Home » Archived » BIRT » Comparing Jasper,FOP and BIRT and others
| Comparing Jasper,FOP and BIRT and others [message #28063] |
Tue, 19 April 2005 08:54  |
Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: ajeya.xxxxxxx.com
We have requirement of generating PDF and online reports and we are
planning to move from perl based PDF only batch processing system to Java
based batch+online reporting.
Just wanted to know if anyone has evaluated BIRT against JasperReports via
Jasper Assistant or Ireport or any other reporting tools and what are +ve
of BIRT which can make me to chose BIRT above them
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Ajeya
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| Re: Comparing Jasper,FOP and BIRT and others [message #28466 is a reply to message #28063] |
Wed, 20 April 2005 01:39  |
| Eclipse User |
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Ajeya,
Jasper is a fine tool for its target applications. Panscopic just bought the
rights and changed their name to JasperSoft. My knowledge of Jasper is
several months old, but here are the primary differences that I recall.
Someone please correct me if my knowledge is dated.
* Jasper itself does not offer a designer; but a couple of designers have
been created by others. At least one of them is an Eclipse plugin. BIRT is
an Eclipse top-level project and includes an Eclipse-based designer.
* Jasper does not have direct support for charts, though you can integrate
the JFree Charts package. BIRT has a chart package included.
* Jasper supports one query (report) per design, though you can use
subqueries. BIRT supports any number to create rich, multi-faceted content.
* In Jasper, data access is done by the application outside the report
engine. In BIRT, the report engine performs data access using JDBC or a
custom adapter written using ODA (Open Data Access).
* BIRT provides sorting, filtering, and multiple passes over the data, but
Jasper relies on the app to perform these tasks.
* Jasper supports free-form layout, BIRT supports an HTML-like tabular &
text layouts (and will eventually support free-form as well).
* BIRT supports a CSS-like style system for controlling report format;
Jasper does not.
* I believe (but am not certain) that Jasper provides no support for totals
(though they can be coded by hand). BIRT provides many kinds of built-in
totals.
* Jasper supports scripting via Java, and hence Jasper reports must be
compiled before being run. BIRT reports support JavaScript and don't need to
be compiled.
* Jasper has a much longer track record. Jasper is on its sixth release,
while BIRT is coming up on Release 1.0.
Both tools provide extensive integration with Java, and both provide Engine
APIs. Both can access a wide variety of data sources. Both provide HTML and
PDF output, though the Jasper PDF support may be a bit better than BIRT's at
this point. Jasper may have some additional output formats.
FOP is not a reporting tool, it simply converts XML into output. Your app
would still need to write reporting functionality to design & generate the
XML. Indeed, BIRT uses FOP to generate PDF, so you could say that FOP is "in
addition to" BIRT rather than "instead of" BIRT.
Which to choose? Really depends on your needs. We, of course, would like you
to take a test run of BIRT to see what you think.
- Paul
Paul Rogers
BIRT PMC
"Ajeya" <ajeya@xxxxxxx.com> wrote in message
news:c9d06a47ba50d9ae08f17c96d6687ec9$1@www.eclipse.org...
> We have requirement of generating PDF and online reports and we are
> planning to move from perl based PDF only batch processing system to Java
> based batch+online reporting.
>
> Just wanted to know if anyone has evaluated BIRT against JasperReports via
> Jasper Assistant or Ireport or any other reporting tools and what are +ve
> of BIRT which can make me to chose BIRT above them
> Any help would be greatly appreciated
>
> Ajeya
>
>
>
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| Re: Comparing Jasper,FOP and BIRT and others [message #31351 is a reply to message #28466] |
Tue, 26 April 2005 19:41 |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: barry.panscopic.com
Hi Paul, all,
Here are some opinions from the other side of the fence. For the
record, I'm the CTO of JasperSoft and just may have a bit of a bias :-)
On 2005-04-19 22:39:51 -0700, "Paul Rogers" <progers@actuate.com> said:
> * Jasper does not have direct support for charts, though you can
> integrate the JFree Charts package. BIRT has a chart package included.
JasperReports can be integrated with JFreeCharts today, and we will be
adding a tight integration in the next few months. JFreeCharts is a
powerful, mature charting package, which is why we choose to use it vs
any others. Given the number of high quality charting packages out
there, we did not see any value in writing yet another.
> * In Jasper, data access is done by the application outside the report
> engine. In BIRT, the report engine performs data access using JDBC or a
> custom adapter written using ODA (Open Data Access).
JasperDecisions support multiple data sources, including a rich set of
non-JDBC sources. JasperReports can be used with any of these.
JasperReports today includes classes that makes accessing JDBC, XML and
Java Object based data sources trivial. (There is a nice "how to" on
the Hibernate section of the JBoss site on using JasperReports with
Hibernate.)
