisense is generally stable, with occasional data import issues and slow dashboard loads, but overall reliable performance.
 

Room For Improvement

SAP Crystal Reports needs better visualization, modern tech integration, improved analytics, compatibility, and enhanced documentation and support.
Sisense should improve large dataset support, add connectors, enhance interfaces, and expand customization for better performance and user experience.
Integration of a real-time preview and a live preview panel that updates instantly while designing the reports would make it much easier to use.
If it is closed due to any problem, it should be able to recover where I left off, similar to Excel, which should be a feature for SAP Crystal Reports.
Enabling better practices and testing to enhance data accuracy and efficiency for company sectors.
I would like to see an improvement in the live data connection, specifically making the process faster.
Sisense should provide more support for CI/CD, as we found the CI/CD approach quite limited.
I give Sisense a nine because the integration with some third-party tools is good.
 

Setup Cost

SAP Crystal Reports pricing perceptions vary; some find it costly, but discounts and volume deals can reduce expenses.
Sisense offers competitive enterprise pricing from $35,000, suitable for mid-stage startups and large enterprises, with customizable options.
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.
They were practically dead even from a pricing perspective.
 

Valuable Features

SAP Crystal Reports provides flexible data connectivity, custom design, and efficient reporting, enhancing decision-making and client communication.
Sisense seamlessly integrates diverse data sources, enabling efficient dashboard creation with fast processing and strong support, enhancing business efficiency.
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.
The best features SAP Crystal Reports offers are powerful data connectivity, customized report design, interactive and visual reports, import, export, sharing options, and automation and scheduling.
The efficiency gained by our organization from SAP Crystal Reports is measurable through multiple export formats such as PDF and Excel.
It offers two ways to access data: by cubing the data or hitting it live.
Sisense has positively impacted my organization by drastically reducing the time taken to build the data cube, and we can see real-time analytics.
Sisense positively impacts our organization by speeding up the process of getting and presenting the data to customers or stakeholders.
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP Crystal Reports
Ranking in Reporting
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sisense
Ranking in Reporting
13th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (18th), Cloud Analytics (6th), Data Visualization (13th), Embedded BI (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of SAP Crystal Reports is 2.8%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sisense is 2.3%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP Crystal Reports2.8%
Sisense2.3%
Other94.9%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

MUHAMMAD_IMRAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Crystal Reports enables comprehensive data visualization but requires consistent integration practices for optimal accuracy
SAP Crystal Reports provides a clear picture for customer and vendor orders, showing whether orders are pending and delivering receivable and payable statuses, which allows understanding different scenarios categorically for client needs, ultimately satisfying both customers and clients. The efficiency gained by our organization from SAP Crystal Reports is measurable through multiple export formats such as PDF and Excel, which makes accessing and understanding data from the database easier. The ability to generate different formats facilitates better data analysis, although occasionally advanced features such as workbench center directly enhance the experience. The impact of SAP Crystal Reports' dynamic parameters significantly affects the customization and flexibility of reports, allowing adjustments to parameters based on client needs, such as date, users, and ledger views, ensuring data is correctly collected and formatted according to the client's requirements.
Vishal Halbe - PeerSpot reviewer
Has improved project turnaround time with customizable dashboards and faster data delivery to stakeholders
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Reporting solutions are best for your needs.
872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about SAP Crystal Reports?
We use SAP Crystal Reports for operational reporting.
What needs improvement with Sisense?
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. Providi...
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?
There was no significant difference in pricing between Sisense and ThoughtSpot. They were practically dead even from a pricing perspective.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Ebay, WIX, Wave Accounting, ESPN.com, Magellan Luxury Hotel, Paylogic, Sony, Merck, EDA, One Hour Translation, NASA, Plastic Jungle, Philips, Yahoo
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP Crystal Reports vs. Sisense and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.