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IBM Kenexa vs PageUp People comparison

 

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

IBM Kenexa
Ranking in Talent Management
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (18th), Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software (10th)
PageUp People
Ranking in Talent Management
26th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Talent Management category, the mindshare of IBM Kenexa is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PageUp People is 1.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Talent Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Kenexa1.4%
PageUp People1.3%
Other97.3%
Talent Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
CG
Director at Edge HR
Has all-inclusive pricing and good talent acquisition and onboarding components, and is an excellent product for mid-sized to large organizations
They could probably add surveying, as in engagement surveys, to their product. That would be something that would be valued by their customers. For instance, Culture Amp is a product that does a lot of the engagement stuff. They're diversifying into other aspects of talent management. It is not yet at the same scale as PageUp People, but it is an excellent product as well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability now to be able to take data, load it yourself, ask the business questions and get the answers on your own process with the business just made it a lot faster, and the cognitive solution gives us some insights for us to think about."
"Now, having provided this, amongst many other things, we have a much closer relationship to the business."
"Without this solution, we would have more administrative functions and would need to hire more HR employees."
"We acquired a pharmacy retailer three years ago, and Kenexa enabled us to actually standardize our employee engagement across both of those organizations, helping us understand at an enterprise level what was going on and, most importantly, how people were starting to feel about being acquired and joining the broader company space."
"It is extremely user friendly. It is very flexible in managing recruitment, especially when you have thousands of applicants as we did. We easily had over 20,000 applicants within a year for some of our positions, so it made it very easy to manage a large application pool. It was very easy to customize by recruiter preference. When you open up someone's profile to see their experience, education, or other things, you can customize that for yourself. It was flexible in that, and each recruiter could set up their preferences. It didn't have to be set up so that everyone had to have the same landing platform, which was very helpful. As someone who trained other HR people on how to use the system, it was very easy to pick up and learn."
"This tool is very powerful and the ability to tweak it in order to meet desired processes and controls is valuable."
"The most important features are that the instrument can be customized, that we can get important and relevant data about our employees, and the responsiveness of our client team from IBM has been phenomenal."
"IBM Kenexa is fairly stable. We don't have any downtime."
"Most of features in PageUp are very useful."
"It has a user-friendly interface in managing job requisitions for the end user."
"I have recommended PageUp to a lot of my networks due to the fact that it is one of the best systems on the market in terms of functionality, support, and reporting capability."
"It is a reliable, simple to use, end-to-end system for employee lifecycle management."
"PageUp has allowed us to integrate all HR systems and manage all processes associated with the employee lifecycle from recruitment through to managing performance, learning and development; also where applicable, departures from the organisation processes."
"It provides a centralised repository of information for various HR functions."
"Once automated through the system, the approval timeframe decreased to two days."
"If you are looking for a product with great support, recruitment functionality, ease-of-use, and reliability, this is a great product."
 

Cons

"Technical support was not always great. They tend to push you towards workbench admins or paid support."
"The downside is it's a system that was created many, many years ago and so it just evolves."
"2xO was created by brain-damaged monkeys in front of keyboards."
"I would like to have a better and more user-friendly interface."
"There were functions we couldn't customize and needed to."
"In the past year, there has been a significant increase in the amount of internal errors that are displayed."
"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."
"It needs to update its reporting and analytics tools."
"Personally, I believe that they could be more proactive in assuring that, as a client, you are getting the best ROI possible."
"There are sometimes problems when loading the system; it can be very slow."
"They could probably add surveying, as in engagement surveys, to their product. That would be something that would be valued by their customers. For instance, Culture Amp is a product that does a lot of the engagement stuff. They're diversifying into other aspects of talent management. It is not yet at the same scale as PageUp People, but it is an excellent product as well."
"Reporting could be improved. Some changes were made to functionality a year or two ago, and whilst there have certainly been some improvements in some areas (in terms of the dashboard view, for example), we have experienced some difficulty in trying to automate some fairly standard reports to be sent out to our hiring areas regarding current recruitment in their respective areas."
"It is probably not as scalable as SAP SuccessFactors or other talent management systems that are available in the global marketplace."
"Initially, we experienced issues with the stability of the learning management module as we migrated 50,000+ existing training records from our old system."
"Maybe there is a need to improve the interface so that we will be able to easily search for modules in regards to the system fix."
"In our experience, PageUp has not been as flexible as we would like or expect as a vendor."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"PageUp has a different model from other organizations. As part of their pricing structure, they tend to work with you very closely and not charge you for the setup. So, there is one price all inclusive of setup, and for that reason, they become an attractive provider to work with. Here in Australia, the education sector has gravitated very heavily towards PageUp."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
24%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
 

Also Known As

IBM Smarter Workforce, Outstart
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
MYER, Target, coles, Fujitsu, Michael Hill
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Kenexa vs. PageUp People and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
887,041 professionals have used our research since 2012.