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Meraki Location Analytics vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 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

Meraki Location Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
23rd
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
331
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Meraki Location Analytics is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 8.1%, down from 21.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI8.1%
Meraki Location Analytics0.8%
Other91.1%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

RB
Senior Analyst at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Locating equipment within facilities is now straightforward and efficient
We mainly use Meraki Location Analytics to locate equipment within our manufacturing facilities. We're not a public-facing organization, so our use case involves finding devices like printers or scanners that need maintenance The best aspect of Meraki Location Analytics is its ease of use.…
Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Interactive dashboards have transformed restaurant data into faster daily business decisions
Microsoft Power BI has many features and there is not a lot to improve. However, the licensing can be confusing. When deciding between Pro and Premium, I find it difficult to distinguish what features are offered by Pro and what features are offered by Premium, including the particular differences to choose between both licensing models. Additionally, some features such as DAX, which I mentioned previously, involve DAX calculations and complex data modeling, which are somewhat advanced and not easily understandable. Prior knowledge is required or you need to go through the documentation. If the documentation is made comprehensive so that anyone with no knowledge on DAX can easily use it by going through the documentation, it would be really helpful. Additionally, if the integration with non-Microsoft tools is improved and performance is optimized, then Microsoft Power BI can become a top-ranked visualization tool. The user experience with Microsoft Power BI is quite good. The intuitive user interface makes it easy for both technical and non-technical users to create reports. However, only the advanced features are somewhat complex, and if the documentation is improved, it can be easily accessible.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I use Location Analytics to identify rogue hotspots and find the last location of missing devices."
"The initial setup process is easy."
"Technical support has always been very good."
"I like Location Analytics' geofencing features for devices, as you can manage thousands of devices with just a push of a button and deploy applications in seconds."
"In general, it is helpful because it allows administrators to see where the Wi-Fi and network services are being most used."
"The initial setup process is easy."
"If you can afford this solution, it's worth every dime in terms of what you get out of it."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"All the features are valuable."
"The dashboard is very nice and it is very simple to understand every single component."
"We are a consultancy firm, helping our clients with billing and business intelligence solutions, and we can see that it's really improved the way end users can do their own graphs and pick their own fields of information and present that in a nice way."
"For one client, it gives all sales reps across all geographic regions access to sales data, so they know who is purchasing what product in what part of the country, and that sort of thing."
"This is a solution that I would recommend because it is easy to use and they will be able to streamline their business processes."
"We found the initial setup to be straightforward."
"Now, using Microsoft BI, they can connect directly with the data, it gets refreshed automatically, and they don't have to worry about refreshing it."
"Very high, as it is a very cost effective application compared to any BI tools in the market."
 

Cons

"The pricing is a pain point for us. It's a bit expensive."
"The technical support before implementation could be better for premium partners."
"The biggest issue is negotiating the price with a client. That's the most complicated part, but the product is worth it."
"My biggest complaint with Meraki Location Analytics is the lack of visibility into the back end. Everything we do is through a customer GUI, and there's limited access to CLI functions."
"I would like to see all of the features included in a single package."
"I would like to see all of the features included in a single package."
"The pricing is a pain point for us."
"The biggest issue is negotiating the price with a client."
"It should have more integrations."
"The graphic interface could be better. I would also like to see it mobile-friendly."
"What I don't like about this solution is that in order to just watch a dashboard, you need a license."
"It should have more integrations."
"Microsoft should offer additional features for visualization and have additional features for slicing and dicing that data."
"The look is simple, and could be a little more professional."
"The product doesn't support unstructured data. It doesn't support video, streaming, and strings of files."
"I think that they can add more types of charts because the selection on the desktop version is limited."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is less expensive compared to other vendors for gold partners."
"They have different tiers of pricing including one-year, three-year, five-year, seven-year, and ten-year."
"In the beginning, the solution cost approximately $1,000 per month, we have a Microsoft startup subscription. There is a subscription pack for startups company which we are able to have for one year."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis, but I am not sure."
"Pricing, that's where Microsoft beats Tableau. It is priced much cheaper."
"I'm unsure about the exact cost, but the Pro license comes out to around $10 per user. There are also additional costs for custom visuals that you can pay for."
"I believe that the price is reasonable, at least for an enterprise solution."
"Microsoft Power BI has reasonable pricing."
"For my primary use case, i.e. teaching students, the free version of Power BI is adequate."
"Compared to others, I think it is reasonable."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees
Feb 4, 2015
Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho
1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
25%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Insurance Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business135
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise169
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki Location Analytics?
The pricing for Meraki Location Analytics is comparable to other solutions in the market. When we moved to Meraki Location Analytics, we benefited from not needing to buy outdoor-rated AP enclosure...
What needs improvement with Meraki Location Analytics?
My biggest complaint with Meraki Location Analytics ( /categories/location-intelligence-platforms ) is the lack of visibility into the back end. Everything we do is through a customer GUI, and ther...
What is your primary use case for Meraki Location Analytics?
We mainly use Meraki Location Analytics ( /products/meraki-location-analytics-reviews ) to locate equipment within our manufacturing facilities. We're not a public-facing organization, so our use c...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ladbrokes, Neinver, Westwind School Division, The Salvation Army, Queensland Airports Limited
Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Meraki Location Analytics vs. Microsoft Power BI and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.