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Meraki Location Analytics vs Tableau 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
22nd
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tableau
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
306
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (2nd), Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 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 16.2%, down from 19.4% 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…
Nattawat Choosuwan - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time data connection enhances workflow and decision-making process
An area for improvement in Tableau is the Explorer license type. It is not as useful, and the product owner should enhance its benefits or clarify its role. Additionally, the frequent updates with many versions available for download can be confusing and could affect stability. They should avoid providing access to older versions on their website.

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."
"I use Location Analytics to identify rogue hotspots and find the last location of missing devices."
"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."
"Technical support has always been very good."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, and I would rate it a ten 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 maps and colors and interface are all fantastic."
"The most valuable feature is the user experience."
"The initial setup is quick and easy and you don't need special outside assistance to set everything up."
"It's very user-friendly. It's not like Power BI, Tableau is very user-friendly. Anybody can use Tableau. It's very easy to adopt things. I can visualize the stats."
"It's a very good, flexible product, and it's easy to learn."
"It has made the reporting stage simple and enabled us to focus mainly on the ETL part"
"The most valuable feature is that we can integrate with our own database, and it will displays the KPIs. This is highly required from the business side."
"Our customers love the visual capabilities on top of it and the ability to explain and get the required data. There is no other product like Tableau in the business intelligence and analytics space."
 

Cons

"The biggest issue is negotiating the price with a client. That's the most complicated part, but the product is worth it."
"The pricing is a pain point for us. It's a bit expensive."
"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."
"The technical support before implementation could be better for premium partners."
"There are no specific areas for improvement as everything is working very well."
"At the organizational level, increasing the servers' capabilities to support us as an enterprise tool."
"We need big servers to perform the operations that we are doing. They should probably relook at its architecture."
"It's not an aesthetic platform at the moment."
"From a customer's point of view, I have noted that after the acquisition by Salesforce, the customer service for Tableau has declined significantly."
"The look and feel of the tool itself, including the dashboard features and data visualization, could be improved. The graphs in Tableau also have room for improvement."
"The solution needs to improve its integration capabilities."
"An area needing improvement involves the complexity of the product should you need to alter a lot of parameters. If you have technical servers, much interface, different providers and more serious processes, that will be time consuming."
"Most of the problems in Tableau Online that I have noticed have to do with performance or weird, inexplicable bugs that I can't pin down. For example, you might try unloading some data, and you'll be waiting for a long time without anything happening."
 

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."
"Its price is a concern. It is more expensive than Power BI. My guess would be that it is $1000 or less per year. We might go for Power BI in the future because of its umbrella with Microsoft licensing. It is much cheaper for us to use Power BI, and some folks will go in that direction because they don't want to pay the higher license."
"Buy 50 at a time. Project your use base every three months, and project your requirements forward."
"The professional version of Tableau is quite expensive."
"It is fairly expensive. I have no idea what they paid. We were on an enterprise license, so whatever it is they licensed at the enterprise level is what we paid."
"If they want to be competitive in the market, the price must be improved."
"Basically, we prefer a permanent license. A one-time charge is much better."
"Tableau has core-based and user-based licensing, and it is tied to scalability. The core-based licensing is about you buying a certain number of cores, and there is no restriction on the number of users who can use Tableau. The restriction is only on the number of cores. In user-based subscription licensing, there is a restriction on the number of users. Big companies and government organizations with a lot of users typically go for core-based licensing. User-based subscription licensing is a more common model. It has user roles such as creator, explorer, and viewer. A creator is someone who does the groundwork or development work. An explorer is someone who is into middle management but is not technically savvy, such as a category head. A viewer is like a typical decision-maker in senior management. For each role, Tableau is priced differently. The viewer role has the minimum price, and the creator role has the highest price. This pricing is available on their website. Everybody can see it."
"The price could be higher for the quality of software, so they revised the pricing in this version, and I agree with the price for top version. The top version costs about $70 per month, and the price is cheap for the quality."
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
29%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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
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...
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...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Overview

 

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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Meraki Location Analytics vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.