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DarwinBox 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

DarwinBox
Ranking in Talent Acquisition
11th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Talent Management (19th), Cloud HCM (14th), HR Analytics Software (8th)
SmartRecruiters
Ranking in Talent Acquisition
8th
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 DarwinBox is 3.2%, up from 1.9% 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

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…
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.

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."
"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."
"In our company, we use DarwinBox to maintain the data of our employees and for recruitment purposes."
"With just a click of a button, we can manage the process. Even generating offer letters and obtaining electronic signatures through DocSign are integrated into this application."
"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."
"I used the free version, which I found valuable."
"SmartRecruiters is a candidate management system or ATS system that we use for recruitment purposes."
"It has a lot of good features. We post all of our jobs through the system, and they have a marketplace where you can share the job post with the job boards they're working with. It is integrated with all the records about from where the applications are coming. We have all of our candidates gathered there. We can set up our own hiring processes depending on the type of job and then move them through the process there. It is also possible to involve hiring managers and give them access so that they can also track the candidates and have a look at TBE and interact in the system, which is very useful. We also use SmartRecruiters for job approvals before posting the job as well as for offer approvals before sending an offer. We have everything in the system itself, and everything is being tracked, which is very good for us. It is a reliable system, and you can use it for the full cycle of recruitment. You can really adapt it to your processes. When it comes to the configuration, it is easy to configure. Something that is good with SmartRecruiters is that they are always working on improvements. Every quarter, they have different enhancements or product releases, which is something that we appreciate."
"The all-encompassing ability to manage the process cohesively out of the SmartRecruiter system was valuable."
"I found the core product quite useful. It is easy to use and quite user-friendly. They have also got other options, such as CRM and HRS. They have other versions such as smart distribute, which is an HRS type of system to analyze and get permissions needed from the applicants. In terms of pricing, SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors."
"With this solution, I was able to add diversity to my recruiting. I was able to source from multiple locations, and I could show where applicants came from. The reporting tools that are on offer, allowed us to expand our reach. We were able to add meaningful diversity into recruiting."
 

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."
"The major improvement area is how it integrates with other systems. That's where we've had some sort of pain points. They've done a lot of work with their development team in setting up integrations with other types of software like SuccessFactors, which we use, but we have found some glitches there. This is probably where they need to do some work. Sometimes, when it refreshes or there is any sort of update in SmartRecruiters, it has a direct impact on the integrations that we have with other tools. We are not always notified when that takes place. We have had HR say to us, "We've just hired this guy. He is not there in our end board at all. What's going on?" That's when we realized that the integration is actually broken. When we have other solutions like SuccessFactors, it would be very helpful to have knowledge articles for such integrations. We have found some of the templates that we want to use and some of the customizations that we do around the offer letters and the contract letters to be a little bit more difficult, which hasn't made this process any more efficient than it was. We still have to do a bit of manual intervention there. I don't know if it is just our company, but we need to have different clauses and things in place. We have stopped using DocuSign as well, and we are trying to look at other ways of doing that. They are aware of this."
"The solution's reporting feature could be improved because it is not very strong."
"One thing that has been a bit of a struggle is getting tech support. It is a little more difficult to get support from SmartRecruiters. They want you to have your own in-house person to help you with any issues, whereas with both Lever and Greenhouse, you can just click a button at the bottom of the screen and chat with someone almost instantly."
"Around 2015 and into '17, I worked at a federal contractor. I had to switch to a different applicant system as I didn't know if SmartRecruiters was OFCCP compliant, which is something that, as a US-based federal contractor, you have to ensure. They should work to appeal to the contractor industry and get the product OFCCP compliant."
"Sometimes, there is this language or communication barrier in terms of what the applicants mentioned. SmartRecruiters sometimes has trouble understanding certain types of keywords or has certain types of language, translation, or grammar issues."
"There were limitations with the system that we would have liked, not in the time, but the company in Germany really dictated that. So we couldn't do everything in the system we would have liked to it."
"There were problems with integrations around other systems and each one had to be custom-built, which took a little while to get set up and running."
"The filters are not accurate. The results are inaccurate when filtering multiple criteria, such as country and hiring manager."
 

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."
"SmartRecruiters is an expensive solution."
"Back in 2018, when I engaged with their sales, they wanted to charge around $10,000 for an annual subscription. Depending on your organization, that either could or couldn't be expensive. I personally think it's a fair price. However, I engaged them and negotiated a lower price with them. I think I got closer to $6,000. It came with a commitment of three years."
"SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors. Considering the type of features and services it provides, it is probably one of the best solutions in the market. Others may offer a similar price, but their services won't be that good or the user-friendliness won't be that great. The licensing works based on how many users are there in a company. If you are using other functionalities, like CRM and HRS, the price increases."
"I haven't been so involved with pricing, so I don't have all details, but I know that we are paying per head when it comes to different countries. There is an additional fee for new features that they release. If it is something that we would like to use, we need to pay some extra for it."
"They are pretty competitive. As the product matures, it has much more functionality and different pricing models. It can relatively cost a lot more if you want to use additional features, but, in general, it is competitive in the industry. We work on a yearly license agreement based on the company size. There are the support costs, which are a part of the additional cost based on the percentage of the licensing fee. So, it has a license plus support cost. Then, of course, there are other add-on options that we can purchase and procure whenever we want to based on certain negotiated arrangements."
"There were implementation costs in the first year to get everything set up and running, and then they have various modules on top, which are optional and available at an extra charge."
"I wasn't involved in its acquisition, but I would assume that SmartRecruiters is pretty pricey."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
10%
Healthcare Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 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...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Myntra, GVK BIO, Bisleri, Times Internet, Delhivery, Aarti
Atlassian, Aol, IBM, Napa, Skechers
Find out what your peers are saying about DarwinBox vs. SmartRecruiters and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.