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SAP SuccessFactors vs SmartRecruiters comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.3
SAP SuccessFactors offers efficiency and HR benefits, but high costs and long ROI periods challenge financial justification.
Sentiment score
8.4
SmartRecruiters improved efficiency and cost-effectiveness, reducing hiring time and increasing user satisfaction with its intuitive design.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
SAP SuccessFactors support receives mixed reviews; praised for efficiency yet criticized for bureaucracy, response delays, and offshore handling.
Sentiment score
6.7
SmartRecruiters' support is praised for efficiency but faces criticism for ticketing; phone support is suggested for improvement.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
SAP SuccessFactors is scalable, supporting diverse user sizes, though some module limitations exist; users generally report satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.0
SmartRecruiters is scalable and flexible, supporting diverse organizations globally with tailored capabilities for recruitment and internal mobility.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
SAP SuccessFactors is rated highly for stability despite occasional performance and integration issues during updates or high-demand periods.
Sentiment score
8.1
SmartRecruiters is a reliable ATS with occasional minor issues, praised for stability and consistent performance in recruitment.
I hardly ever encounter any stability issues, as SAP SuccessFactors is very good and stable.
 

Room For Improvement

SAP SuccessFactors needs analytics, integration, and usability improvements; users face customization, interface, and deployment challenges.
SmartRecruiters faces challenges in accessibility, integration, user experience, compliance, and requires improvements in tech support and feature robustness.
Advisories can only be placed at the bottom, which is less effective as employees may not scroll down to see them.
The change management process during the initial launch was not effectively handled, leading to a poor user experience.
 

Setup Cost

SAP SuccessFactors provides a flexible pricing model, suited for large enterprises, with annual licensing and negotiable costs.
SmartRecruiters pricing starts at $10,000 annually, varies by size and features, but offers discounts for non-profits.
The licensing costs are quite high, which is a typical scenario for such solutions.
 

Valuable Features

SAP SuccessFactors offers user-friendly HR solutions with strong integration, mobile access, and AI-driven tools for efficient enterprise management.
SmartRecruiters provides an intuitive interface, effective sourcing, integration, and customization, making it adaptable and suitable for diverse organizations.
Employees can view their goals, performance, ratings, and employee information, which enhances the employee experience.
SAP SuccessFactors has advantages in providing AI-driven initiatives such as candidate screening and matching features within the recruitment module.
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP SuccessFactors
Ranking in Talent Acquisition
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Talent Management (1st), Cloud HCM (1st), Global Payroll (2nd)
SmartRecruiters
Ranking in Talent Acquisition
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Talent Acquisition category, the mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 23.8%, up from 23.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartRecruiters is 1.8%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Talent Acquisition
 

Featured Reviews

SandeepKumar7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful to manage employee life cycle management but is not very easy to implement
There are quite a few things, like goal management, in terms of transferring goals from manager to subordinates, which is probably not one of the best ways to look at SAP SuccessFactors, making it an area that could have been done better. Route management and template management are pretty good areas. The reporting in the tool is not as great as I would want it to be from a PMGM internal management perspective. I just hope that SAP SuccessFactors comes up with a payroll tool that suits India. I don't see it as one of the best tools for the Indian scenario. I would love to see much better document management in the system, like onboarding. Onboarding has document management, but if I want to report through it, there is not much that I can do about it. DMS in SAP would be great since, in most places, DMS is maintained outside the system. I would have loved to see better DMS in SAP SuccessFactors. In terms of the reporting, I understand that since everything is moving to SAP SAC. Even without SAP SAC, it would be great if we could have better analytics within SAP SuccessFactors.
Anudeep Kamuni - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently automates tasks but lacks certain features in terms of usability
There are a couple of areas of improvement. SmartRecruiter lacks certain features in terms of usability. For instance, we cannot move candidate profiles, interview feedback, notes, and activities related to one candidate when transitioning from one job to another. We have to manually copy and paste everything for that specific candidate. This is a significant drawback. Additionally, the filters are not accurate. The results are inaccurate when filtering multiple criteria, such as country and hiring manager. This level of inaccuracy is unexpected for an application, especially for smaller organizations. It should have been corrected easily. Moreover, the CRM module lacks video reporting capabilities. These are some the biggest improvement I would like to see.
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
45%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
10%
Healthcare Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about SAP SuccessFactors?
The tool is easy to use for performance management. We haven't experienced any issues with SAP SuccessFactors for performance management, which is great. However, since we're still learning to use ...
What do you like most about SmartRecruiters?
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.
What needs improvement with SmartRecruiters?
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, b...
 

Also Known As

SuccessFactors
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Atlassian, Aol, IBM, Napa, Skechers
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP SuccessFactors vs. SmartRecruiters and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.