> * Jasper supports free-form layout, BIRT supports an HTML-like tabular
> & text layouts (and will eventually support free-form as well).
Hmm, one could argue which way is an advantage. WIth a free-form
layout you can create tables and grids, but when you start with a
tabular layout it is impossible to create a free-form layout. There
are times where you really want to use a free-form layout, such as
drilling down to an individual record, or adding illustrations.
> * I believe (but am not certain) that Jasper provides no support for
> totals (though they can be coded by hand). BIRT provides many kinds of
> built-in totals.
JasperReports has a number of built in functions, including totals,
averages, min, max, etc. You can create report totals, page totals,
group totals, or any combination of them. One advantage of having a
page oriented report design is you can generate page totals, often a
requirement for paper-based or printed reports.
> * Jasper supports scripting via Java, and hence Jasper reports must be
> compiled before being run. BIRT reports support JavaScript and don't
> need to be compiled.
JasperReports includes support for the Groovy scripting language, and
support for other languages can be easily plugged in. We are
considering adding JavaScript support via Rhino.
> * Jasper has a much longer track record. Jasper is on its sixth
> release, while BIRT is coming up on Release 1.0.
>
> Both tools provide extensive integration with Java, and both provide
> Engine APIs. Both can access a wide variety of data sources. Both
> provide HTML and PDF output, though the Jasper PDF support may be a bit
> better than BIRT's at this point. Jasper may have some additional
> output formats.
>
> Which to choose? Really depends on your needs. We, of course, would
> like you to take a test run of BIRT to see what you think.
Complete agreement on our side. JasperReports and BIRT are different
tools, with different orientations. You should take a look at both and
decide which is the best fit for your needs.
-Barry Klawans
JasperSoft
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| Re: Comparing Jasper,FOP and BIRT and others [message #31622 is a reply to message #31351] |
Wed, 27 April 2005 03:14 |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: michael_kimber.NOSPAM.lagan.com
Barry Klawans wrote:
> Hi Paul, all,
>
> Here are some opinions from the other side of the fence. For the
> record, I'm the CTO of JasperSoft and just may have a bit of a bias :-)
>
> On 2005-04-19 22:39:51 -0700, "Paul Rogers" <progers@actuate.com> said:
>
>> * Jasper does not have direct support for charts, though you can
>> integrate the JFree Charts package. BIRT has a chart package included.
>
>
> JasperReports can be integrated with JFreeCharts today, and we will be
> adding a tight integration in the next few months. JFreeCharts is a
> powerful, mature charting package, which is why we choose to use it vs
> any others. Given the number of high quality charting packages out
> there, we did not see any value in writing yet another.
>
>> * In Jasper, data access is done by the application outside the report
>> engine. In BIRT, the report engine performs data access using JDBC or
>> a custom adapter written using ODA (Open Data Access).
>
>
> JasperDecisions support multiple data sources, including a rich set of
> non-JDBC sources. JasperReports can be used with any of these.
> JasperReports today includes classes that makes accessing JDBC, XML and
> Java Object based data sources trivial. (There is a nice "how to" on
> the Hibernate section of the JBoss site on using JasperReports with
> Hibernate.)
>
>> * Jasper supports free-form layout, BIRT supports an HTML-like tabular
>> & text layouts (and will eventually support free-form as well).
>
>
> Hmm, one could argue which way is an advantage. WIth a free-form layout
> you can create tables and grids, but when you start with a tabular
> layout it is impossible to create a free-form layout. There are times
> where you really want to use a free-form layout, such as drilling down
> to an individual record, or adding illustrations.
>
>> * I believe (but am not certain) that Jasper provides no support for
>> totals (though they can be coded by hand). BIRT provides many kinds of
>> built-in totals.
>
>
> JasperReports has a number of built in functions, including totals,
> averages, min, max, etc. You can create report totals, page totals,
> group totals, or any combination of them. One advantage of having a
> page oriented report design is you can generate page totals, often a
> requirement for paper-based or printed reports.
>
>> * Jasper supports scripting via Java, and hence Jasper reports must be
>> compiled before being run. BIRT reports support JavaScript and don't
>> need to be compiled.
>
>
> JasperReports includes support for the Groovy scripting language, and
> support for other languages can be easily plugged in. We are
> considering adding JavaScript support via Rhino.
>
>> * Jasper has a much longer track record. Jasper is on its sixth
>> release, while BIRT is coming up on Release 1.0.
>>
>> Both tools provide extensive integration with Java, and both provide
>> Engine APIs. Both can access a wide variety of data sources. Both
>> provide HTML and PDF output, though the Jasper PDF support may be a
>> bit better than BIRT's at this point. Jasper may have some additional
>> output formats.
