Meraki Location Analytics vs Tableau comparison

Cisco and Salesforce are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Cisco is ranked #21 with an average rating of 9.0, while Salesforce is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5. Cisco holds a 0.3% mindshare in BIT, compared to Salesforce’s 17.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

Meraki Location Analytics

Read 6 Meraki Location Analytics reviews

182 Views
151 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Tableau

Read 296 Tableau reviews

17,456 Views
14,743 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Meraki Location Analytics

Tableau

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Tableau and Meraki Location Analytics cater to different analytic needs with overlapping features. Tableau appears to have the upper hand in data visualization and comprehensive analytics, while Meraki is more focused on real-time location insights.

Features: Tableau provides robust analytics capabilities, allowing for in-depth data interpretation and customized dashboards. It excels in data visualization and insight depth. Meraki Location Analytics offers valuable real-time location tracking and spatial data analytics, making it useful for understanding physical interactions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tableau offers a streamlined deployment process with flexible integration, but it does have a learning curve. Meraki's cloud-based model allows for straightforward setup and rapid implementation. While Tableau's support is comprehensive, Meraki's support is noted for responsiveness and accessibility, appealing to those prioritizing ease of deployment and customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Tableau's initial setup cost is higher, with a significant ROI expected over time. Meraki generally offers more economical upfront pricing, quickly delivering location insights. Tableau is seen as a larger investment, but Meraki's affordability and immediate value is compelling, especially for businesses focusing on location-based insights.

To learn more, read our detailed Meraki Location Analytics vs. Tableau Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Meraki Location Analytics vs. Tableau

March 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 845,406 peers since 2012

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

21st

Average Rating

9.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Tableau

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

296

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (2nd), Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Meraki Location Analytics is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 17.5%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Mike Scofield

Director of Technology at a educational organization with 51-200 employees

Location analytics helps in finding rogue hotspots and locating missing devices

I use Location Analytics occasionally to identify a rogue hotspot or to find the last location of a missing device. In some cases, if there is an interference issue, I might be able to determine the location. However, such instances are unusual I use Location Analytics to identify rogue hotspots…

Read full review

ROMIL SHAH

Deputy General Manger - Information Technology at Nayara Energy

Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time

When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers. Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming. We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us. Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them. Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.

Read full review

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."

"The pricing and licensing for Meraki are good, and I would rate it as a nine out of ten."

"In general, it is helpful because it allows administrators to see where the Wi-Fi and network services are being most used."

"The stability of the solution is excellent, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."

"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 most valuable feature is the ease of use."

"Tableau is highly scalable. Now that they've introduced Hyper, you can create an extract of more than 5 million rows in minutes and then do your analysis."

"It's very easy to set everything up."

"The solution has a lot of customization when comparing to Microsoft BI."

"Tableau is good for routine dashboards, and it has integration with Slack, through which it can send you daily updates."

"The UI part is the best. The end-users can easily get started with Tableau Desktop or Tableau Online because of its user-friendliness."

"From the data science point of view, we use it for model building purposes. For example, if we are using it for a bank and we want to understand how much loan the bank can provide, we can use visualization to show the educational qualification, salary, gender, and city of a customer, and by using this information, we can arrive at the loan amount that this person is eligible for. I can also use it to view all prospective customers, so essentially, this is going to help me in model building as well as in understanding and segmenting customers and doing forecasting and predictive analytics. We use model widgets, and we can create thousands of visualizations, such as motion charts and bubble charts. We can also create animated versions of the graphs and view the data from multiple dimensions. These are the features that we typically use and like."

"The solution has great features which nobody can beat, you can do a lot of customizations, such as use different dimensions and colorize them. Additionally, you can use the numeric values for the customization, which is an exceptional feature."

More Tableau pros

Cons

"The technical support before implementation could be better for premium partners."

"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."

"I would like to see all of the features included in a single package."

"The biggest issue is negotiating the price with a client. That's the most complicated part, but the product is worth it."

"There are no specific areas for improvement as everything is working very well."

"I am not a frequent user of this solution, so I am not sure what they've been doing recently. The last time when I used it, I had to use other tools with it for data extraction and cleansing. Its price should also be improved. It is more expensive than Power BI. In terms of training, there is generally better online training for Power BI, but I am not sure of that. It would be helpful to know from where to access its training."

"If you wanted to create something without making it an extra column in the data set, you can't just rename it to a more user-friendly short name."

"The interface can be improved, in part because there is no indication that something is running or that it's processing."

"The visualizations should be user-friendly and allow for more custom visualizations."

"When I've done presentations in the past, I've had issues with uploading the cartography."

