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SAP HCM vs SAP SuccessFactors comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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 HCM
Ranking in Talent Management
3rd
Ranking in Cloud HCM
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (3rd)
SAP SuccessFactors
Ranking in Talent Management
1st
Ranking in Cloud HCM
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (2nd), Global Payroll (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of SAP HCM is 13.1%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 21.7%, down from 22.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM
 

Featured Reviews

Renelia Villanueva - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient payroll processing with comprehensive attendance management
I am currently heading the payroll benefits and HRIS team here in Manila. We are using SAP HCM on-premises, and we implemented SuccessFactors focusing on Employee Central and GMPM SAP HCM has helped a lot due to the always changing government regulations pertaining to taxation, social security…
Marissa Schwan - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, stable, and scalable
SuccessFactors has a best practices model for HR across the board, but there are multiple industries. For example, the pharmaceutical, engineering, and professional services industries may have different processes based on their business requirements and operations. SAP and Workday have one approach across industries. As employee experience becomes increasingly important, the kind of employees appointed in an engineering environment, a pharmaceutical environment, and a professional service environment are very different, meaning their experience touchpoints may differ and require adjustments. SuccessFactors should consider building their best practices around critical industries to help companies become more differentiated in the markets they operate in. As a company, we have 118,000 followers on LinkedIn, and the unemployment rate in South Africa is quite high, at more than 30 percent. When we advertise a job, the number of CVs and applications we receive from people who want to work for us is overwhelming, we can get up to 600 CVs for a single vacancy. To make the process more efficient, we need to use artificial intelligence to identify the key elements of the job profile and match them to the CVs of the applicants. The pre-selection questions are helpful in reducing the number of applicants, but they don't measure the suitability of the CVs and profiles. This is something that needs to be built into the system, but it doesn't currently exist in the market. We have a good pre-selection program, but it doesn't take into account experience, qualifications, professional memberships, work experience, or critical performance indicators. We have enough information from CVs and LinkedIn profiles for the system to match the vacancy profile with the applicant's information and rank them from most suitable to least suitable.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable features for our HR operations include easy reporting capabilities, which allow us to generate reports for management meetings and auditing purposes. Additionally, it supports appointment preparation and processing benefits."
"It is a scalable solution. There are three administrators maintaining the solution: an HR person, a payroll person, and one backup."
"The technical support is quite good."
"The payroll suite is very valuable."
"When you maintain your data in SAP, you can generate any kind of HR report with one click."
"The payroll function in SAP HCM has been most beneficial for managing global workforces. We plan to use goal management and KPI features to link to payroll through the SAP SuccessFactors module."
"It's very suitable for large, multi-geography companies but also very suitable for medium companies with multi-geography operations."
"The feature I like most in SAP HCM is its effectiveness for talent management."
"The most valuable feature of SAP SuccessFactors is analytics."
"SAP SuccessFactors is stable, we have not found any bugs or glitches."
"It covers all the everyday functions of the employee life cycle."
"SAP SuccessFactors is a stable solution."
"The most valuable features of the solution are GUI and OData API."
"SuccessFactors' most valuable feature is performance management."
"HR and managers can use the onboarding tool to help new employees prepare for their first day on the job, which can help them acclimate to the company culture and reduce anxiety."
"The functionality and user friendliness are constantly improving."
 

Cons

"A better user interface and greater AI integration are crucial."
"Reports need to be added on the time management side."
"SAP HCM has many different channels for communication with the consultants which makes it complex. There are delays when there is a problem."
"We find some challenges in the integration between SAP HCM and SAP SuccessFactors."
"This solution needs to be more configurable and user-friendly."
"Its reporting feature could have customization options."
"SAP is not ready to sell the license on time and delays the progress of projects. It's better to work with a competitor like Oracle. Those that are selling the product just go through powerpoints and don't have the knowledge necessary to sell. They can't answer any questions."
"It would be nice if the solution migrated to S/4HANA."
"The process for long modules needs to be improved, because compared to how it's done with a competitor (Meta4), the competitor's process was simpler."
"LMS, Learning Management Systems, needs improvement because there were some stability problems."
"The SAP SuccessFactors updates need to be more industry-specific because every industry has specific modules. What I want to be added to SAP SuccessFactors is a chat box where SAP staff can give support to users."
"I think there is room for improvement in user friendliness. In my experience, users are sometimes confused about how to use the solution."
"They should be more user friendly and give us more tools to make it more flexible."
"Forms cannot be edited once submitted."
"I don't think SuccessFactors is quite fit for use as an employee database."
"One of the most essential features that needs improvement right now is the reporting functionality. SuccessFactors' reports seem to be lagging a bit behind and we are very interested in customizing the reporting mechanism such that it pushes reports through quickly and automatically."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For implementation, SAP offers little support unless you buy SAP Safeguarding from SAP Consulting."
"Be careful and guard against future changes in licensing."
"The product is expensive."
"The cost of SAP HCM is high, the license should be reduced. SAP HCM has a lot of hidden costs."
"SAP is extremely expensive. The integration costs and customization costs are also a lot."
"The pricing is really high."
"The solution is a little expensive and we are charged per user for the license. The solution can be paid monthly or annually."
"The pricing is around the middle, at a five out of ten. But it depends on the number of licenses. More licenses mean lower per-user costs. You need to understand how to play the volume game and the growth."
"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."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"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."
"SAP SuccessFactors requires an annual subscription."
"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."
"The cost of SAP SuccessFactors is reasonable."
"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."
"The product is expensive. The product is worth the money you pay for it."
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Answers from the Community

NC
Jan 25, 2024
Jan 25, 2024
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 to simplify the process, giving life back to HR systems so that they can be more modern and flexible, and rely more on the heart of HR – the employee. On the other hand, while SF is technically less ...
See 2 answers
YZ
Sep 6, 2021
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 to simplify the process, giving life back to HR systems so that they can be more modern and flexible, and rely more on the heart of HR – the employee. On the other hand, while SF is technically less complex than SAP HCM, it also has significantly less capability, particularly when it comes to integration with other SAP modules. For example, while SAP's integration between the SAP Project system and the SAP HCM process is robust, SuccessFactors' integration is limited and still in its early stages. In all circumstances, SAP SF represents the future of HR, with a highly promising road map. I believe that if SAP continues to create more features, SF will have greater functionality than SAP HCM in 5 years.
Kseniia Gravis - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 25, 2024
So are you striving to successfully deploy and utilize SAP systems to centralize data, streamline operations, gain real-time insights and achieve business efficiency? SAP applications are the backbone of every business. We also discuss the best SAP implementation process as an ideal solution for such problems: https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/why-outsource-sap/ 
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
51%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SAP HCM?
SAP HCM is the one of the best ERP for an organization with a small to large scale business. It has the most efficient payroll functionality. Regards : SAP HR classes in pune
What do you like most about SAP HCM?
HCM is a very important module that each organization should want to use. It will help any organization to calculate and control the cost of their human resources.
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 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 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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP SuccessFactors?
The solution is expensive. However, it increases the company's value, making the cost worthwhile in the long run.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

SAP Human Capital Management
SuccessFactors
 

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, Skrill Group Ltd.
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 SAP HCM vs. SAP SuccessFactors and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.