You probably know more about the subject of your report than you do about the subject of your essay. I you research your topic neither should be more difficult than the other.
The key difference is that reports concentrate on the analysis of findings and descriptive presentation of the results. Essays are about answering a question or discussing a problem. Take a short essay sample at writemyessaytoday and analyze it's structure. It follows the thoughts and the arguments and only reports have tables of contents and are divided into sections.