Windward Core vs XLCubed comparison

Windward Studios and Fluence Technologies are both solutions in the Reporting category. Windward Studios is ranked #23, while Fluence Technologies is ranked #35. Windward Studios holds a 0.9% 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

820 Views
574 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

XLCubed

Read 2 XLCubed reviews

313 Views
166 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: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Windward Core vs. XLCubed

September 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

23rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Document Generation Tools (1st)

XLCubed

Ranking in Reporting

35th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Windward Core is 0.9%, up from 0.4% 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 Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Windward Core	0.9%
XLCubed	0.4%
Other	98.7%

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

"Technical support is very good. They reply immediately and follow-up with any questions."

"We ended up going with Windward for the level of support we got from them during our proof of concept."

"One of the features that we have found most important is that the report builder is in Word, so it was very easy to get into it... We could also use some of our existing Word templates."

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

"Thanks to Windward, our documents need very few tweaks and are usually "customer-ready" right out of the box."

"AutoTag is valuable because it integrates with MS Word and makes it easy for our users to create template documents and reports. It allows our users to design the templates based on differing needs."

"The design tool, with all of its features and sample output fidelity tests, and being able to work with JSON data and output PDF and HTML, were also both crucial."

"The ability for users to have design and layout control is very important because it allows them control over the design and layout of their reports, without the help of IT."

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

"It would be nice to have a black-and-white, ideal setup for servers, to maximize capabilities. We went through a lot of scenarios to get something that is scalable. An ideal AWS-package server setup could have saved us a lot of time. But I understand this is very company specific."

"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."

"It is software, so there are always times where things don't work. Most of the time issues happen when trying to move to a new version. There might be problems with reports that were created in an older version, so either we have to make a tweak to the templates or we report it to them and get them to make an adjustment to their software."

"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."

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

"We would like to shrink these reports into one page, because there is a lot of free space on one page, but we cannot shrink it into the one page to be shorter. This is one thing we would like to change."

"About six months ago, we raised the possibility of improving the way they manage the HTML 5. Sometimes, when you insert a lot of data in the data source, you get an error because it is not managing HTML 5 features well. I believe they have addressed this in later versions of their product."

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

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

"Pricing is something I complain about. Production pricing is okay, but for a testing environment the pricing looks a bit high to me."

"Pricing is a bit higher than normal desktop applications, but it's well worth it. The ROI is simple to understand and the monthly payment for an annual license is affordable and worth it."

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

"The pricing is fair. The way that they have it priced is the Windward Designer has a price that's associated with it. Then, depending on the number of cores that you're looking for, that is the price that you pay. The more cores that you want, the more expensive it is."

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

"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."

"From my experience in this field, the product is reasonably priced, at least with the RESTful engine implementation. It's definitely not a cheap option. People say, "That's a fair amount of money to pay for a document generation tool." At the same time, you do get good functionality and the support is good."

More Windward Core pricing and cost advice

"14,000 Pounds per year for licensing."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Performing Arts

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	8

No data available

Comparisons

SAP Crystal Reports vs Windward Core

Compared 27% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Windward Core

Compared 26% of the time

Domo vs Windward Core

Compared 17% of the time

OpenText Intelligence vs Windward Core

Compared 17% of the time

Longview Analytics vs Windward Core

Compared 13% of the time

More Windward Core Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs XLCubed

Compared 72% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs XLCubed

Compared 28% of the time

More XLCubed Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Windward Core

September 2025

Download Windward Core product report

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

September 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

September 2025

Free Report: Windward Core vs. XLCubed

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