// Install-Package IronPdf
using IronPdf;
var renderer = new ChromePdfRenderer();
PdfDocument pdf = renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf(reportHtml);
pdf.SaveAs("report.pdf");
That one call is the .NET Core export path this article measures Bold Reports against. It handles the HTML-to-PDF conversion with no second browser engine standing behind it and no fixed typeface. Bold Reports replaced Syncfusion's old Report Platform brand in 2019, and if that naming history brought you here, this is the product, just not for the report-design half of the job.
Full disclosure. We build IronPDF at Iron Software, and this read looks at where Bold Reports's second-browser-engine, single-font .NET Core export path cost a team, and where IronPDF renders the same report from one package.
Where does the .NET Core export path come apart?
The gap narrows to one row once a report leaves the designer for a PDF.
| Capability | Bold Reports | IronPDF |
|---|---|---|
| PDF output from a report or page | Supported | Supported, through ChromePdfRenderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf
|
| Chart, gauge, or map export to PDF on .NET Core | Needs a separate browser engine standing in for the removed WebBrowser control |
Not applicable, ChromePdfRenderer renders natively with no separate export step |
| PDF font embedding on .NET Core | Fixed to one typeface | Full font embedding, configurable through RenderingOptions
|
| Linux and Docker image rendering | Documented fix relies on System.Drawing.EnableUnixSupport, a switch Microsoft removed in .NET 7 |
Native cross-platform rendering, no Unix-support switch required |
| RDL and SSRS report compatibility | Direct .rdl support |
Not applicable |
| Report designer, scheduling, and data binding | The product's core value | Not applicable |
Three specifics sit behind that table. Report Writer's own documentation says it exports charts, maps, and gauges through the WebBrowser control, unsupported on Core, so the vendor's fix is wiring up Puppeteer, Playwright, or the no-longer-maintained PhantomJS as a stand-in, a second browser stack next to Bold Reports itself. Font embedding is capped the same way, since Report Writer generates PDF documents only in the TimesNewRoman font on Core, unable to pull font details from the system the way .NET Framework does, so any other typeface renders wrong at export. And the Linux and Docker guidance calls for adding libgdiplus, libc6-dev, and libx11-dev to the Dockerfile and setting System.Drawing.EnableUnixSupport to true, a switch Microsoft's own breaking-change documentation confirms was removed in .NET 7, so the documented path for rendering images on Linux stops working past .NET 6, with no replacement published.
That fragility shows up in the security record. Bold Reports has four confirmed CVEs in its own code, all published 23 July 2026, all CWE-22 path traversal in the DataHub module, CVE-2026-65687, CVE-2026-65688, and CVE-2026-65689 rated 9.8 critical, and CVE-2026-65690 rated 8.8 high. NVD scopes all four to the Standalone Report Designer, versions 6.3 through 14.1.11, fixed in 14.1.12, and that scope doesn't extend to the Embedded SDK, the Report Server, or Bold Reports Cloud in NVD's own records. The vendor's 14.1.12 release note stays neutral, stating only that the release fixed security vulnerabilities, without naming CVE IDs or a dedicated advisory.
One lookup trap matters here. An NVD keyword search for Syncfusion returns seven CVEs, none of them a reporting product, specifically DocIO, the File Manager control, two EJ2 file-provider issues, a Document Editor and Chat UI cross-site-scripting issue, and an EJ2 JavaScript command-injection flaw. The four Bold Reports CVEs are indexed under Bold Reports (By SyncFusion) specifically and don't surface under a bare Syncfusion search, so querying only the parent brand name misses them.
One dependency for the export
Against those three failure points, the call at the top of this article is the whole replacement surface, without a second browser engine or a font-embedding ceiling in the way. It renders the fonts a design calls for, on Linux or in a container without a workaround already deprecated upstream, and the NuGet package installs the same way Bold Reports' does. IronPDF's documentation covers the setup, including font embedding once a design calls for more than one typeface.
Everything upstream of that export step is where IronPDF is not the answer. The RDL compatibility, the drag-and-drop designer, scheduled distribution, and data-source binding are things IronPDF was never built to do. A team relying on Bold Reports for SSRS migration or a self-service designer should keep using it for that. The fragile piece is the .NET Core export path for visualization-heavy reports, and coexistence, not replacement, fits most of the platform's real workload.
What does Bold Reports get right?
Keeping it for that is an easy call. Bold Reports' real differentiator, one IronPDF has no equivalent to, is direct RDL compatibility, existing .rdl files open without a project rebuild, paired with a credible SSRS migration path and a documented Crystal Reports to RDL conversion path, a hard-to-replicate advantage no rendering library offers. It ships a full WYSIWYG desktop report designer with no time limit and no Visual Studio or SQL Server requirement, plus first-party data connectivity across SQL Server, Azure SQL, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Web API, JSON, XML, and SSAS, with no custom connector code. The platform is under active investment too, with recent releases adding data-driven scheduling and SOC 2 Type 2 compliance. Every one of those strengths sits outside the one slice this article covers, the moment a report needs to leave Bold Reports as a PDF on modern .NET.
Keep the report server, or move the export?
Before standardizing its PDF export path on today's .NET, weigh what's actually fragile there. Visualization exports lean on an extra browser engine bolted on by hand, font embedding on Core is capped at one typeface, and the documented Linux image-rendering fix no longer applies past .NET 6. Report authoring itself is untouched by any of that. It's specifically the PDF finish line worth testing before it's load-bearing in production.
If you want to run that finish line against your own reports, IronPDF has a free trial so you can try the export step above on a representative sample.
Have you hit the TimesNewRoman ceiling or the missing WebBrowser control exporting a Bold Reports visualization on .NET Core, and which of the three documented workarounds did you end up standing up? Drop your answer in the comments.
Bold Reports and Syncfusion are trademarks of Syncfusion Inc, and this piece is not affiliated. The details above are drawn from Bold Reports' own documentation, its NuGet listings, and NVD's public CVE records as they stood at the time of writing. If a detail has changed since, correct us in the comments.
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