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IBM Kenexa vs SAP SuccessFactors comparison

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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
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (13th), 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 November 2026, in the Talent Management category, the mindshare of IBM Kenexa is 1.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 8.8%, down from 15.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Talent Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP SuccessFactors8.8%
IBM Kenexa1.6%
Other89.6%
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

"We like IBM; IBM has been great partners for us, they're really invested in our success, and they see us as a valuable client."
"I like how we can copy a req as we have many duplicates, which saved a lot of time when opening reqs."
"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."
"The streamlined, simplicity approach of Kenexa makes it simple for me to navigate."
"IBM Kenexa is fairly stable, and we don't have any downtime."
"I would definitely and highly recommend the applicant tracking system."
"I think the advantage of Kenexa is the degree to which we can configure to meet our specific needs."
"The self-service part is most valuable. Employees and managers can do a lot of things on their own, and they are not dependent on the HR organization."
"Considering the flexibility of the system and its ability to accommodate complex business processes, the product is ready to be used in multiple industries."
"We can design a quick and dirty solution or very complex services, we can manage small enterprise projects (in our experience 150 users) as the big organization (in our experience 40000 users), all with the same solution, and this is a big saving of time, costs, and team usage optimization."
"It is a scalable solution. I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"The tool's most valuable feature is document generation."
"This solution support our HR Transformation strategy. Provide ESS and MSS functionalities to employees."
"The solution is very intuitive. Many of the things we need to do are easily accessible."
"The best feature is that the solution has an open architecture and provides an open platform so it can coexist with other systems."
 

Cons

"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 was a little rocky, as they always are, but we went live on time and that's all that matters."
"I would like to have a better and more user-friendly interface."
"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."
"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."
"The price can always be better. Right now, we can only do part of that, but not as much as I want to."
"There were functions we couldn't customize and needed to."
"I'm just taking over the account, so I'm still pretty new to the whole system."
"Integration between Employee Central and Compensation in SAP SuccessFactors is one area of the solution that has room for improvement."
"Sometimes we have a problem with the data center, it gets disrupted. We cannot log in to our system and it affects other integrated systems that we integrate with SuccessFactors to get data."
"There's room for improvement in SAP SuccessFactors, particularly in terms of innovation. I'd like more flexibility in its functionality and more customization."
"The single problem that needs to be solved is that once you submit a form it cannot be edited."
"They have a set of web services and connections to them. The libraries were not up-to-date and this contributed to the complexity."
"The analytics capabilities are not very in-depth. While you can get reports, there are limitations when retrieving specific data such as questions from SCORM 1.2 or 2004; the system can only retrieve answers but not questions."
"SuccessFactors was down completely for one day. All the companies which were using the Amsterdam datacenter were down from 8:00 in the morning to 18:00 in the evening."
"The tool is not very nimble or customizable."
 

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."
"We are on an annual subscription to use SAP SuccessFactors. The pricing model is something that they could restructure a bit better. If it was based differently on the type of usage it would help."
"It is not expensive because it is a complete suite with a module-based cost."
"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."
"It could be cheaper."
"The price of the solution depends on too many factors to provide an estimate. However, the price of SAP SuccessFactors is competitive."
"It is not cheap, but it is reasonable."
"I don't want to comment on the license cost, to be honest. It could be about $1,000 approximately per customer. However, it's very flexible in terms of the licensing costs depending on the volume and depending on the deal of installation."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction 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: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.