TIBCO Jaspersoft Overview

No Comments

At the time, we selected Jaspersoft because we did not have a multi-tenant model, and we needed a reporting solution that offered a package with many licenses at a reasonable cost. Now our needs have changed, and the licensing model no longer makes sense. Tableau is much easier to use, and has vastly superior data exploration capabilities, but if I want to distribute a report to a large number of users, the licensing model doesn't work as well. Tableau also doesn't have as many options for report distribution. The Tableau monthly licensing model works much better for us. Yellowfin is similar to Jaspersoft, and has an entry point that makes sense for an organization like us (it is free to start).
Jaspersoft Studio originates from an open source project, and it still has that feeling. The learning curve can be very steep. Making graphs is quite painful and not at all intuitive. I need to know about things like Java data types, casting of those data types. Sometimes the errors I see are just Java stack trace, which I don't expect from a licensed enterprise tool. Sometimes I encounter quirky issues that take hours to resolve. The licensing structure does not work well for us. We need a licensing option that acknowledges where we are at in our company development. The starting price is way too high. We need a licensing structure that gives us an entry point for an early-stage company such as us, that is just starting to gain traction with customers. As a consequence, we use the lowest licensing level, that does not give us access to the web-based ad-hoc dashboard designer. I have used that in the past, and it is so much easier to deal with than Studio, but the hike in price is too much for us to swallow.