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SAP SuccessFactors HCM vs Workday HCM comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 21, 2026

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

SAP SuccessFactors HCM
Ranking in Cloud HCM
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
4.3
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Workday HCM
Ranking in Cloud HCM
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (1st), Talent Management (2nd), Talent Acquisition (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors HCM is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday HCM is 10.0%, down from 15.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Workday HCM10.0%
SAP SuccessFactors HCM1.2%
Other88.8%
Cloud HCM
 

Featured Reviews

Stuti Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
VP – Skills Architecture And Management at Standard Chartered Bank
Unified talent workflows have streamlined performance reviews and continuous feedback
Based on my experience with SAP SuccessFactors HCM, there are a lot of improvements needed. They are improving definitely, but SAP SuccessFactors HCM needs a lot more integrated flow of data and information across different modules because it is sitting in a lot of places. The biggest improvement is that SAP SuccessFactors HCM is very plain and vanilla and is not very engaging in terms of UI/UX. From a UI/UX perspective, it is not very intuitive. You need to know where to go and navigate and what information is sitting there. Therefore, we have to do a lot of change management education, a lot of guidance work, and a lot of change management to get higher adoption and engagement on the platform. Something that would be really intuitive could fit better with the flow.
Amit_Rai - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Automation has transformed hire to retire processes and delivers powerful HR analytics
In Workday Human Capital Management, I feel that the security part needs to be improved. Workday gives complete control to the implementers regarding security and who is going to see what data. There are sometimes loopholes that are not identified unless fully tested. If Workday had a security alert system, even a small alert would help the security architect secure all information better, especially sensitive data such as payroll. Additionally, customization is another area of improvement, as Workday provides a default blue and yellow theme, which may not align with a company's branding. If Workday provided the option to customize themes based on a company's preferences, it would enhance the user experience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature I appreciate the most about this solution is the integration with SAP S/4HANA system."
"The employee experience management tools have had a very positive impact on employee satisfaction and well-being within our organization."
"SAP SuccessFactors HCM has positively impacted my customer's environment by ensuring they are digital; we promote using DocuSign for document signing and ensuring effective onboarding, and post-implementation we provide hyper-care and digital adoption reports after six months or a year to show how much more paperless and workflow-enabled their organization has become after SAP SuccessFactors HCM implementation."
"Using SAP SuccessFactors HCM analytics and insights helps my customers in data-driven decision-making."
"Regarding how SAP SuccessFactors HCM has helped my organization, we have timelines that work with the platform in terms of when we set up our goals and record them, performance reviews, check-ins, and everything work seamlessly."
"The SAP SuccessFactors HCM tool is a fantastic platform to work with, offering end-to-end employee lifecycle coverage."
"The scalability is amazing."
"Provides flexibility to integrate with the product. It has several tools, out-of-the-box, for integrations. It delivers pre-built interfaces for specific vendors, pre-built generic integrations to extract or push data into Workday through configuration."
"I'm happy with the features Workday offers. But in particular, Core HCM is the best."
"I would say that we have definitely seen a return on investment."
"The reporting feature is quite easy for a layman to use, and the look and feel of the application is good. Its security is robust. You will never find a use case that cannot be covered."
"The user interface is good and very easy to use."
"It is fairly easy to set up"
"Workday Human Capital Management's most valuable feature is self-service."
 

Cons

"The main area for improvement would be implementing a better pricing model. It is expensive, and with people discussing Workday more frequently, SAP needs to compete by becoming more free-flowing and dynamic compared to traditional SAP systems."
"The SAP SuccessFactors HCM has room for improvement in terms of product development nimbleness. Additionally, the speed of the application platform occasionally reduces, primarily due to data center related issues."
"Based on my experience with SAP SuccessFactors HCM, there are a lot of improvements needed."
"The pricing of the solution is very high concerning pricing, setup cost, and licensing of this tool."
"It is very difficult to purchase SAP SuccessFactors HCM over here for smaller or medium-sized organizations, mainly because of the price."
"The reporting part is quite weak in SAP SuccessFactors HCM because the drill-down capabilities are not what a customer wants compared to what it offers."
"The price could be lower."
"The user interface can be enhanced."
"In terms of reporting, we have to rely on a consultant to do the report customization. The most important thing is to be able to do your own reporting, which it can't do. We rely so much on our consultant to customize reports for us."
"They don't offer any backend database access. This is one limitation that I found in this product. Workday hasn't opened up about what kind of database they are into, which can make it easy for the technical team to emulate issues. It would be good if they can offer backend access to the technical team. It would be helpful if they can also provide a Troubleshooting Guide that we can use to troubleshoot issues. When we have an issue, there are very limited resources to refer to."
"In a future release we could like to have access to asset, supply and treasury management functionalities."
"The solution needs to be updated with generative UI."
"It does not integrate with some of the career management softwares, like LinkedIn."
"Workday does have a community site where people can go on and off for suggestions. They call them Brainstorms, and you can vote them up. That is something that they do well, but oftentimes, they seem to be racing to deliver something based on what a competitor is delivering. For example, if they hear SAP has this new functionality and learning that's going to be coming out, they prioritize there, which makes sense, but unfortunately, some of these Brainstorms may get neglected where the product might not be improved as quickly or as needed for the customers. You might be waiting for a year or two to get a feature that you'd like released. They should pay more attention to customer feedback and ensure that customer feedback is an essential part of their product roadmap."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing for this solution is fairly high. It is not affordable for small and mid-sized companies."
"The solution’s pricing is better than SAP SuccessFactors."
"You have the license fee per module, and then you have a kind of annual training fee, which is a kind of add-on. I wouldn't say it is exhaustive; it is minor. Licensing is pretty transparent for most of the part."
"It has an annual subscription rate, but I'm not sure how it will work."
"Its price is pretty high. It is more expensive than what is offered by other competitors in the market."
"Each module comes with an additional cost. It operates on a mid-price model. So, there is an additional payment for each module needed. The solution might be costlier for smaller companies, making it more suitable for mid to large-sized enterprises."
"With a bigger budget, I would recommend SAP."
"I need to pay for a license. It is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Educational Organization
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise50
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP SuccessFactors HCM?
The pricing of SAP SuccessFactors HCM is a bit expensive; its HCM without SuccessFactors was reasonable when it was on-site, but SuccessFactors is very expensive. On-premise HCM was good regarding ...
What needs improvement with SAP SuccessFactors HCM?
Based on my experience with SAP SuccessFactors HCM, there are a lot of improvements needed. They are improving definitely, but SAP SuccessFactors HCM needs a lot more integrated flow of data and in...
What is your primary use case for SAP SuccessFactors HCM?
I have hands-on experience with SAP SuccessFactors HCM and we use different modules. As an HR person, I work from that side of the platform. I am the customer of SAP SuccessFactors HCM. We utilize ...
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...
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...
What needs improvement with Workday?
Workday can be improved in terms of reporting and customization. Sometimes it is difficult to create custom reports and requires extra effort or support. The user interface can also be confusing in...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Workday Human Capital Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
AAA, Allied Global, Avago Technologies Limited, Aviva, Cardinal Health, CareFusion, Chiquita Brands International, Equifax, Flextronics, HP, Life Time Fitness, McKee Foods, MGM Resorts International, Sanofi, ServiceSource International, Symantec, TripAdvisor, Yahoo!
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP SuccessFactors HCM vs. Workday HCM and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.