Seal Report: .NET Database Reporting with AI Agents and Scheduling

What Seal Report Solves and Who It Targets

SSRS requires Windows Server infrastructure and a full SQL Server licence. Power BI Premium carries per-user or per-capacity costs that exceed what many internal reporting pipelines justify. Seal Report fills the gap for .NET development teams that need a self-hosted, designer-driven reporting system with scheduling, web publication, and multiple output formats at no licence cost.

The project describes its focus as easy installation and report design. Once the Server Manager and Report Designer are running, the README states that reports can be built and published in a minute. The typical user is a .NET developer or database administrator maintaining internal dashboards, scheduled exports for stakeholders, or client-facing deliveries, not a data scientist building exploratory analyses.

SQL, LINQ, and the Rendering Pipeline

Seal Report handles queries in two modes. The first is dynamic SQL: you supply your own query, or you let the engine build SQL for you against a declared data source. Supported drivers cover OLE DB, ODBC, MS SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB. The second mode is LINQ, which lets a single report join data from heterogeneous sources: a SQL database alongside an Excel spreadsheet or an HTTP JSON endpoint, without a separate ETL step.

Query results flow into the Razor rendering engine. For HTML output, Razor processes a Bootstrap-based template, producing responsive, sortable, filterable tables and native pivot tables built by dragging elements in the designer. Adding a chart series requires two mouse clicks; supported libraries include ChartJS, ECharts, Plotly, ScottPlot, and Gauge. Excel output goes through ClosedXML; PDF output goes through QuestPDF. XML, JSON, CSV, and plain text are also available and configurable.

Installing Seal Report and Designing a First Report

Seal Report ships as a Windows installer. Version 10.1 was released on 2026-09-16 and is available on the GitHub Releases page. The runtime requirement is .NET 10.0 (Microsoft Windows Desktop Runtime 10). Installation on Windows is a standard setup wizard; there is no package-manager install path documented in the top-level README.

After installation, the Server Manager handles data source declarations. It accepts OLE DB, ODBC, MS SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Excel, and CSV connections. The Report Designer opens from the same launcher and presents a canvas for dragging data elements, defining restriction filters, configuring chart definitions, and choosing view layouts. The README states that tutorials are available at sealreport.org.

For the Report Designer to function, Microsoft Edge WebView2 must be present on the machine. This is a Windows-only dependency; Linux users can run the server and consume reports but cannot use the visual designer.

Web deployment targets Internet Information Server with ASP.NET Core Runtime 10 (Hosting Bundle) on Windows, or the ASP.NET Core Runtime directly on Linux. NuGet packages are listed as an option for embedding Seal Report components into existing .NET projects, though the top-level README does not document the specific package identifiers.

AI Agents for Assisted Report Design

Version 10 added role-based AI agents that connect to OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, or Ollama, including local models running on your own hardware. Through a chat interface you describe the data you want to see, and the agent inspects your declared data sources, constructs the SQL or LINQ query, assembles the report structure, and can save it back to the server automatically.

AI tasks can also be embedded inside a report, so a scheduled execution can call an AI model as part of its rendering pass. The README does not document which model versions are recommended, what context window sizes apply, or how rate limits from external providers are handled. Teams running Ollama locally avoid API cost concerns but take responsibility for model quality and the hardware needed to run inference.

Report Scheduling and Delivery Options

The Report Scheduler integrates with the Windows Task Scheduler on Windows and can also run as a service. Scheduled jobs can write results to local folders, FTP or SFTP servers, or SharePoint document libraries. Email delivery is supported through SMTP, SendGrid, and the Microsoft Graph API.

Beyond report outputs, Seal Report includes a task engine that acts as a lightweight ETL layer. Tasks can load data from SQL or Excel, download files over FTP or SFTP, zip and back up outputs, call procedures from external .NET assemblies, and trigger data processing scripts. The task engine runs on the same scheduler used for report delivery.

The README does not describe error recovery policies, retry logic, or audit logging for failed tasks. Teams building multi-step production data pipelines should verify these capabilities before depending on the task engine for critical loads, as the documentation at the repository level focuses on the reporting side rather than ETL operations.

Real Limitations and Wrong-Tool Cases

The visual designer requires Microsoft Edge WebView2 and is therefore limited to Windows. Linux deployment covers the Web Report Server and the scheduler but not report creation. This splits design-time and run-time environments for Linux-first organisations.

Row-level security is not built in at the application layer. Report access on the web server is controlled through a folder and permission model, but filtering which rows a given user sees must be enforced at the SQL query level. Projects that need attribute-based access control will need to implement it themselves.

Seal Report targets the .NET ecosystem. Teams working in Python, Node.js, or Go will find the C# runtime and Windows-oriented designer a poor fit. For organisations that have already standardised on Metabase, Redash, or Apache Superset, there is no migration path and no format compatibility.

Maintenance and Licensing Details

The last push to the master branch was on 2026-09-25, and v10.1 shipped on 2026-09-16. The project is maintained by Ariacom, which also offers paid support subscriptions and consulting services under the Seal Report Services brand. The core product is licensed under the MIT License.

One third-party dependency requires separate attention: QuestPDF, which handles PDF output, is distributed under the LGPL for community use. The README notes in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md that projects whose own code directly calls QuestPDF's APIs are subject to its separate licence terms. Commercial deployments that extend the PDF rendering pipeline through custom code should verify QuestPDF's conditions before distribution.

Editorial conclusion

Seal Report suits .NET development teams that need a self-hosted reporting pipeline with scheduled delivery, pivot tables, and HTML or PDF output, without a commercial BI licence. Teams already committed to Power BI or SSRS will find the migration cost high. Before deploying in a commercial context, review the THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md file to confirm that QuestPDF's terms cover your PDF use case.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. ariacom/Seal-Report on GitHub
2. License: MIT
3. Project website
4. README
5. Releases