Windward Core vs XLCubed comparison

Windward Studios and Fluence Technologies are both solutions in the Reporting category. Windward Studios is ranked #24, while Fluence Technologies is ranked #32. Windward Studios holds a 0.8% mindshare in RT, compared to Fluence Technologies’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Windward Studios users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of Fluence Technologies users who would recommend it.

Windward Core

Read 36 Windward Core reviews

536 Views
99 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

XLCubed

Read 2 XLCubed reviews

180 Views
16 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

Windward Core

XLCubed

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Windward Core and XLCubed compete in the business intelligence and reporting solutions market. Windward Core holds an advantage in integration and flexibility, while XLCubed has superior data visualization and analytics capabilities.

Features: Windward Core offers flexible document generation, seamless systems integration, and extensive template design. XLCubed provides advanced analytics, interactive data visualization features, and detailed data exploration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Windward Core provides straightforward deployment and comprehensive support, enabling quicker adoption and issue resolution. XLCubed offers flexible deployment options but may require more technical expertise initially, better suited for environments prioritizing analytics.

Pricing and ROI: Windward Core has competitive setup costs and strong ROI for document-focused processes. XLCubed has higher initial costs but justifies this with robust analytics and high data visualization capabilities, appealing to businesses with complex analytical needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Windward Core vs. XLCubed Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Windward Core vs. XLCubed

June 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:

Categories and Ranking

Windward Core

Ranking in Reporting

24th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Document Generation Tools (1st)

XLCubed

Ranking in Reporting

32nd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Windward Core is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XLCubed is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Christopher Heinz

Sr. Systems Analyst at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Strong layout and design capabilities; leverages every aspect available in Word-native formatting

The licensing key is a little bit twitchy. I'd like to see more HTML formatting support in templates. It has a basic stock of HTML formatting capability, but it doesn't have a rich vocabulary. I have to work around that sometimes. The help documentation and blog posts are extensive, but not always up to date. The error reports also need improvement. If you don't key it in right, it's a little hard to find the root cause. It gives you information as much as it can, but it doesn't really hone in and tell you explicitly what you should do to correct the problem.

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it_user1391316

Head of Finance Systems at NHS

Cost effective with great capability, performance, flexibility and visuals

In general, we're happy with the solution but we're always looking to see what else is out there. The thing we've struggled with is our partnership with Tagetik UK, the consultants, and the issue we had gaining access to consultants to develop the solution on our behalf. Thankfully we connected directly with XLCubed and now have a pretty close and good relationship with them so the earlier problem we had of actually getting resources to help us develop has now been solved. One of the things that we've been asking for and would like as an additional feature is a sort of benchmarking functionality. The ability to be able to benchmark, directly against the company digital corporate numbers. That said, there seems to be improved functionality within the latest release that could help us develop that further.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very flexible, so you can create anything you want. Think of the possibilities you have in Excel or in Word, because these are the two document generators that are used the most. I only use Word, but I can use nearly every feature in Word, including making charts and tables, and produce those features in Windward, parametrically."

"It's very feature-rich. You can create tables, you can create graphs, you can import pictures, and those features are also easy to use."

"The most valuable features are the ability for it to be integrated into our software solution and the AutoTag tool that allows us to quite quickly create and update the templates themselves."

"The usually the response is within one hour. The technical support will WebEx with you. I rate them as a 10 out of 10."

"You can use Microsoft Office as your designer interface. There is very little programming. You can have nontechnical people create reports."

"Another thing our clients absolutely love is the ability to design templates within the Microsoft Office suite, because of how simple it is. They're building off of something that's familiar. When they can build off of that feature, on top of something that's very familiar, that's a plus for them."

"For the designer we use AutoTag which is a Microsoft Word plugin. In general, it's easy to use, it doesn't have a very steep learning curve. It's not difficult, for people who know Microsoft Office well, to start using the AutoTag tool... It feels just like you're in a Microsoft Office environment with some extra functionality."

"We can develop any report at least five times faster."

More Windward Core pros

"I am looking forward to testing their full graphics that are available, as they looked very interesting in the demo."

"Great capability, performance, flexibility, visuals, and the solution is also very cost effective."

Cons

"They should add a document distribution solution on top of the document generation capability. It should allow us to send the generated document to a certain recipient (e.g. customer contact’s email address) based on a business-rules management system. That system would allow the end-user to manage a relationship between a document template and its recipient."

"One thing that frustrated us a little bit is that we have to use the Office PDF generation, because the native PDF generation is always slightly different compared to the one in Office. The formatting is just a little bit off here and there... This means that we need to have Office installed on the server to be able to generate these documents via API."

"The reason it took us so long to get the system up and running is that the APIs could be improved a bit. It could be a little bit more interoperable with software, without having to do a lot of the heavy lifting that we had do to get it in."

"The next release could benefit from a cloud-based environment."

