BIRT provides the BIRT Viewer web application that includes all the necessary files to deploy to most J2EE application servers. This web application supports running reports and viewing paginated HTML, with a table of contents and bookmarks, and extracting data to a values file. URLs provide this level of integration. The host application forwards the reporting request to the BIRT Viewer and allows the user to interact directly with the report.

The BIRT Viewer is also available as an Eclipse plug-in. This plug-in is used within the report designer to preview and display a report while it is being developed. Within BIRT Report Designer, it is deployed to and works with the Eclipse Tomcat application server plug-in. As report requests are made, the Eclipse workbench starts the Tomcat application and launches the BIRT Viewer.