>>
>> Which to choose? Really depends on your needs. We, of course, would
>> like you to take a test run of BIRT to see what you think.
>
>
> Complete agreement on our side. JasperReports and BIRT are different
> tools, with different orientations. You should take a look at both and
> decide which is the best fit for your needs.
>
> -Barry Klawans
> JasperSoft
>
Barry,
Can you clarify:
"JasperReports and BIRT are different tools, with different orientations."
As the differences and orientations are not clear to me.
Regards Mike Kimber
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| Re: Comparing Jasper,FOP and BIRT and others [message #31867 is a reply to message #31622] |
Wed, 27 April 2005 20:18 |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: bklawans.jaspersoft.com
In article <1114504555.748814@news.lagan.com>, Michael Kimber
<michael_kimber@NOSPAM.lagan.com> wrote:
> Barry,
>
> Can you clarify:
>
> "JasperReports and BIRT are different tools, with different orientations."
>
> As the differences and orientations are not clear to me.
>
> Regards Mike Kimber
Hi Mike,
I'll focus here on the differences between the two projects, though
they do have enough similarities to confuse people. Some of the key
differences I see:
1) JasperReports is a library, BIRT is a server-based product. If your
application is not a J2EE app, or does not use HTML as its primary
output format JasperReports is a better fit. If you need a server,
BIRT gives you one with no extra coding..
2) The main layout models are very different. JasperReports is more
page/paper oriented, while BIRT has a more flow-based layout model.
This means JasperReports can perform page oriented operations (such as
page totals, etc) that are useful in printed output, comes with a page
view that can be embedded in Swing apps, etc. BIRT drops into a web
application much easier.
3) JasperReports gives the user complete control over the data, at the
expense of having to write more code. Whether this is a strength or
weakness depends on your needs.
-Barry Klawans
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| Re: Comparing Jasper,FOP and BIRT and others [message #32237 is a reply to message #31867] |
Thu, 28 April 2005 16:56 |
| Eclipse User |
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Barry,
Thanks for the helpful comparison info about Jasper! Say hello to Al & Jan
(guys at JasperSoft who used to work at Actuate.) Also, I enjoyed meeting
"Mr. Jasper" himself, Teodor, at the MySQL conference.
One clarification about BIRT. As you mentioned, BIRT provides a web app that
can be dropped into a J2EE server. It turns out that BIRT also provides a
simple library for running reports in other kinds of apps. Admittedly, that
library is a bit hard to discover at the moment because the API is just
being wrapped up after some revisions based on early feedback, but it will
be there in Release 1.0.
Also, I suspect that, at present, Jasper probably produces better PDF than
BIRT. We tried to use the open source Apache FOP tool for our PDF
generation, but that has not quite worked out as well as we'd hoped. This is
an area where BIRT can learn from Jasper.
As you mention, one of BIRT's strengths is data access. As I mentioned to
Teodor, Eclipse is all about "extensible frameworks and exemplary tools."
Jasper could easily integrate with the Eclipse BIRT Open Data Access (ODA)
framework to gain access to data drivers developed for BIRT. Just have the
Jasper user's app create the connection and set up the data source, then
wrap the ODA data set with an implementation of the Jasper JRDataSource and
you're good to go.
Thanks again for the comparison info.
- Paul
Paul Rogers
BIRT PMC
"Barry Klawans" <bklawans@jaspersoft.com> wrote in message
news:270420051718381534%bklawans@jaspersoft.com...
> In article <1114504555.748814@news.lagan.com>, Michael Kimber
> <michael_kimber@NOSPAM.lagan.com> wrote:
>
>> Barry,
>>
>> Can you clarify:
>>
>> "JasperReports and BIRT are different tools, with different
>> orientations."
>>
>> As the differences and orientations are not clear to me.
>>
>> Regards Mike Kimber
>
> Hi Mike,
>
> I'll focus here on the differences between the two projects, though
> they do have enough similarities to confuse people. Some of the key
> differences I see:
>
> 1) JasperReports is a library, BIRT is a server-based product. If your
> application is not a J2EE app, or does not use HTML as its primary
> output format JasperReports is a better fit. If you need a server,
> BIRT gives you one with no extra coding..
>
> 2) The main layout models are very different. JasperReports is more
> page/paper oriented, while BIRT has a more flow-based layout model.
> This means JasperReports can perform page oriented operations (such as
> page totals, etc) that are useful in printed output, comes with a page
> view that can be embedded in Swing apps, etc. BIRT drops into a web
> application much easier.
>
> 3) JasperReports gives the user complete control over the data, at the
> expense of having to write more code. Whether this is a strength or
> weakness depends on your needs.
>
> -Barry Klawans
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