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I have always used Visual Studio to create my SSRS reports but I have recently been advised to switch over to and use report builder 3.0. I am wondering, are there are any advantages to using one over the other for SSRS report development?

Any known compatibility issues when trying to edit an .rdl in Report Builder 3.0 that was created in Visual Studio 2012?

Sébastien Sevrin
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Juan Velez
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2 Answers2

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I would say that the Report Designer (Visual Studio) targets Developers that have a Visual Studio edition, whereas Report Builder targets non-developer users, familiar with Office applications that will just need to let ClickOnce install Report Builder (but developers can use it too).

Report Builder has less features, but you can still do plenty of things with it, so it can be useful when you need to do a quick fix of the report, and you would take more time to do it with Report Designer.

Having said that, the following scenario is completely valid:

  • Create a report in the Report Designer
  • Deploy the report
  • Do a fix with Report Builder
  • Save the report (= deploys the report)

Here are the official descriptions of each environments:

Report Designer

Report Designer in Business Intelligence Development Studio is a report authoring environment that is hosted in Microsoft Visual Studio. Use Report Designer project and solution files to organize and maintain a master copy of report definitions, report parts, shared data sources, shared datasets, and resource files such as images and ESRI shapefiles for maps.

Report Builder

Report Builder is a report authoring environment for business users who prefer to work in the Microsoft Office environment. You work with one report at a time. You can modify a published report directly from a report server. You can quickly build a report by adding items from the Report Part Gallery provided by report designers from your organization.

More info on the differences between Report Designer and Report Builder:

Sébastien Sevrin
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    May want to consider that with VS you can more easily integrate with version control systems. – Tabloo Quijico Apr 26 '16 at 10:03
  • I'm both a .Net developer and as SSRS report writer and IMO, Report Builder is a far simpler and better tool than using VS. VS is kind of "clunky" for report writing. Setting up and managing the datasources is my biggest pet peeve with VS. While it will do everything RB will do, it doesn't do them as instinctively as RB does. For example, editing the query behind a datasource doesn't automatically refresh everything through the whole interface, you have to manually refresh the data. Also, the difference between deploying a report and simply saving it is enough to make me choose RB. – Frank Ball Jan 09 '19 at 18:34
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There are some known compatibility issues with Visual Studio's newer versions and SSRS. If you want to preview your report, you will have some issues using newer versions of SSRS, and they will error out. That being said, once you publish them, they appear to work without issue.

Hope that helps.

Josh Christian
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