No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

BambooHR vs IBM Kenexa comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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

BambooHR
Ranking in Benefits Administration
7th
Ranking in Talent Management
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Cloud HCM (8th)
IBM Kenexa
Ranking in Benefits Administration
12th
Ranking in Talent Management
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Talent Management category, the mindshare of BambooHR is 2.3%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Kenexa is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Talent Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BambooHR2.3%
IBM Kenexa1.6%
Other96.1%
Talent Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ram-Mohan - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Align Technology
Pre-built adapters simplify CI/CD processes but monitoring improvements are needed
If Bamboo can provide a dashboard with tool health, such as whether the master or instance has the required space, it would be beneficial. Sometimes, when I trigger a build, it ends with no space on the agent machine where the agents are installed. If Bamboo can create an internal monitoring mechanism and display the tool's health status on the landing page or homepage, it would help end users and DevOps Engineers like me.
Karan Grover - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Suitable for larger-scale companies aiming to streamline and automate their processes digitally
The deployment of the solution took between six to eight months. When we introduced BrassRing at my company, we encountered several challenges. First, moving data from our old system to BrassRing was tough because it needed reformatting. Second, connecting BrassRing with our HR data was tricky due to manual processes for roles and departments. Third, setting up the workflow in BrassRing was complex. Fourth, configuring user access and approval levels was a detailed task. We also had to manage the change process, including running both old and new systems in parallel, communicating changes, and training users. Lastly, monitoring and reporting were needed to ensure data accuracy and proper system usage once everything was in place. We had a team of six to eight people managing the project from our side during the BrassRing deployment. I'm not sure about the size of the BrassRing team, and we also had our own technical team, which had three to four members. The solution required maintenance, particularly from my side as the administrator. Maintenance responsibilities were divided into two parts: some tasks we, as end-users, could control, while others were the responsibility of the BrassRing team. Payment-related tasks were a regular part of our responsibilities. I wasn't the only person maintaining the solution. There were three power users from Infosys, each responsible for a specific geography. My counterpart managed it in the US, and I, along with my colleague in India, managed it for other geographies.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The scalability of BambooHR is good."
"The product is user-friendly."
"The solution's technical support is super responsive and helpful. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"All of the employee information is centralized in one space and can be accessed whenever we want it."
"BambooHR has streamlined HR for us; we are an SME and growing rapidly, and BambooHR has helped us keep on top of HR, which is essential."
"Honestly, all of the features are valuable to me."
"I like that it keeps everything easily accessible, from signed documents to outlines of our benefits plans, etc. It is really a one-stop shop."
"It is fantastic, customers love it."
"IBM Kenexa is fairly stable, and we don't have any downtime."
"For us in particular, I love how configurable the system is; I can use the same technology for different parts of my business."
"Of all the current talent analytics offerings on the market today, IBM Kenexa Talent Insights is the most comprehensive end-to-end, data-agnostic analytics tool."
"Scalability is great, as we use the system for everything from a very low-volume, high-touch corporate recruiting model to our tax office, high-volume approach, which is 80-100,000 people each season."
"The streamlined, simplicity approach of Kenexa makes it simple for me to navigate."
"I like how we can copy a req as we have many duplicates, which saved a lot of time when opening reqs."
"The most valuable features are that we can upload documents and download them on demand, whether it is joining documents, employment screening, or your employment history, and it's easy enough to upload, find, and retrieve whatever you are looking for."
"We felt like Kenexa was robust enough and dynamic enough that it met our needs, so it didn't make sense for us to disrupt 700 locations and reteach them something."
 

Cons

"It would be useful to have the possibility to assign a task to the different users within the software."
"If you are dealing with two or more businesses under one company name, it is not possible to transfer employees between companies if they have a separate bamboo set up."
"We have encountered stability issues. The product can be unstable at times."
"However, if we compare the accrual balance days from Bamboo versus real days, sometimes we have to reconcile it by manual adjustment."
"The system allows to book vacation and sick day at the same time. There should be a warning in case somebody overlooks it."
"The color palettes could be changed to make the solution a little more attractive and easier to use."
"Training: To allocate a new training course, you can only add it to a job title, and not to individuals. This is not very useful to us."
"There are some areas of reporting that could be improved, as well as features and functions of the ATS/recruitment, as this is a newer function in general."
"Being in a silo of my own world, my wish would be that everything that's available in their legacy views would be moved into their new Talent Suite products, so we could move over to that."
"There were functions we couldn't customize and needed to."
"I would say that it could likely be made slightly easier to consume and work with - less scientific or engineering oriented - but IBM Kenexa Talent Insights is about the most powerful and useful tool I've seen."
"Technical support was not always great. They tend to push you towards workbench admins or paid support."
"The team didn't find the reporting tool that easy to use, in terms of pulling their own data, slicing and dicing it, combining groups."
"The downside of Kenexa is that they're constantly reinventing, so they have constant releases with new features and upgrades. The downside of that is that they do experience fairly regular issues with stability that they're not always as quick to respond to as we'd like them to."
"The reporting feature currently is our biggest struggle point; getting the data we need and in the fashion that we need it is a current struggle point for us."
"Once-a-year engagement kind of seems to be a little bit lagging in terms of how we can actually shape and improve organizations, so I was looking forward to understanding a bit more where IBM Kenexa's thinking is going in terms of pulsing with the employee voice and how that kind of integrates and works with tell-it-as-it-is, and the other two applications we have; it's just too early to know."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, the solution is in the middle compared to other tools offering similar functionalities."
"It was definitely cheaper than some of the larger systems."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We pay a monthly subscription to use the solution. The subscript model is based on how many employees we have active."
"Kenexa was fairly priced. However, in 2019, before I left my previous organization, they significantly increased their pricing. It can be affordable, but their pricing is going up. It is not just licensing; it is how many applicants you have in your system on the database side."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Talent Management solutions are best for your needs.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
19%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Construction Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise28
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering BambooHR?
Organizations of all sizes, especially those that are experiencing rapid growth, want to have a way to effectively manage their HR operations. Our organization feels that BambooHR is an HR manageme...
What needs improvement with BambooHR?
If Bamboo can provide a dashboard with tool health, such as whether the master or instance has the required space, it would be beneficial. Sometimes, when I trigger a build, it ends with no space o...
What is your primary use case for BambooHR?
I am a DevOps Engineer and I mostly deal with the Bamboo CI/CD automation part. I facilitate my team by providing the environment to run their tests. Generally, I create the pipelines that take the...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM Smarter Workforce, Outstart
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Stance, SoundCloud, Reddit, Shopify, 99designs, Stitcher, Disqus, Beans & Brews, Stacy and Witbeck, Vino Farms, MokiMobility, SecurityMetrics
Sweet Spot International (SSI), Leo Burnett Worldwide (LBW), Sika AG, Legacy Health, Apollo Group Inc., Regeneron, Transurban Group, National Health Service, New Zealand Police, Overland Footwear, Yealands, Johnson Controls, Allscripts, Kerry Foods, Masterpet, AMD, Balfour Beatty
Find out what your peers are saying about BambooHR vs. IBM Kenexa and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.