DarwinBox vs Workday comparison

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DarwinBox

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Workday and DarwinBox are competing in the HR technology space. Workday has the upper hand in market recognition and offers a comprehensive platform, while DarwinBox provides an innovative and adaptable alternative.

Features: Workday offers robust analytics, comprehensive payroll management, and global compliance features. DarwinBox stands out with customizable modules, effective performance management tools, and a mobile-first approach.

Room for Improvement: Workday could improve its deployment time and reduce setup costs. It may also benefit from further enhancing its mobile capabilities. DarwinBox could enhance its integration options, expand analytics features, and strengthen market presence.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Workday follows a traditional deployment model requiring significant time investment, with an extensive support network. DarwinBox offers a cloud-based, agile model with personalized customer support, making it more agile.

Pricing and ROI: Workday's setup costs are significant but promise long-term ROI due to its extensive functionalities and scalability. DarwinBox offers a cost-effective initial setup and competitive ROI with lower upfront costs, focusing on maximizing operational efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed DarwinBox vs. Workday Report (Updated: June 2025).

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DarwinBox vs. Workday

June 2025

Helped 862,077 peers since 2012

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

12th

Ranking in Cloud HCM

11th

Ranking in Talent Acquisition

10th

Average Rating

6.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HR Analytics Software (6th)

Workday

Ranking in Talent Management

1st

Ranking in Cloud HCM

1st

Ranking in Talent Acquisition

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Benefits Administration (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of DarwinBox is 3.6%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday is 18.3%, up from 18.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud HCM

Featured Reviews

SHANOOPCHATHOTH PARAMBIL

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…

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Sarvesh Kumar Jha

Senior Technology Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers

Easy to use and provides great flexibility and security

Implementing the solution is generally not easy because it depends on our client's landscape. In the last one and a half years, Workday has started a new implementation approach called launch implementation. This approach allows you, as a client organization, to implement Workday in a shorter amount of time, given that you fulfill certain criteria. It depends on the number of subsidiaries and employees you have and their compensation structure. If it's not too complex, Workday provides its clients with this new approach called launch, where they can quickly onboard with the Workday without many complex requirements. The general implementation for Fortune 500 companies is always complex.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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."

"It is fairly easy to set up"

"Performance and good usability are the two most valuable features of this solution."

"It's a fully consolidated system. All the transactions and configuration are co-located in one fully in-memory system, so there is no need to go to different data sources (multiple DBs) to pull data; it’s all in one place."

"It's intuitive, a very usable tool and it's easy to find the data you're looking for."

"The solution is easy to use and provides great flexibility and security."

"The platform itself is very robust and I generally like the reporting and analytics capability."

"The payroll and benefits engine is the most valuable Workday solution in my opinion. It is also easy to access."

"The most helpful Workday features for our HR processes were in HCM, particularly in areas like talent, compensation, benefits, and learning."

More Workday pros

Cons

"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."

"The solution's API integration with third-party applications should be improved."

"Customization in performance management is cumbersome."

"I would be happy if it was faster. Currently, when I try to navigate within the solution itself, it is a bit slow in terms of the page load time. When I click on something, it usually takes time to load. When you click on different icons or areas on the website, it is slow. Even when you navigate between different models, it is a bit slow. I would like to see a bit faster performance and a better user experience."

"They could provide a web chatbot feature in the dashboard for Workday."

"Workday could improve by adding other features, such as messaging to candidates and other recruiting capabilities that other new-age solutions have."

"The security console should be made less complex."

"Analytical tools have needed improvement. Workday has just released Prism Analytics, to replace the current analytical tools, so it’s in the early stages."

"They don't offer any backend database access. This is one limitation that I found in this product. Workday hasn't opened up about what kind of database they are into, which can make it easy for the technical team to emulate issues. It would be good if they can offer backend access to the technical team. It would be helpful if they can also provide a Troubleshooting Guide that we can use to troubleshoot issues. When we have an issue, there are very limited resources to refer to."

"It has missing functionalities. Specific countries, like Germany, didn't have the option to do payroll. Now we need to look for another product for HR."

"The cost of Workday is certainly not inexpensive. It's very pricey."

More Workday cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company makes some yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to DarwinBox."

