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Windward Core vs XLCubed comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Windward Core
Ranking in Reporting
25th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Document Generation Tools (1st)
XLCubed
Ranking in Reporting
29th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Windward Core is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XLCubed is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

HM
It has streamlined a lot of our reporting processes
Their PDF needs improvement. We've run into some issues when we tried to generate a Word document. If we try to generate the same document in PDF, sometimes it doesn't look exactly the same. We have gone back to Windward support a couple of times on a few issues, e.g., we had some issues with reports that had barcodes on them. The barcode wasn't displaying properly. It was displaying as a skewed image as opposed to an actual barcode. Therefore, we worked with Windward support, having some daily calls with them. Then, within the next release, they were able to resolve the issue. They even gave us a pre-release, so we could implement it into our code before the actual official release on the website. It would be nice to have some sort of workflow capability within the product. Anytime you generate a document, nine out of ten times there is something which precedes that document, whether it's entering parameters in, e.g., if I'm requesting the status report for a project. The first thing that I usually want from a status perspective is which project is the status report for and which week is it for, as those are some of the things that I have to supply before I can generate a document. From a workflow perspective, it would be nice to say, "This project belongs to this person, and this person is okay with me pulling information out of this document for whatever need I have." From a workflow perspective, I would like a wizard interface that goes step-by-step, like a questionnaire, where there are a bunch of things that you have to answer, "Yes or no," before it knows what to do or how to produce the document. Right now, we write our own custom UI for this.
it_user1391316 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost effective with great capability, performance, flexibility and visuals
In general, we're happy with the solution but we're always looking to see what else is out there. The thing we've struggled with is our partnership with Tagetik UK, the consultants, and the issue we had gaining access to consultants to develop the solution on our behalf. Thankfully we connected directly with XLCubed and now have a pretty close and good relationship with them so the earlier problem we had of actually getting resources to help us develop has now been solved. One of the things that we've been asking for and would like as an additional feature is a sort of benchmarking functionality. The ability to be able to benchmark, directly against the company digital corporate numbers. That said, there seems to be improved functionality within the latest release that could help us develop that further.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We can develop any report at least five times faster.​"
"The engine being able to sit inside of our firewall is the most important feature."
"The solution is very flexible, so you can create anything you want. Think of the possibilities you have in Excel or in Word, because these are the two document generators that are used the most. I only use Word, but I can use nearly every feature in Word, including making charts and tables, and produce those features in Windward, parametrically."
"The ability for users to have design and layout control is very important because it allows them control over the design and layout of their reports, without the help of IT."
"The most valuable feature is the fact that it uses Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel as base templates, so when you generate, it's easy for clients to upgrade, and maintain, and generate out either a PDF or an actual Excel spreadsheet."
"The usually the response is within one hour. The technical support will WebEx with you. I rate them as a 10 out of 10."
"You can use Microsoft Office as your designer interface. There is very little programming. You can have nontechnical people create reports."
"Technical support is ​very good. They reply immediately and follow-up with any questions.​"
"Great capability, performance, flexibility, visuals, and the solution is also very cost effective."
"I am looking forward to testing their full graphics that are available, as they looked very interesting in the demo."
 

Cons

"There are some Excel formatting things that you lose when you implement a template: some default Excel validation scripts, macros. You could create them in Excel if you were just using Excel, but in creating a template that generates a report, some of those validation things are lost."
"The only thing I can think of, that we'd like it to do, would be the ability to "burst out" reports, meaning one section of a report could be sent out as an email to a manager of a department, say, without having to run multiple reports to do it. As it sits now, we have to do multiple reports to do it."
"It would be nice to have a black-and-white, ideal setup for servers, to maximize capabilities. We went through a lot of scenarios to get something that is scalable. An ideal AWS-package server setup could have saved us a lot of time. But I understand this is very company specific."
"One thing that frustrated us a little bit is that we have to use the Office PDF generation, because the native PDF generation is always slightly different compared to the one in Office. The formatting is just a little bit off here and there... This means that we need to have Office installed on the server to be able to generate these documents via API."
"Regarding AutoTag, we do notice that when you want to refactor a little bit of your template design or when you want to implement changes, sometimes you need a lot of clicks to get the change done. For instance... it would be helpful to be able to find all the identifiers with the old name and replace them with the new name. We haven't found a way to do that with the find-replace tool. Throughout the user-interface of Windward, you need a lot of clicks to get that done."
"They're not a gigantic company, so they just don't have all the capital to do whatever they would want to do. That's the only reason I would hold back even that one point. I know that if I do ask for something, I'll get it. I just know that it will take some time."
"I have to deal with VERY long lists of properties contained in our XMLs and it would be nice if Windward offered a way to alphabetize this property list."
"It needs the ability to drill down in a single report (i.e., interactive)​ into data."
"There should be a better or an easier way to establish that connection to external sources."
"Would like the ability to be able to benchmark."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I can't advise anybody about pricing and licensing, but it was competitive. A lot of things we did look at were all volume-based, so it was a case of you buy a license to generate this many reports a year, and that's not something that I'm particularly interested in because it doesn't give you any idea - if we have future growth, or if we have a lean year - for budgeting reasons it's more difficult. With Windward it's a straight out license fee, whether we generate one page or we generate a million, it makes no difference."
"From my experience in this field, the product is reasonably priced, at least with the RESTful engine implementation. It's definitely not a cheap option. People say, "That's a fair amount of money to pay for a document generation tool." At the same time, you do get good functionality and the support is good."
"Pricing is a bit higher than normal desktop applications, but it's well worth it. The ROI is simple to understand and the monthly payment for an annual license is affordable and worth it."
"We negotiated our prices many years ago, and while they go up a little bit here and there, they've been pretty steady."
"​They are fair and flexible. They are willing to work with your current architecture to make sure you have the best deal.​"
"The cost is reasonable."
"The pricing is very reasonable for what it provides. The report builder is about one grand per user... We are paying for a support contract, which is 20 percent of the price, but because the licenses are perpetual, I think the pricing is very reasonable."
"For what you're getting, it's an extremely good value."
"14,000 Pounds per year for licensing."
"I am still using the two-week trial, but at first sight, the price is reasonable."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Also Known As

Windward, Windward Studios
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HAL, Inc., Axe Group, White Clark Group, Blueprint Software, Aspect Security, Nucleus Software, LeBlanc’s Food Stores, South Sound 911, Aegon, Barclays, Fidelity Investments, ArisGlobal LLC, USDA, RepLink, AON Hewitt
Marshalls Ltd, BP Exploration and Production, Thorntons, Ted Baker, Bristol-Myers, Rank Group, ING Bank Genve, Cargill Value Investment, Chloride Power, Auchan, Erste, UEFA, Novartis, Porsche Informatik, Raiffeisen Bank International
Find out what your peers are saying about Windward Core vs. XLCubed and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.