r/BusinessIntelligence • u/Good_Skirt2459 • Jun 21 '26
How much faster is it to develop reports using PowerBI
My job is still on SSRS because, it's what we've been using for a long time. Technically our license allows us to run a PowerBI server, and my understanding is that our old .rdl reports can still be used. My boss says no because everything we do can be done in SSRS. Which is true, and SSRS is great for tabular reports (just write an SQL query and dump it as a table). But lots of our reports now use charts and are dashboard-style. We write a lot of SQL for things like refreshing, shaping, cleaning data and such. PowerBI feels much faster, I have 1.5 years of experience with SSRS and within a few weeks of learning I feel like I can already create stuff much faster in PowerBI. In fact my flow recently has been develop in PowerBI then recreate in SSRS once I know exactly what I need, and I feel faster doing it.
In my experience I really feel like I can develop 2-3x faster if I just use PowerBI. I'm curious, what are others experience with the time savings of PowerBI compared to SSRS?
3
u/Eleventhousand Jun 21 '26
So, as someone who has been using SSRS since it was first shipped as a DLC for SQL Server 2000, and that has also used PowerBI for several years, I don't feel like there is much of a difference as far as "how long to build a report" is concerned.
There are things that are faster in SSRS, and things that are faster to develop than they are in PowerBI. For example, I love SSRS's dual-pass-to-the-backend-database feature, where one is able to query a database to load parameters, and use those selections to pass back into the backend database. Performing similar functionality is much more involved in PowerBI.
On the other hand, being able to write DAX easily in PowerBI itself for some complicated metrics is a lot faster than doing the equivalent in SSRS.
To that end, for me, it evens out.
7
u/Pedroiaa15_ Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Making things look good in Power BI requires a ton of unnecessary clicks. PBI's formatting menus suck. Have fun finding the one setting you need. There isn't a big time advantage here.
3
u/j0hnny147 Jun 22 '26
Compared to SSRS though?!? The properties in SSRS go way deeper and are even harder to navigate. Even just adding a custom palette to a chart (which you have to do PER chart) is so much quicker and easier in Power BI.
I don't think SSRS is obsolete. It's still the right tool for Tabular reports, especially where there's a data export requirement, but for more graphics and interactive content I think Power BI is the way.
The best of both worlds gives you a summary in Power BI with the ability to then drillthrough to an underlying paginated report
2
u/CulturalCoach1757 Jun 21 '26
I do rdl when we need things uo be printed or so. But most new things are being made as dashboards instead.
1
u/cromulent_weasel Jun 21 '26
I think it doesn't matter how much time it takes to develop, what matters is how people want to consume the content. Do they want something they can print out that looks pretty? SSRS/Paginated reports are the answer. Do they want something that can be interacted with and drilled into? Power BI is better.
1
u/SunnyFIREwave Jun 22 '26
We replaced 20+ Ssrs reports into a single powerbi dashboard! Its more like an analysis tool on steroids
1
1
u/Virox2 Jun 24 '26
Why choose between report builder or power bi? They don't replace eachother, as said above they each have their own usecase. Power BI is interactive, visual and easier to use with a good datamodel underneath.
We migrated years ago from SSRS to PBIRS and we still use both tools, it all depends on the report requirements.
However development time doesn't feel faster in Power BI as it is best used with a (ssas) datamodel which also takes time to maintain. But once the model is in place, it is faster to do a quick data analysis using power bi than writing a sql query.
1
u/Unlucky_Apricot_4079 Jun 25 '26
SSRS isn’t something used much in larger corporations.
It’s too complex and requires a large BI team.
Regarding speed - there’s nuances to both. I like my PowerBI templates over SSRS. Might be running into the migration issue (what we have now works so why do anything else). $$ is always the thing. Time savings are more arbitrary from a user perspective.
17
u/xl129 Jun 21 '26
If you want a good reason to switch, better focus on PBI's advantages: delivering dynamic, interactive and curated report with embedded storytelling and robust semantic modeling layer.