"Compared with SuccessFactors, there is no major difference in DarwinBox's cost."

"It's very, very expensive."

"The pricing for this solution is fairly high. It is not affordable for small and mid-sized companies."

"The pricing is good from an HR perspective, although management gets upset after spending $500,000 a year, every year."

"You have the license fee per module, and then you have a kind of annual training fee, which is a kind of add-on. I wouldn't say it is exhaustive; it is minor. Licensing is pretty transparent for most of the part."

"It is on a yearly basis."

"By and large, Workday is expensive. It is based on the headcount. I'd probably rate it a three or four out of five in terms of pricing. It'd be like buying a Mercedes or a high-end car. It's expensive, but there's a specific value that you're getting with additional features and things of that nature. Using that metaphor, Workday probably tends to be more of a luxury. There are others like ADP that can do your payroll, your time off, and other things, but they don't do it as well."

"Its price is pretty high. It is more expensive than what is offered by other competitors in the market."

"It has an annual subscription rate, but I'm not sure how it will work."

More Workday pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

University

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 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 Workday?

I like its UI and UX. When we were using Oracle or SAP, the UI/UX wasn't very user-friendly for the employees.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Workday?

If you go with the launch implementation approach, the solution is generally not very expensive. If you want to add more features to your subscription, Workday becomes expensive. The solution is fl...

SAP SuccessFactors vs DarwinBox

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Download DarwinBox product report

Cloud HCM

July 2025

Download Workday product report

March 2025

Overview

Darwinbox is a cloud-based, feature-rich human resources management system that emphasizes on usability and data protection. ... The software unifies all your HR processes, enabling you to be on top of your employees' whole lifecycle with a centralized, singular platform.

DarwinBox

Workday is a cloud-based software solution that specializes in developing applications for capital and finance management applications. The system is built to work in global workforces and is adaptable. The global system ensures that users are up to date and can manage internal career-related information, and everyday business problems like timesheets, payrolls, and time off.

“A Pioneer in Software-as-a-Service”

Workday Human Capital Management tool is designed to simplify and streamline your work. It leverages machine learning to adapt capital management to a changing environment.

The Workday model is based on delivering a single system that uses a single source of data and a single security model to deliver a unique user experience. The system is user-friendly and ensures that employees and management can use it from any and all devices. Workday HCM integrates into a central system that includes financial management, payroll, recruiting, learning, and planning. Managers and employees can provide feedback to one another, too.

Workday’s features include:

Flexible framework that lets you organize your staff according to different criteria. You can group employees by function, hierarchy, or department.
Personalized career guidance: Knowledge management and career guidance that can be easily customized for each staff member and also done at scale.
Augmented reporting and analytics: Configure, change, update, and publish reports, scorecards, and dashboards. The system centralizes the transactional and analytical data so you can act on the data from anywhere.
Compensation tools: Compensatio, payroll, and time tracking are automated and simplified.
Workforce planning allows you to uncover and address talent gaps and get visibility of your staff.
Mobile-first ensign approach: Users can access all resources from any device, and they are always in sync.
Machine learning capabilities enable personalized enterprise experiences and faster business processes.

Workday smart platform consists of the following modules:

Human resource management
Business process management
Reporting and analytics
Benefits administration
Compensation management
Talent management
Survey framework
Employee and management self-service

Reviews from Real Users

Many organizations choose Workday because it provides an all-in-one modular solution for human capital and finance management. Our users say they like the ease of use for time-off requests, career and development segments, and overall HR management. The records and reporting capabilities are another popular feature.

"The solution was very good at reconfiguration and customization of their software. It helped us to meet federal regulations," said one user. Another said that the best feature is the optimization of the work day experience with a unified platform that can be applied across different business units. “You will never find a use case that cannot be covered," said a third.

Sample Customers

Myntra, GVK BIO, Bisleri, Times Internet, Delhivery, Aarti

AAA, Allied Global, Avago Technologies Limited, Aviva, Cardinal Health, CareFusion, Chiquita Brands International, Equifax, Flextronics, HP, Life Time Fitness, McKee Foods, MGM Resorts International, Sanofi, ServiceSource International, Symantec, TripAdvisor, Yahoo!