Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
24th
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
7.0
Number of Reviews
327
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Meraki Location Analytics is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 8.9%, down from 21.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI8.9%
Meraki Location Analytics0.9%
Other90.2%
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.…
LV
HR Manager at PPB
Use advanced data preparation features in analytics projects
Microsoft Power BI can be quite slow when working with data sources that aren't from a data warehouse or a more robust source or data artifact. When working with exports, which we do frequently, the load takes considerable time. This occurs with any BI tool, and it's related to our working methods due to limitations within the area. In HR, we typically use exports because we have numerous data sources. Ideally, Microsoft Power BI would have a no-code or low-code solution for the data sources to be built by the actual developers or development team. This would eliminate the need to work directly with exports. We would have a middle ground to create a warehouse without all the infrastructure, as building a warehouse within an organization can require substantial resources, both in time and personnel.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like Location Analytics' geofencing features for devices. You can manage thousands of devices with just a push of a button and deploy applications in seconds. For example, in schools, you can deploy an app update for thousands of iPads in just two clicks."
"The pricing and licensing for Meraki are good, and I would rate it as a nine out of ten."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"The initial setup process is easy."
"Technical support has always been very good."
"I use Location Analytics to identify rogue hotspots and find the last location of missing devices."
"In general, it is helpful because it allows administrators to see where the Wi-Fi and network services are being most used."
"It integrates better with other Microsoft products. It is very easy to use and has very powerful visualizations. It has also got a lot of development going on."
"The scalability is good. We have 20 people in my organization using this solution and plan to increase usage."
"I like that I can use Power BI to upload data. That is very important for me. The visualization is also convenient and easy to use."
"It seems stable. I haven't heard of any difficulties from my clients that utilize Power BI."
"What I have found valuable about Microsoft BI is its performance and ease of use. The interface is very simple and it is accessible to everyone. If someone is new to this type of solution it is straightforward to understand."
"Technical support is quite responsive."
"Our setup is very straight forward and can be done in a matter of hours."
"The solution is quite scalable."
 

Cons

"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."
"The pricing is a pain point for us. It's a bit expensive."
"The biggest issue is negotiating the price with a client. That's the most complicated part, but the product is worth it."
"The technical support before implementation could be better for premium partners."
"I would like to see all of the features included in a single package."
"There are no specific areas for improvement as everything is working very well."
"It should have more report outputs. They should expand the report outputs. Its documentation should also be better."
"I'm not overly technical, and so I can't really speak to any shortcomings from a technical standpoint."
"The Microsoft BI interface should be simpler and more user-friendly. I find it very difficult to move between their data sources and their analytics section."
"It is easy enough. I don't see any real substantial improvements that are needed. It is great as it is, but its interface could be a bit modern."
"I would like for the next release to have better desktop performance, especially for big databases. Additionally, I would like to have more integrations with programs like Salesforce in order to get more live data coming in."
"I believe there is room for improvement in terms of authentication and certain functionalities in Power BI. For instance, adjusting the width of columns is not easily done, as there is only an option to enable or disable automatic adjustment. This can be a significant drawback for clients who desire more flexibility."
"There's always room for improvement for Microsoft Power BI, especially for the UX and the menus to make it more accessible to business users."
"It needs a wizard that covers all its options."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They have different tiers of pricing including one-year, three-year, five-year, seven-year, and ten-year."
"The product is less expensive compared to other vendors for gold partners."
"Power BI is cost-effective compared to other reporting tools."
"The only other cost, besides the licensing fee, would be to cover support."
"It is free."
"All of the licenses are on an annual basis, but Microsoft will amortize it to an extent. If it's five years, they'll include the possible interest they might have the following year. Ideally, their licensing scheme is an annual license, but they make it easier for some of our clients to take a five-year license but package everything inside for them to buy the license for five years."
"Microsoft BI for desktop is free to use, and you can download and use it."
"Price is the best feature of Power BI! You get a lot of value for the price. If you know how to use it, it's a great BI solution for your money."
"The premium licensing is approximately $5,000 per month which is pretty expensive."
"Power BI is cheaper than Tableau and Cognos."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions are best for your needs.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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 Enterprise57
Large Enterprise165
 

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: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.