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Freshteam vs SmartRecruiters comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Freshteam
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SmartRecruiters
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software category, the mindshare of Freshteam is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartRecruiters is 2.6%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SmartRecruiters2.6%
Freshteam1.6%
Other95.8%
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
 

Featured Reviews

JoseQuintero1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Services Manager at a tech services company with self employed
Comprehensive HR solution that centralises the management of all staff information
The solution could be improved if it included a payroll system, to be a completely 360 degrees HR solution. Besides payroll, everything else HR related is handled in Freshworks. It would also be great to centralize all the data for potential candidates who are in our talent tool and to be able to search this pool by specific criteria such as skills and experience. We evaluate our personnel in order to consider them for promotions and salary raises. However, this process is completely manual and requires us to dig into their entire history to consider when their last raise and promotion was, for example. It would be really valuable if this process could be made simpler using this solution, especially for large teams and to include reporting functionality related to this data.
SUMANTA  GHOSH - PeerSpot reviewer
Regional Recruitment Lead at IQ-EQ
A user-friendly tool that functions without any glitches
With SmartRecruiters, compatibility with other HRIS systems is an area with certain shortcomings that require improvement. SmartRecruiters is a tool that we use as an ATS platform in our company, but we manage the employee lifecycle with the help of SAP, and I don't see the integration of SmartRecruiters with SAP happening quite seamlessly, making it an area where improvements are required.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Freshteam has allowed us to leverage all HR-related tasks and processes in a single, cloud-based solution, enormously increasing the speed of candidate acquisition and control of administrative employees schedules such as time-offs and holidays."
"If you want growth in your professional life, then you should go with Freshteam because it's a nice applicant tracking system and it works on a real-time basis."
"Our entire employee base is supported by Freshteam. We register all our employees and their candidates inside the system and use it to handle all interviews, feedback, personal information and budgets."
"There are a few reasons why I like Freshteam, including how easily you can get connected with candidates, and how easily candidates can get connected with you as the employer. One of the best features is its scheduling system, which gives both parties the opportunity to schedule different parts of the recruitment process. So if a candidate wants to know my schedule or when I will be available, that information is easy to find."
"What I really like about it is that it feels minimal, but is also dynamic. There aren't a lot of ways to get lost, which is good."
"SmartRecruiters is much more user-friendly; it's much easier for both candidates and recruiters."
"It has a neat functionality built in where it rates candidates. So, before you even look at the resume, you see a rating, and it is based on keywords. For example, it will tell you that an applicant is a frontend engineer and has used React, Angular, etc. It gives you a heads up so that you don't have to go through a hundred resumes on Monday morning eliminating applicants. It will tell you that this applicant's skills match 87%, which is pretty neat. You can skip the ones that are rated 25% or something."
"We absolutely saw ROI, and it was massive."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that amongst all the other ATS platforms that I have used, SmartRecruiters is the most user-friendly tool."
"The candidate experience was better because the whole process was there."
"With this solution, I was able to add diversity to my recruiting. I was able to source from multiple locations, and I could show where applicants came from. The reporting tools that are on offer, allowed us to expand our reach. We were able to add meaningful diversity into recruiting."
"I used the free version, which I found valuable."
 

Cons

"The solution could be improved if it included a payroll system, to be a completely 360 degrees HR solution."
"In the beginning, I was having a hard time learning the software because I was using it on a remote basis. Of course, I used some YouTube videos and other online resources to get by, but for me personally, I learn a bit more easily when the training is done in-person. I had to work double time just on the learning part of it, so I would say that Freshteam could do with better training resources."
"In the beginning, I was having a hard time learning the software because I was using it on a remote basis."
"Covid took a toll on the support we have received from the Freshworks team with most of their support teams based in India."
"The major improvement area is how it integrates with other systems. That's where we've had some sort of pain points. They've done a lot of work with their development team in setting up integrations with other types of software like SuccessFactors, which we use, but we have found some glitches there. This is probably where they need to do some work. Sometimes, when it refreshes or there is any sort of update in SmartRecruiters, it has a direct impact on the integrations that we have with other tools. We are not always notified when that takes place. We have had HR say to us, "We've just hired this guy. He is not there in our end board at all. What's going on?" That's when we realized that the integration is actually broken. When we have other solutions like SuccessFactors, it would be very helpful to have knowledge articles for such integrations. We have found some of the templates that we want to use and some of the customizations that we do around the offer letters and the contract letters to be a little bit more difficult, which hasn't made this process any more efficient than it was. We still have to do a bit of manual intervention there. I don't know if it is just our company, but we need to have different clauses and things in place. We have stopped using DocuSign as well, and we are trying to look at other ways of doing that. They are aware of this."
"There were problems with integrations around other systems and each one had to be custom-built, which took a little while to get set up and running."
"A disadvantage of being a SaaS solution is that there aren't many customization options because you are literally buying it out of the box."
"Some features are not as straightforward or user friendly to implement."
"SmartRecruiters' one-click application process could be better."
"One thing that has been a bit of a struggle is getting tech support. It is a little more difficult to get support from SmartRecruiters. They want you to have your own in-house person to help you with any issues, whereas with both Lever and Greenhouse, you can just click a button at the bottom of the screen and chat with someone almost instantly."
"I don't see the integration of SmartRecruiters with SAP happening quite seamlessly, making it an area where improvements are required."
"There were limitations with the system that we would have liked, not in the time, but the company in Germany really dictated that. So we couldn't do everything in the system we would have liked to it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For our training period, we were simply given a user ID and password by the company, with which we could log in and do our work on the platform. The licensing was someone else's responsibility."
"Freshteam has a free tier as well as a 14 day free trial. The free tier is suitable for a small or home office. If this tier is not suitable, an organization could sign up for the 14 day trial for a higher tier to try all the features and decide if it suits their needs."
"SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors. Considering the type of features and services it provides, it is probably one of the best solutions in the market. Others may offer a similar price, but their services won't be that good or the user-friendliness won't be that great. The licensing works based on how many users are there in a company. If you are using other functionalities, like CRM and HRS, the price increases."
"There were implementation costs in the first year to get everything set up and running, and then they have various modules on top, which are optional and available at an extra charge."
"Back in 2018, when I engaged with their sales, they wanted to charge around $10,000 for an annual subscription. Depending on your organization, that either could or couldn't be expensive. I personally think it's a fair price. However, I engaged them and negotiated a lower price with them. I think I got closer to $6,000. It came with a commitment of three years."
"I haven't been so involved with pricing, so I don't have all details, but I know that we are paying per head when it comes to different countries. There is an additional fee for new features that they release. If it is something that we would like to use, we need to pay some extra for it."
"SmartRecruiters is an expensive solution."
"They are pretty competitive. As the product matures, it has much more functionality and different pricing models. It can relatively cost a lot more if you want to use additional features, but, in general, it is competitive in the industry. We work on a yearly license agreement based on the company size. There are the support costs, which are a part of the additional cost based on the percentage of the licensing fee. So, it has a license plus support cost. Then, of course, there are other add-on options that we can purchase and procure whenever we want to based on certain negotiated arrangements."
"I wasn't involved in its acquisition, but I would assume that SmartRecruiters is pretty pricey."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Comms Service Provider
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

moneycorp, DSP, SAP, DAIMLER, ocado, Chargebee, ninjacart, TIGER ANALYTICS, NISSAN
Atlassian, Aol, IBM, Napa, Skechers
Find out what your peers are saying about Freshteam vs. SmartRecruiters and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.