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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
21st
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
321
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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 Microsoft Power BI is 21.4%, down from 22.2% 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

"The initial setup process is easy."
"Technical support has always been very good."
"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."
"In general, it is helpful because it allows administrators to see where the Wi-Fi and network services are being most used."
"I use Location Analytics to identify rogue hotspots and find the last location of missing devices."
"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."
"It provides good visibility."
"It's a straightforward setup."
"The solution is very intuitive, you do not need to have too much programming knowledge to use it. Advanced Excel users can use it very easily."
"The fact that you can visualize items is great."
"It is easy to work with and very chic."
"The best features of Microsoft Power BI include its integration with other Microsoft products and its ability to connect applications within the Microsoft ecosystem."
"The solution is quite scalable."
"Data integration is very useful in Power BI. It lets me collect data from many sources. For example, I can get data from Oracle databases and SQL Server databases at the same time."
 

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 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."
"The pricing is a pain point for us. It's a bit expensive."
"There are no specific areas for improvement as everything is working very well."
"The reporting needs to be improved."
"Sometimes while developing, the front end is not easily customizable and it has limitations. We cannot go and do any UI we want. We have to stick to the limitations of the product."
"It was easy to implement Microsoft Power BI into our existing infrastructure, but integrating it with Oracle Cloud was very difficult. The integration with Oracle Cloud required us to build a sophisticated database replication process because the APIs for Oracle Cloud are very restricted in terms of volume, depth, and complexity of queries. However, the part of implementing Power BI into our infrastructure was very easy. It required almost no tech input because it was all part of Office 365. To overcome the integration issues, we developed an extract and update process, although it was quite complicated and involved a lot of IP. Power BI excels in integrations and its ability to handle various data sources. It would be beneficial if it could integrate more seamlessly with cloud interfaces like Oracle Cloud, although I understand the challenges with Oracle's policies on database access. Another area for improvement would be enhancing error messaging, especially when working with Dataverse and M Code for automation."
"I would like to be able to use SQL properly within the reports and allow multiple people to work on the same report at the same time. If one person is working on it, then it causes issues for anyone else wanting to make reports."
"Microsoft BI’s integration and visualization could be improved."
"It seems that the solution could use more analytics to help users draw more contextual business insights. Right now, you need other solutions for that."
"If you have to pull multiple data sources performance is somewhat lacking."
"Microsoft BI typically connects to a database, often SQL Server, but it's also capable of connecting to multiple databases, pulling data from them, and allowing for data consolidation. You can then aggregate and generate dashboards and reports from this combined data. Personally, I wouldn't claim to have the expertise to suggest significant changes or additional features, as it functions quite well as is."
 

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."
"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The pricing is very reasonable compared to any other tool."
"The current licensing model that Microsoft BI has is expensive. My customers have told me the cost is approximately $20 per user and this can get expensive fast. There should be a one-time purchase option if the customer has a lot of users."
"We're charged a monthly subscription fee of 500 rupees per person."
"Microsoft BI is considered to be competitively priced when compared to other similar solutions in the market."
"I'm not very familiar with the licensing aspect, as it operates in the cloud as a SaaS (Software as a Service) model. Essentially, you pay based on cloud cost models, which might include hourly rates or similar billing structures introduced by Microsoft. Many organizations utilize it and pay for its services, somewhat like Office 365. It's a cloud-based platform that provides the necessary services, including support, for development, and you pay accordingly for the usage."
"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."
"No comment."
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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
39%
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 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...
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: April 2025.
850,900 professionals have used our research since 2012.