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DarwinBox vs SAP SuccessFactors 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

DarwinBox
Ranking in Talent Management
9th
Ranking in Cloud HCM
10th
Ranking in Talent Acquisition
8th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
HR Analytics Software (7th)
SAP SuccessFactors
Ranking in Talent Management
1st
Ranking in Cloud HCM
1st
Ranking in Talent Acquisition
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
Global Payroll (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of DarwinBox is 2.9%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 10.5%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP SuccessFactors10.5%
DarwinBox2.9%
Other86.6%
Cloud HCM
 

Featured Reviews

SHANOOPCHATHOTH PARAMBIL - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Manager at Intelliswift
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…
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

"The most valuable features of the solution are organogram and position-based mapping."
"In our company, we use DarwinBox to maintain the data of our employees and for recruitment purposes."
"The leave-related modules are comprehensive, offering built-in functionalities for optional leaves."
"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."
"SuccessFactors' best features are talent management and HR Analytics."
"The feature I like the most is the notification bar where we can see upcoming courses that the organization requires from time to time. It's easy to track any pending courses. I also like the search feature in SuccessFactors. We can search for newly available courses that are updated in the system for completion."
"Talent Acquisition and Learning features are best in class."
"The most important feature is the ability to follow up on the yearly performance of the team. It's very good for management to understand how people are performing."
"It is a very stable solution."
"I love SAP, and I like SuccessFactors...I think most users prefer SuccessFactors as they become more comfortable with it."
"It's brought to our organization a big big improvement. We would give it a good rating."
"The most valuable feature is the onboarding module, which enables candidates to fill in their details online and smoothly transitions data from the recruitment module into the SAP database."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"It's a bit complicated to make a change in the tool... It is time-consuming."
"SuccessFactors should consider building their best practices around critical industries to help companies become more differentiated in the markets they operate in."
"The price could be lower."
"Its overall integration and user experience can be improved. SuccessFactors is a system that is built out of three different systems. The elements part was bought from Plateau, and the original performance dialogue was built by SuccessFactors itself. After that, SAP bought it, and it hasn't improved in the last few years. SuccessFactors is a perfect tool if you use it the way it is meant to be, but if you start building custom sessions and try to use it differently, then it is a total mess. It is not agile. It is like an old Mastodon truck or whatever. We don't have the Employee Central and Competence Management modules. Our company made the choice to not implement the Employee Central module. We also didn't implement the Competence Management module. We use the learning module to do some competence management, but I am not that fond of it. It would have been best to have the whole suite. SAP should never sell this without selling the whole suite because it just doesn't work. The biggest gain for me would be having the possibility of doing strategic personnel planning and managing internal mobility. If it could be used for social purposes, such as creating communities and connecting with media channels, that would be perfect. It should also have the possibilities for local admin and agile product development."
"They should improve the reports."
"Everything, including the provisioning dependency, should be moved to the instance, and coding should be kept to a minimum. Wherever possible, coding should be minimized, and everything should be a drag-and-drop."
"There is an area of improvement in integrating SuccessFactors with different platforms."
"The user experience and interface are not user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is not expensive because it is a complete suite with a module-based cost."
"We don't utilize even half of the licenses because not everyone uses them. With SAP SuccessFactors, though, we're now conducting all our performance evaluations within the system, so I suppose we're making better use of those licenses. As for SAP for employee services and internal benefits processing, we do have licenses for those but don't utilize them."
"For SAP, the product is pricey, both CAPEX and the OPEX. It's something that could be improved."
"It could be cheaper."
"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."
"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."
"SAP SuccessFactors requires an annual subscription."
"The cost of SAP SuccessFactors is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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 ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
SuccessFactors
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Myntra, GVK BIO, Bisleri, Times Internet, Delhivery, Aarti
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 DarwinBox vs. SAP SuccessFactors and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.