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BambooHR vs DarwinBox comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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

BambooHR
Ranking in Talent Management
9th
Ranking in Cloud HCM
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (9th)
DarwinBox
Ranking in Talent Management
22nd
Ranking in Cloud HCM
15th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
HR Analytics Software (8th), Talent Acquisition (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of BambooHR is 2.7%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DarwinBox is 2.9%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM
 

Featured Reviews

Vineeth John - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a certain level of simplicity with the whole package and intutive
We used Payworks. Payworks is designed strictly for payroll. It's not really meant to be an HRIS tool because it doesn't allow for an employee profile, for example. You can't manage a lot of employee information, track training, recruitment, or any of that stuff. They've added an applicant tracking module, but it's still very basic. So adding BambooHR was very complementary to having it covered. The only problem was the two systems didn't talk to each other. It was a bit of a hassle for us to maintain the two systems, going back and forth and making sure the data was centralized when we made changes.
SHANOOPCHATHOTH PARAMBIL - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhancing attendance and leave management but needs better performance customization
Our primary use case for DarwinBox includes managing attendance, payroll-related tasks, and employee appraisal cycles DarwinBox has provided a significant return on investment for our finance team. Managing payroll and attendance manually would require more team members, so using DarwinBox…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the fact that the annual days are calculated automatically and that if annual leave is taken in the future, those days are put on hold. You know at every point how many days of annual leave are you left with and how many are on hold."
"The tool's most valuable features are the recruitment module, performance module, and document storage."
"The product is user-friendly."
"I can easily go to BambooHR to search for any staff member in the company."
"Leave management is the most valuable as they all started with leave management and then progressed to performance management. Of course, employee profiles are central to everything. It is also very easy to use. Customers get on board with it very quickly. One of the selling points for BambooHR is that they have a very wide partner network. There are lots of other partners that have integrations with BambooHR. They have an open API. This is one of the things that is driving its growth because lots of people and companies are literally just building integrations of BambooHR to ride the wave. If you have an integration with BambooHR, you get sales. People are more likely to choose your product because they've already chosen BambooHR. That's how it is happening. It is a cloud deployment, so there is only one version. They do the updates every month, and because of this, you are encouraged to send them feedback all the time. You never know. Your feature may be included in the next release."
"The scalability of BambooHR is good."
"We use this solution for our end to end HR needs from onboarding and hiring to learning."
"It's very user-friendly and easy to train someone new. It was easy to implement and get someone onboarded on the system."
"In our company, we use DarwinBox to maintain the data of our employees and for recruitment purposes."
"The solution that we used previously was very complex. As a result, without referring to the manuals and consulting an expert, it was difficult for a newly hired employee to navigate the platform. However, this is not the case with Darwinbox. It has a very intuitive user interface, and anyone can use it and implement it without having to use a guide or a walk through process. It's very simple."
"The most valuable features of the solution are organogram and position-based mapping."
"The leave-related modules are comprehensive, offering built-in functionalities for optional leaves."
 

Cons

"If you are dealing with two or more businesses under one company name, it is not possible to transfer employees between companies if they have a separate bamboo set up."
"BambooHR needs to have more flexibility around performance management."
"There are some issues with the job tab under my info where you add the salary."
"The color palettes could be changed to make the solution a little more attractive and easier to use."
"The only thing that could have been added is better integration with local payroll systems or a local Canadian payroll module."
"It would be good to include more options for approvals and workflows. They are deliberately not the most sophisticated version of anything that they do, but it is like 80/20. They hit the vast majority of all the needs, but I have started to run up against the limits of their functionality. It has forced me to start paying attention to the marketplace or sending feedback to BambooHR. Clients are still happy though. Timesheets is a new area in which they're slowly expanding. It is currently very limited, but it meets the needs of standard nine-to-five salary employees who just want to be able to key in their time, have it approved, and then pushed off to payroll. It does not have any of the bells and whistles that an hourly employee or hourly worker might need. That is one area that is currently limited, but they have integrations with some of the best companies that do that."
"BambooHR could be improved by managing leave in a way that transfers remaining days at the end of the annual year to the following year."
"We cannot add more questions to the assessments if we want to."
"Like most software, it has a base version, the vanilla, out-of-the-box version, and customization is required to match it to the unique processes of each company. The Darwinbox team seems to be having difficulty with the customization process. They have to be a little more mature to customize it as per every company's need."
"DarwinBox is not a stable solution...DarwinBox is not a scalable solution."
"Customization in performance management is cumbersome."
"The solution's API integration with third-party applications should be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, the solution is in the middle compared to other tools offering similar functionalities."
"It was definitely cheaper than some of the larger systems."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We pay a monthly subscription to use the solution. The subscript model is based on how many employees we have active."
"Compared with SuccessFactors, there is no major difference in DarwinBox's cost."
"My company makes some yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to DarwinBox."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering BambooHR?
Organizations of all sizes, especially those that are experiencing rapid growth, want to have a way to effectively manage their HR operations. Our organization feels that BambooHR is an HR manageme...
What do you like most about BambooHR?
The tool's most valuable features are the recruitment module, performance module, and document storage.
What needs improvement with BambooHR?
BambooHR's reporting tools were not the best I've used, but they're good. There are some limitations in terms of customized reports, as opposed to ADP, for example. The only thing that could have b...
What do you like most about DarwinBox?
The most valuable features of the solution are organogram and position-based mapping.
What needs improvement with DarwinBox?
Customization in performance management is cumbersome. Processes like six-month appraisals lack easy configurations, and any significant customization requires working with vendors.
What is your primary use case for DarwinBox?
Our primary use case for DarwinBox includes managing attendance, payroll-related tasks, and employee appraisal cycles.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about BambooHR vs. DarwinBox and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.