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BambooHR vs IBM Kenexa comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 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 Benefits Administration
8th
Ranking in Talent Management
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Cloud HCM (8th)
IBM Kenexa
Ranking in Benefits Administration
21st
Ranking in Talent Management
20th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Talent Management category, the mindshare of BambooHR is 2.3%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Kenexa is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Talent Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BambooHR2.3%
IBM Kenexa1.4%
Other96.3%
Talent Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ram-Mohan - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Align Technology
Pre-built adapters simplify CI/CD processes but monitoring improvements are needed
If Bamboo can provide a dashboard with tool health, such as whether the master or instance has the required space, it would be beneficial. Sometimes, when I trigger a build, it ends with no space on the agent machine where the agents are installed. If Bamboo can create an internal monitoring mechanism and display the tool's health status on the landing page or homepage, it would help end users and DevOps Engineers like me.
Karan Grover - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Suitable for larger-scale companies aiming to streamline and automate their processes digitally
The deployment of the solution took between six to eight months. When we introduced BrassRing at my company, we encountered several challenges. First, moving data from our old system to BrassRing was tough because it needed reformatting. Second, connecting BrassRing with our HR data was tricky due to manual processes for roles and departments. Third, setting up the workflow in BrassRing was complex. Fourth, configuring user access and approval levels was a detailed task. We also had to manage the change process, including running both old and new systems in parallel, communicating changes, and training users. Lastly, monitoring and reporting were needed to ensure data accuracy and proper system usage once everything was in place. We had a team of six to eight people managing the project from our side during the BrassRing deployment. I'm not sure about the size of the BrassRing team, and we also had our own technical team, which had three to four members. The solution required maintenance, particularly from my side as the administrator. Maintenance responsibilities were divided into two parts: some tasks we, as end-users, could control, while others were the responsibility of the BrassRing team. Payment-related tasks were a regular part of our responsibilities. I wasn't the only person maintaining the solution. There were three power users from Infosys, each responsible for a specific geography. My counterpart managed it in the US, and I, along with my colleague in India, managed it for other geographies.

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."
"This is a scalable solution. We have not experienced any issues."
"The tool's most valuable features are the recruitment module, performance module, and document storage."
"I can easily go to BambooHR to search for any staff member in the company."
"The solution's technical support is super responsive and helpful. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"We use this solution for our end to end HR needs from onboarding and hiring to learning."
"BambooHR is accessible to users who aren't good with technology. If you don't have an IT background, you can easily find information about any employee."
"It's very user-friendly and easy to train someone new. It was easy to implement and get someone onboarded on the system."
"IBM Kenexa is fairly stable. We don't have any downtime."
"The ease of scaling is one of BrassRing's biggest strengths, making it a trusted choice for large companies."
"It is extremely user friendly. It is very flexible in managing recruitment, especially when you have thousands of applicants as we did. We easily had over 20,000 applicants within a year for some of our positions, so it made it very easy to manage a large application pool. It was very easy to customize by recruiter preference. When you open up someone's profile to see their experience, education, or other things, you can customize that for yourself. It was flexible in that, and each recruiter could set up their preferences. It didn't have to be set up so that everyone had to have the same landing platform, which was very helpful. As someone who trained other HR people on how to use the system, it was very easy to pick up and learn."
"The most valuable features are that we can upload documents and download them on demand."
 

Cons

"In the BambooHR performance management annual evaluations we have some limits to the questions. We can only add four extra questions, and they already have three basic questions, this is not easy for us. We would like to have more flexibility with the questions."
"The UI needs improvement because it needs to be more user-friendly."
"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."
"There are some issues with the job tab under my info where you add the salary."
"It would be useful to have the possibility to assign a task to the different users within the software."
"The performance could be improved. When you save some documents, it takes longer to store them in BambooHR's systems than it used to. Something needs to be upgraded or fixed in the code. Alow, we provide services to other companies, so Bamboo isn't able to help us in many areas because of the way we work."
"The only thing that could have been added is better integration with local payroll systems or a local Canadian payroll module."
"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."
"The reporting tool is helpful, but it is not the easiest to train on or is not as understandable for other HR pros. Their Workbench site, which is the administrator site that you use to update your website, is not user-friendly. When updates are required, it is not that easy to manage because Workbench is not user friendly. It required more work from the admins. They have Workbench training, which actually was very unhelpful. It took eight hours to complete, and it was not very helpful. Their customer service when it comes specifically to their Workbench site is not helpful."
"I would like to have a better and more user-friendly interface."
"I would not recommend IBM Kenexa to others."
"It needs to update its reporting and analytics tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, the solution is in the middle compared to other tools offering similar functionalities."
"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."
"It was definitely cheaper than some of the larger systems."
"Kenexa was fairly priced. However, in 2019, before I left my previous organization, they significantly increased their pricing. It can be affordable, but their pricing is going up. It is not just licensing; it is how many applicants you have in your system on the database side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
30%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
7%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Wholesaler/Distributor
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise28
 

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?
If Bamboo can provide a dashboard with tool health, such as whether the master or instance has the required space, it would be beneficial. Sometimes, when I trigger a build, it ends with no space o...
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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IBM Smarter Workforce, Outstart
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Sweet Spot International (SSI), Leo Burnett Worldwide (LBW), Sika AG, Legacy Health, Apollo Group Inc., Regeneron, Transurban Group, National Health Service, New Zealand Police, Overland Footwear, Yealands, Johnson Controls, Allscripts, Kerry Foods, Masterpet, AMD, Balfour Beatty
Find out what your peers are saying about BambooHR vs. IBM Kenexa and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,672 professionals have used our research since 2012.