Upgrade Your Reporting: Why JasperReports Is the Modern Choice
As legacy tools like Oracle Reports slow businesses down, modern platforms such as JasperReports empower organizations with scalable, data-driven reporting built for the future.
Founder & CTO
- 4 mins read
- 02 Dec, 2025
Clunky legacy tools in the digital age can hinder businesses wishing to race ahead such as Oracle Reports. Progressive organizations are migrating to JasperReports — a lightweight, powerful, report generating tool and supporting library written in Java that helps businesses make decisions based on data with the ultimate goal of providing the information required. So without further ado, let’s take a deep dive into why the switch makes sense, how migration happens and what it really delivers.
Why Leave Oracle Reports Behind?
- End of Support and Updates: Oracle stopped development work on Oracle Reports, and in 2021 removed it from E-Business Suite. The risk of such continued exposure to business outweighs access to security updates.
- Costly To Maintain: Oracle Reports is costly to support due to its need for specialized skill sets and mandatory licenses.
- Old-School: It was designed for IT of yesterday, no good at cloud connectors, data formats and dynamic reporting needs.
Stay tied to Oracle Reports can mean lagging innovation and higher costs. Moving to a modern approach enables agility and sustainable development in the long term.
Why JasperReports is the Modern Choice
As a member of the TIBCO Jaspersoft platform, Jasper Reports gives you all the flexibility, scalability and open-source freedom to make it your alternative for replacing.
Key Benefits:
- Open-Source Benefit: It’s available for free to use and customize under LGPL, so you are not locked in your vendor.
- Full Integration: Java based software available directly as a web and cloud service or as an open source download for on-premise systems, VMs and appliances. Connects to everything with one API.
- Dynamic Reporting: Generate visually appealing dashboards, charts, and filter reports as well as export the results to various formats (PDF, Excel, HTML).
- Scalable Architecture: Works well with large data sets and scales horizontally for enterprise grade workloads.
- Strong Community & Support: Supported by TIBCO and a global community; active; ongoing enhancement and documentation.
JasperReports gives IT and business users the information they need to make decisions that traditional systems don’t provide.
How the Migration Process Works
Migrating might seem scary, but a phased approach can help make it more manageable:
- Complete Analysis: Assess current Oracle Reports (best for new clients. rdf files) in order to determine complexity, dependencies, as well as custom logic.
- Automated Conversion: Up to 50% of the conversion is automated from predefined AI rules that translate layouts, queries and formulas to JasperReports templates (JRXML).
- Manual Polishing: Complex PL/SQL triggers or scripts are re-written in plain Java or SQL, layouts tweaked for exactness.
- Testing and Validation: Run reports side-by-side to guarantee same result generate the same output. End-users often validate results.
- Deployment: Report are pushed into JasperReports Server or embedded in application with re-based data sources and references.
A blend of automation and expert intervention increases speed and decreases the disruption to its users, while still being accurate.
Overcoming Migration Challenges
- Layout Tweaks: Simple layouts are created for you automatically, debtails are manually developed further.
- SQL Compatibility: Oracle-specific statements are converted to raw SQL for the destination database.
- Conditional Formating: Oracle triggers became JasperReports expressions.
- Internationalization: Managed accurately by property files and resource bundles.
- Optimal Performance: Queries are written for speed; many queries have performance the exceeds that of legacy Oracle.
These approaches maintain the accuracy of migrated reports while adding the power of scalability and maintainability.
Next generation reporting platform prepared to handle new tools and data sources.
Benefits for IT and Business Teams
For Developers (H3)
- Reports in XML (JRXML) format are version-controllable and editable in modern IDEs like Jaspersoft Studio.
- No dependency on outdated Oracle Report Builder or rare skill sets.
- Familiar Java and SQL knowledge is sufficient for maintenance.
For Business Users (H3)
- Future-proof reporting solution for entry of new tools and data sources.
- Reduced reliance on proprietary middleware.
- Improved end user dashboards experience for the web, Multiple export options and adhoc reports.
- Strong support from the community as well as TIBCO so it is stable.
JasperReports puts organizations back in actually control of their reporting infrastructure, lowers cost and adds more flexibility.
Global Adoption (H2)
JasperReports is the most popular open-source reporting engine, with over 600,000 downloads a month and more than 1,100 commercial customers worldwide in such industries as finance, healthcare, education, technology and manufacturing. It is now used in enterprise projects by many companies, so it shows that it’s mature and reliable. Flexible deployment (cloud, on-premise, or containerized) allows it to fit into integrated and stand-alone reporting products.
Key Takeaway
Oracle Report to JasperReport Migration is not just a technical upgrade, but strategic modernization too. It swaps out of date unsupported systems by a robust open source flexible platform that grows with your business. Enterprises can achieve, with the right planning, automation and validation:
- Smooth continuity with existing reports
- Reduced maintenance costs
- A scalable foundation for modern analytics
In a world where data drives decisions, JasperReports equips organizations to stay ahead, smarter and faster.
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
Our Oracle Reports are still running fine. Why migrate now?
Oracle Reports is no longer actively developed. Early migration reduces risk and unlocks interactive dashboards, API integration, and other modern capabilities.
Is JasperReports really free?
Yes. Core JasperReports is LGPL-licensed, and enterprises may opt for TIBCO’s commercial edition for enhanced features and support.
Will the new reports match Oracle outputs?
Yes. Automation and careful verification ensure identical data, layout, and logic.
How is PL/SQL logic handled?
Business logic is migrated into Java or SQL scriptlets, maintaining consistent behavior.
What skills are needed for JasperReports maintenance?
Basic Java and SQL skills are enough, aided by Jaspersoft Studio and extensive community resources.
Will migration affect business operations?
No. Migration runs in parallel with Oracle Reports, minimizing downtime during transition.
Get in touch
Our Recent Blogs
