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IBM Kenexa vs SAP SuccessFactors comparison

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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
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (12th), Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software (6th)
SAP SuccessFactors
Ranking in Talent Management
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Cloud HCM (2nd), Talent Acquisition (2nd), Global Payroll (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Talent Management category, the mindshare of IBM Kenexa is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 8.4%, down from 18.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Talent Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP SuccessFactors8.4%
IBM Kenexa1.6%
Other90.0%
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.
SS
Assistant Manager at Kashiv Biosciences
HR has gained clear analytics for attrition, goals, and appraisals and manages talent efficiently
SAP SuccessFactors has a low error rate. We had many ad hoc reports that we needed to generate, and it was very easy to do so in SAP SuccessFactors. We also created many in-house reports according to our specific requirements with the help of this tool, which was a really big game changer for us. We did not depend on advanced Excel in those cases. We generated a lot of detailed reports whenever we needed them during emergency cases or board meetings. A lot of usefulness and time were saved in those cases. I will also mention that we conducted a comparative study for some recruitment cases. We had a recruitment model where we were looking for a very niche profile. Since the job profile was really different and rare, we had to depend on analytics to understand and shortlist from a large pool of candidates that we already had in our database. Analytics was really helpful in this situation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This tool is very powerful and the ability to tweak it in order to meet desired processes and controls is valuable."
"I think the advantage of Kenexa is the degree to which we can configure to meet our specific needs."
"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."
"Kenexa’s scalability has been great, as we can grow and expand our use no matter what and seamlessly incorporate our business process for new launches."
"I would definitely and highly recommend the applicant tracking system."
"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."
"Overall, from a recruiter's perspective, it is an excellent product and is probably one of the best recruitment products out there in terms of usability, ease of understanding, and management of large applicant pools."
"Now, having provided this, amongst many other things, we have a much closer relationship to the business."
"This solution has always been stable for me."
"SF Learning is a key element in making SF a tool with added value for the entire organization."
"What I like the most is the KPI management formula."
"The product is stable, scalable, and addresses a lot of issues."
"We have implemented this for our customers and the areas where they have realized the values are employee engagement and satisfaction, better ROI, better visibility and predictability, faster and accurate decision making and lower overall total cost of operation."
"SuccessFactors' most valuable feature is performance management."
"SAP SuccessFactors is a very reliable and stable solution."
"SAP SuccessFactors is one of the most robust platforms in the world today. For a unique global company, they need a platform that is compliant, such as GDP compliant in Europe. The solution delivers high quality in their core HR IS system which is called Employee Central. The system is one of the strongest and sturdiest modules that are in existence in the world."
 

Cons

"I would not recommend IBM Kenexa to others."
"If you happen to be an early adopter of enhancements, it can be a frustrating process, as it is hard to decipher together with their support whether an issue is a bug or working as intended (a change in the way something works)."
"It was a little rocky, as they always are, but we went live on time and that's all that matters."
"My rating is not higher because of the support, honestly; the global service center model."
"I think there is some administrative things that could be easier in terms of Workbench and streamlining that process; configuration of different things."
"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."
"Improvements can be made from the back end, with the workbench."
"There are tools that actually are not there where clients need them, especially the survey analytics to analyze verbatim in different languages."
"SuccessFactors could be improved by making it usable on mobile and making its features less rigid."
"The SAP SuccessFactors updates need to be more industry-specific because every industry has specific modules. What I want to be added to SAP SuccessFactors is a chat box where SAP staff can give support to users."
"We would like to see improvement in the initial launch of the product, as it is currently quite slow."
"The complete integration process between SuccessFactors modules is not at the level that all customers expect when it comes to complete HR user experience from all angles."
"Employee Central made an incredible improvement, but still is behind the SAP HCM On Prem solution."
"They have a set of web services and connections to them. The libraries were not up-to-date and this contributed to the complexity."
"SuccessFactors feels rigid. It should be more streamlined. Also, the interface design is outdated and needs an upgrade."
"Pricing is a bit high and on the higher side."
 

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."
"So now, SAP charges me 300 Euros for 14,000 employees. I still have to pay 2,000 euros because I'm using SAP on-prem."
"The price of the solution depends on too many factors to provide an estimate. However, the price of SAP SuccessFactors is competitive."
"The product is expensive. The product is worth the money you pay for it."
"The cost of SAP SuccessFactors is reasonable."
"Probably, it is one of the priciest products, and is very costly to put up and maintain but because it is a good solution end to end, people take it."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"It could be cheaper."
"I think the pricing is a little better than most solutions out there. There are reasonable prices when it comes to some of the modules such as the Payroll module, and for the remaining modules I believe the pricing is fair in comparison to the rest of the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
16%
Construction Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing 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 Business23
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

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What are the biggest differences between Workday, Oracle Cloud and SAP SuccessFactors?
Differences between Workday, Oracle Cloud,w and SAP SuccessFactors:w Oracle: "simple interface and deep customization to suit the purpose." SAP: Multiple functionalities that increase process effi...
What is better, SAP HCM or SAP SuccessFactors?
When it comes to user experience, SuccessFactors is unquestionably superior, as it provides end users with a new experience and an advanced user interface. Additionally, the entire concept of SF is...
How easy is to maintain Workday, Oracle Cloud, and SuccessFactors?
I implemented Workday in 2024 and without having previous Workday experience, it was very challenging. I spent most of 2025 putting out fires and cleaning up the business processes that came with l...
 

Also Known As

IBM Smarter Workforce, Outstart
SuccessFactors
 

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
City of Cape Town, ADAMA Agricultural Solutions Ltd., TransAlta Corporation, Keolis, PT XL Axiata Tbk, National Football League (NFL), Plan International, Yoh, A Day & Zimmermann Company, China Talent Group (CTG TMO), Umicore S.A., Butterfield Bank, Skril
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Kenexa vs. SAP SuccessFactors and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.