SSRS Is Dead. Here Are Your Real Options

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SSRS Is Dead. Here Are Your Real Options

sgharlow

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May 11, 2026 at 12:00 am

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item SSRS Is Dead. Here Are Your Real Options

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mtillman-921105 SSCertifiable Points: 7157 More actions · Answer 1

Watch out for MS offering software and then suddenly abandoning it whenever they want. They gave everyone SSRS for free and now it's junkware. To be fair, all software is temporary in the long run, because the industry grows rapidly. But to abruptly stop supporting software that people have put a lot of training, effort and money into is a problem. They did the same thing with FoxPro, right after building it up as a top tier software.

As for finding devs who can use SSRS - I don't think there will be a problem with that for a long time. A lot of people are out of work right now because SSRS is essentially dead. I'm one of them, basically.

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking

Tom LeBlanc SSC Rookie Points: 42 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks for the article and the detailed options.

I had a bit of a laugh reading 20-190 reports, we have over 1,000 (and that has gone down in the past year).

Nathan Pieper Grasshopper Points: 14 More actions · Answer 3

It doesn't appear to be accurate that PBIRS paginated reports can only access Microsoft daata-sources.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/report-server/connect-data-sources specifies: "Paginated report data sources in Power BI Report Server match those in SQL Server Reporting Services, so you can reuse existing connectivity knowledge."

This reply was modified 2 weeks, 5 days ago by Nathan Pieper.
This reply was modified 2 weeks, 5 days ago by Nathan Pieper.

paultormey Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 576 More actions · Answer 4

@nathan Pieper could you expand on your comment, please?

P Jones SSChampion Points: 12375 More actions · Answer 5

As a long time SSRS user now working in Power BI, I prefer paginated reports as the tech I understand.

A recent change means paginated reports can use the same data sources as Power BI, not just Microsoft but also other databases such as Oracle, Maria DB etc and sources such as SharePoint files and lists, AWS Athena etc.

I suggest anyone not sure downloads Power BI Report Builder (free) and has a go at creating a paginated report.

Robert Haack SSC Veteran Points: 238 More actions · Answer 6

Does this also mean that SSRS reports made in Visual Studio or Report Builder is dead or just the SSRS Report Server itself? There seems to be some confusion on this among some others and I so figured I would ask.

sgharlow Valued Member Points: 56 More actions · Answer 7

Great question — there are really three separate things people lump together under “SSRS,” and only one of them is actually ending.

1. The SSRS server product is being sunset.

SQL Server 2025 no longer includes SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Microsoft is consolidating on-premises paginated reporting around Power BI Report Server (PBIRS), which now follows a quarterly release cadence instead of the traditional SQL Server cycle.

That said, SSRS 2022 is still fully supported through January 11, 2033, so existing deployments still have a long support runway. What’s ending is the standalone SSRS product line — not immediate support for existing installations.

2. The authoring tools are still actively supported.

The reporting toolchain is very much alive:

Power BI Report Builder continues to receive updates

Microsoft released a new RDLC designer for Visual Studio 2026 in late 2025

The “Microsoft Reporting Services Projects” extension supports VS 2019, 2022, and 2026

SSDT Report Designer still works

So Microsoft is clearly continuing to invest in report development tooling.

3. The RDL format itself is not going away.

RDL remains Microsoft’s standard paginated report format. Per Microsoft’s documentation, the same .rdl files can still be authored in Report Builder, Power BI Report Builder, or SSDT, and deployed to:

SSRS

PBIRS

Power BI paginated reports

So the important takeaway is this:

Your reports and your reporting skill set are still forward-compatible. What’s being retired is the SSRS server product bundled with SQL Server — not RDL, and not the report authoring ecosystem.

One practical caveat: Microsoft currently does not support a direct SSRS 2022 ? PBIRS catalog database migration. In practice, migrations are generally handled by redeploying reports and related assets rather than performing a lift-and-shift of the ReportServer databases.