"Tableau is an end-to-end analytics platform, and it is doing a pretty good job in terms of connecting to the data and analyzing it. It can, however, do better in terms of data management and the ETL features, which are not on the advanced analytics or machine learning side. Tableau Prep is where users would want to see more advancements. They can improve Tableau Prep, which is an analytic platform tool for data cleansing. People who work with data spend most of their time curating the data. Cleaning up the data and getting it ready for analysis is what takes the most time. If Tableau can invest more time in improving the Tableau Prep platform, it would be great. Previously, Tableau didn't have the functionality for writing to a database. So, you couldn't really alter the database tables and write to your database, but they fixed that in one of the very recent releases. However, it isn't really advanced and should be improved."

"Tableau is a company that does not respect partners."

"I don't have the ability in Tableau to create a tooltip and see the picture of a piece of jewelry or watch that is a best seller."

More Tableau cons

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."

"It's an annual fee with everything included but it's quite expensive."

"The cost of the solution should be improved."

"It is a bit overpriced."

"For big business, Tableau could be expensive as having a lot of Tableau server users (entering with a browser to reports) could be a bit expensive."

"The price of Tableau could improve. The license is too expensive."

"The solution is expensive but it depends on the customer's needs which will determine the cost of the licensing."

"At $70 per month, I think the price is a bit scary. I have a small consulting firm in Ghana, working in about 15 different African countries, and when it comes to our part of the world, $70 a month is a lot of money for software."

"Its licensing cost should be improved."

More Tableau pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user6330

Product Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

May 2, 2013

MicroStrategy vs. Tableau

After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Educational Organization

44%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Meraki Location Analytics?

The initial setup process is easy.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...

See all answers

Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?

Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?

Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs Meraki Location Analytics

Compared 100% of the time

More Meraki Location Analytics Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs Tableau

Compared 19% of the time

Domo vs Tableau

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Tableau

Compared 7% of the time

Databricks vs Tableau

Compared 6% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Tableau

Compared 5% of the time

More Tableau Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

March 2025

Download Meraki Location Analytics product report

Buyer's Guide

Tableau

March 2025

Download Tableau product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online

Overview

Cisco Meraki's location analytics and engagement solution displays real-time location statistics to improve customer engagement and loyalty across sites. Data collected by intelligent Meraki APs is synced with the Meraki cloud, automatically reported in the dashboard, and exported to third-party applications via the Cisco Meraki Location Analytics API.

Cisco

Tableau is a tool for data visualization and business intelligence that allows businesses to report insights through easy-to-use, customizable visualizations and dashboards. Tableau makes it exceedingly simple for its customers to organize, manage, visualize, and comprehend data. It enables users to dig deep into the data so that they can see patterns and gain meaningful insights.

Make data-driven decisions with confidence thanks to Tableau’s assistance in providing faster answers to queries, solving harder problems more easily, and offering new insights more frequently. Tableau integrates directly to hundreds of data sources, both in the cloud and on premises, making it simpler to begin research. People of various skill levels can quickly find actionable information using Tableau’s natural language queries, interactive dashboards, and drag-and-drop capabilities. By quickly creating strong calculations, adding trend lines to examine statistical summaries, or clustering data to identify relationships, users can ask more in-depth inquiries.

Tableau has many valuable key features:

Tableau dashboards provide a complete view of your data through visualizations, visual objects, text, and more.
Tableau provides convenient, real-time options to collaborate with other users and instantly share data in the form of visualizations, sheets, and dashboards.
Tableau ensures connectivity to both live data sources and data extraction from external data sources as in-memory data. This gives users the flexibility to use data from more than one source without any restrictions.
Tableau gives many data source option, ranging from spreadsheets, big data, on-premise files, relational databases, non-relational databases, data warehouses, and big data, to on-cloud data.
Tableau has a lot of pre-installed information on maps, such as cities, postal codes, and administrative boundaries.
Tableau has a foolproof security system based on authentication and permission systems for data connections and user access. Tableau also gives you the freedom to integrate with other security protocols.

Tableau stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Some of these include its fast data access, easy creation of visualizations, and its stability. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

Romil S., Deputy General Manager of IT at Nayara Energy, notes, "Its visualizations are good, and its features make the development process a little less time-consuming. It has an in-memory extract feature that allows us to extract data and keep it on the server, and then our users can use it quickly.

Ariful M., Consulting Practice Partner of Data, Analytics & AI at FH, writes, “Tableau is very flexible and easy to learn. It has drag-and-drop function analytics, and its design is very good.”

Salesforce

Sample Customers

Ladbrokes, Neinver, Westwind School Division, The Salvation Army, Queensland Airports Limited

Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.

Buyer's Guide

Meraki Location Analytics vs. Tableau

March 2025

Free Report: Meraki Location Analytics vs. Tableau

Find out what your peers are saying about Meraki Location Analytics vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Meraki Location Analytics vs. Tableau report.

See our list of best BI (Business Intelligence) Tools vendors.

We monitor all BI (Business Intelligence) Tools reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.