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Meraki Location Analytics vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

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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
25th
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
332
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Meraki Location Analytics is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 7.1%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI7.1%
Meraki Location Analytics0.8%
Other92.1%
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
Junior 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

"The pricing and licensing for Meraki are good, and I would rate it as a nine out of ten."
"If you can afford this solution, it's worth every dime in terms of what you get out of it."
"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."
"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."
"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 initial setup process is easy."
"It is easy to set up."
"The main feature I find valuable is the possibility to work with an extensive amount of data."
"The virtualization of Microsoft BI is very good."
"Microsoft BI's dashboards are helpful."
"The demand estimation and forecasting profitability are the most effective features of Microsoft Power BI, along with vendor and supply chain risk analysis, inventory and stock forecasting, real-time production monitoring, and quality control through defect tracking and root cause analysis."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"Quick sharing of data from source to business users is very useful."
"Power BI stands out because it provides considerable flexibility in creating reports, dashboards, and various types of analytics to meet those dynamic requirements. It is lightweight and easy to use with good support."
 

Cons

"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."
"There are no specific areas for improvement as everything is working very well."
"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."
"I would like to see all of the features included in a single package."
"I think that they should improve the mobile application that they have, it's very poor."
"If I compare it to Tableau, I'd say the visualizations can be better. We should have multiple options. By that I mean, while there are multiple options for the visualization, the look and feel of the dashboard when you compare to Tableau is on the lower side. Tableau has a much better visualization."
"Right now, their premium pricing is keeping us out of the premium market. The premium price per user just doesn't make sense for us, but we haven't reached the limit of 500 users to justify the premium."
"When we have a big report with lots of data, the solution slows down quite a lot."
"Right now, their premium pricing is keeping us out of the premium market."
"There are some other visuals that are available in the Microsoft marketplace, however, you need to use them via trial and error. There needs to be a write-up about how to use them with a quick guide describing the visual."
"There are some disadvantages, some weaknesses of Microsoft Power BI that we have addressed to the Microsoft team."
"More connections with other systems should be added, which would allow for other integrations."
 

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."
"Compared to others, I think it is reasonable."
"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."
"I would rate them 4 out of 5 for their current pricing. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"Its pricing is reasonable for the desktop stuff, but for enterprise-level, it is a little expensive."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with one being cheap and ten being expensive."
"I have not had a customer suggest the solution is too expensive. There are licenses to use the solution."
"We have premium licenses, but you can use it for free. You can share the content with anyone else, so you can use it for free."
"The solution is less expensive than other PowerBI tools, which is why most people go with it, although it does cost more than MSBI tools."
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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
24%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
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 Business137
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise171
 

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: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.