"It needs better support for upgrades and more control over layout of elements. Upgrades tend to break existing output. Elements do not position where expected due to insertion of blank lines and page breaks. It takes time to fix these through trial and error."

"A lot of clients who want to use this don't have the technical background for the SQL portion of gathering the data. If Windward were to make a more user-friendly SQL extract front-end, that would help a lot of clients to leverage the application a lot more."

"I have to deal with VERY long lists of properties contained in our XMLs and it would be nice if Windward offered a way to alphabetize this property list."

"The only thing I can think of, that we'd like it to do, would be the ability to "burst out" reports, meaning one section of a report could be sent out as an email to a manager of a department, say, without having to run multiple reports to do it. As it sits now, we have to do multiple reports to do it."

More Windward Core cons

"Would like the ability to be able to benchmark."

"There should be a better or an easier way to establish that connection to external sources."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is very reasonable for what it provides. The report builder is about one grand per user... We are paying for a support contract, which is 20 percent of the price, but because the licenses are perpetual, I think the pricing is very reasonable."

"I'm starting to hear clients squeal about the price of their software. The cost of the software has gone up."

"Windward is very expensive when the volume of documents being generated is low and it is cheap when the volume is high."

"For what you're getting, it's an extremely good value."

"I can't advise anybody about pricing and licensing, but it was competitive. A lot of things we did look at were all volume-based, so it was a case of you buy a license to generate this many reports a year, and that's not something that I'm particularly interested in because it doesn't give you any idea - if we have future growth, or if we have a lean year - for budgeting reasons it's more difficult. With Windward it's a straight out license fee, whether we generate one page or we generate a million, it makes no difference."

"The only problem with the pricing of Windward is the limitation on the number of reports generated. It is costly in that sense. If you want to increase, you have to pay more, based on the number of reports generated per day. It is not the same with Crystal Reports. With the latter, you buy a license at one point in time and that's it."

"It is absolutely worth the value. They have flexibility, depending on what you're looking for from a buying standpoint. The current pricing models are quite flexible, with the ability to use it on an as-needed basis, or to get a perpetual license that covers a customer that might have extensive needs. I think it's pretty good."

"We negotiated our prices many years ago, and while they go up a little bit here and there, they've been pretty steady."

More Windward Core pricing and cost advice

"I am still using the two-week trial, but at first sight, the price is reasonable."

"14,000 Pounds per year for licensing."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

11%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Healthcare Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs Windward Core

Compared 31% of the time

SAP Crystal Reports vs Windward Core

Compared 29% of the time

Longview Analytics vs Windward Core

Compared 21% of the time

Domo vs Windward Core

Compared 19% of the time

More Windward Core Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs XLCubed

Compared 100% of the time

More XLCubed Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Windward Core

June 2025

Download Windward Core product report

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

June 2025

Download XLCubed product report

Also Known As

Windward, Windward Studios

No data available

Overview

What is Windward Studios?

For over a decade, Windward has been a leader in the software development industry by creating the most innovative and advanced document automation and reporting software on the planet.

Data-Driven Document Automation

Generate stunning documents that incorporate relevant data easily and seamlessly.

Visually Striking Designs

Our software provides innovative tools and features to build beautiful designs and stunning layouts, all within the familiar Microsoft Office Suite. Your imagination is the only limitation.

Agile Document Logic

We offer the best document automation software for the new millennium. With our conditional logic functionality, you can swiftly personalize the document content to gratify your end users.

Huge Time Saver

Looking for faster template creation that enables you to keep pace with your business? With our software, template creation takes minutes and you do not need any programming experience to get it done.

Exceptionally Intuitive Interface

Our program's design offers documents that can be edited, customized and designed using MS Office. Enjoy a stress-free document automation experience in programs you already know.

Efficient Savings

Significantly reduce the resources and time required for template development by using our streamlined template design and document automation tools.

Windward Studios

Produce insightful, interactive reports on, company-wide metrics for any business audience. Now all in Excel.
Pixel-perfect financial reporting with the skill sets you already have. No IT required.
Meet XLCubed: The data-connected Excel add-in for all your reporting needs.

Fluence Technologies

Sample Customers

HAL, Inc., Axe Group, White Clark Group, Blueprint Software, Aspect Security, Nucleus Software, LeBlanc’s Food Stores, South Sound 911, Aegon, Barclays, Fidelity Investments, ArisGlobal LLC, USDA, RepLink, AON Hewitt

Marshalls Ltd, BP Exploration and Production, Thorntons, Ted Baker, Bristol-Myers, Rank Group, ING Bank Genve, Cargill Value Investment, Chloride Power, Auchan, Erste, UEFA, Novartis, Porsche Informatik, Raiffeisen Bank International

Buyer's Guide

Windward Core vs. XLCubed

June 2025

Free Report: Windward Core vs. XLCubed

Find out what your peers are saying about Windward Core vs. XLCubed and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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