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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
18th
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
7.3
Number of Reviews
319
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Meraki Location Analytics is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 21.8%, down from 22.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Mike Scofield - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
James Balbach - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust system consistently elevates data visualization and seamlessly updates with user-driven advancements
Power BI is a general-use visualization system. I can express the performance of our network through high-level key performance indicators. It allows me to show detailed improvements in quality and safety and patient experience. I create improvement dashboards for task forces and work teams. I have built analytic dashboards that guide analytics, enabling research and dataset manipulation.

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."
"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."
"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."
"Technical support has always been very good."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"The visuals are great and make everything look very professional. We can change the look and feel or manipulate the data according to our requirements. It's extremely flexible."
"What Power BI is, is a whole collection of templates of small amounts of data that can be used to do something for a real world project, that can be easily set up and become the business intelligence environment or a data warehouse for a large amount of data, for a real world customer. That's what is remarkable."
"The way data is presented is very valuable. The amount of information that we can get at a glance is also valuable. You can then drill-down and see data from many different angles in the same chart by selecting certain things. Based on the selection, everything changes automatically. If we have four parameters in a particular item, when you select a parameter, the remaining charts on that page automatically change for that particular parameter."
"The various different ETL tools within it and the ability to have different data refreshes and scheduled refreshes [real-time data refresh capabilities] have most significantly improved the data analysis processes."
"There is a lot of help and documentation on the Internet, so no special training is needed to use the source code."
"The solution is stable."
"The solution has a good toggling feature."
"Two valuable most features are the ability to create columns and create measures."
 

Cons

"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."
"There are no specific areas for improvement as everything is working very well."
"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."
"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."
"It is not leading the charge on scalability, but it meets expectations."
"The challenge of this product is in truncating the table data."
"The licensing needs improvement. There needs to be a middle option between Pro and Premium versions."
"When it comes to improvement, I would say there could be more tutorials for students in universities who are just learning it. And it wouldn't have to be just for students in universities. It might also be for the people who use it in the real world."
"I have found that some issues exist, indicating room for improvement in scalability."
"I have found using Microsoft BI is not easy. For example, trying to use the auto-refresh feature is not simple."
"The smart phone application could be improved, along with better graphics and faster updating."
"The solution should increase the API functionality so that we can use Microsoft Power BI for other purposes and aggregate things."
 

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."
"Costs less than most competing solutions."
"We pay for users who are publishing on the cloud. The desktop version is free. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"We're charged a monthly subscription fee of 500 rupees per person."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"Downloading Power BI Desktop is free."
"I think it's a good price, from what I've heard. I know it's competitive with other Power BI tools."
"We have a professional license for Microsoft BI and the price is fair."
"Regarding cost, the initial investment wasn't too high, but ongoing licensing could add up."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Educational Organization
43%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki Location Analytics?
The pricing and licensing for Meraki are good, and I would rate it as a nine out of ten.
What needs improvement with Meraki Location Analytics?
There are no specific areas for improvement as everything is working very well. I am happy with the current features.
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 ...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

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: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.