Dayforce HCM vs UKG vs Workday comparison

Read 125 UKG reviews

9,800 Views
5,586 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Read 59 Workday reviews

13,513 Views
9,324 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Dayforce HCM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dayforce HCM, UKG, and Workday based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about SAP, Workday, Oracle and others in Cloud HCM.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud HCM Report (Updated: May 2026).

Cloud HCM

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Helped 896,563 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:

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Dayforce HCM is 2.5%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of UKG is 4.8%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday is 8.6%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Workday	8.6%
UKG	4.8%
Dayforce HCM	2.5%
Other	84.1%

Cloud HCM

Featured Reviews

TracyBritan

Manager, Learning & Development at Ampersand

Frustrating support and difficult customization prevent optimal use of learning system

Customizing the home screen was difficult; I could not remove certain tabs that were irrelevant to our users. The search functionality is poor as there's no way for administrators to tag keywords to training courses, making it hard for people to find content. Additionally, there is no way to send a direct link to training if someone asks about it. The reporting is subpar; you can only report by course and not by person unless you go into specific Dayforce reports, which do not match the fields in the learning module. The support is also terrible, with slow response times and a lack of useful knowledge-based articles.

Read full review

Harish_Mahanta

Works

Streamlined time tracking boosts operational efficiency across multiple regions

The time tracking feature is the most effective for employee management. UKG is used in Europe, the United States, Australia, and East Asian countries for HR activities like payroll. The application is like an ERP, providing comprehensive features for organizations, simplifying their processes, and reducing the need to use multiple software solutions.

Read full review

Eslam Abo Elnaga

Senior people and systems analyst at B_labs & Mylo

Has improved HR process efficiency through intuitive workflows and responsive support

There is something that could be improved in Workday, specifically in the time tracking module. While I am not working on Workday now, I was a regional HRIS working for Egypt, Malta, India, and China. I mention these countries to relate to high population countries and companies. In our company, we use assigned work schedules for our teams. Because we work with the time tracking module, we need to assign shifts. In the manufacturing industry, we might need to change shifts every day or week. Manufacturing teams are huge, approximately 50 to 200 people in one team. If this team has one leader, the leader needs to assign a work schedule for each person individually. While there is mass upload functionality where we can load shifts for all people or specific groups, we need to select multiple people and assign them to a schedule from the interface itself. I have requested this functionality many times. When extracting business processes awaiting actions report, I can select different processes in one box, hit okay, and the report comes up. However, the same functionality does not work for work schedule assigning. If implemented, it would help many people in companies with high populations and big teams.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The implementation was through a team assigned to us by Ceridian. They were extremely knowledgeable and it made the implementation go very smoothly."

"We paid for the implementation costs in the first year with the money that we saved by switching to Dayforce HCM."

"Dayforce has transformed how we operate by saving us time, paper, accuracy, money, and the employee/supervisor experience."

"Configuring your HR policies and rules is straightforward."

"The tool has improved a lot in the area of its mobile application, especially considering its added security features, like single sign-on capabilities."

"Dayforce has transformed how we operate by saving us time, paper, accuracy, money, and the employee/supervisor experience."

"The fact that the time and attendance system is built into the HRIS is very valuable because, in the past, we had to use two different systems."

"Reporting I can pull anything out of Dayforce."

More Dayforce HCM pros

"We have been able to put responsibility out to managers to manage their employee information instead of submitting forms."

"One system for all modules makes it easier to administer employee data."

"All aspects of the employee lifecycle can be handled within the Ultipro system: Recruiting/onboarding, employment validation, payroll processing, performance plans and reviews, and salary planning."

"Customer Service: Top notch. Technical Support: Top notch."

"The solution's UI is good. Also, it is very easy to use."

"Pending pay and retroactive pay are the most valuable features."

"The reliability and the expertise which they deliver are wonderful."

"Self Service has opened up a lot for employees, and there is more visibility to employee data from all levels."

More UKG pros

"With this solution, it's really nice; all of the learning content is there, it's much easier to consume, and I don't feel like I'm jumping around between different platforms."

"I like that it's easy to use and flexible."

"I found the analysis features to be very useful for our company. I also found the modules installed to be aligned with our company's KPIs. These were the two features that stood out."

"Workday beats them all; in my opinion, they are leaps and bounds above the competition, and part of the reason is that it is built with modern technology and has no legacy coding in it at all."

"It's actually a cloud-native solution and based on the community for development, with a very good open architecture that is able to interconnect with other systems, and it is very stable and very fast in terms of response."

"The solution is extremely stable."

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

"The most valuable feature of Workday is the ease of navigation to browse the application. The solution can hold information about the company and people with accounts can be discovered by others in the whole company."

More Workday pros

Cons

"Dayforce has its gaps like every HR system, but nothing comes to mind at the moment."

"Our current software program offers a home page with important company documents and a place for company announcements. Unfortunately, Ceridian Dayfoce does not offer this."

"I would also like to see some improvement in standard reports. A standard report should be available to pull the required information for Affirmative Action Plans. I do not think I should have to build or create one."

"I would like to continue to see improvements in the Recruiting module. I would like to see this module interact with Calendars, such as Outlook, etc."

"I would also like to see some improvement in standard reports. A standard report should be available to pull the required information for Affirmative Action Plans."

"The reporting could be improved."

"Many things are presented as though they will be included with the system but then require costly upgrades."

"The product they sell you is not the end product. Many things are presented as though they will be included with the system but then require costly upgrades."

More Dayforce HCM cons

"Post implementation team - Not going well."

"The feature needs to be able to differentiate weekdays from weekends when calculating the PTO hours when requesting PTO days."

"Benefits, deductions, and payroll set up issues have hampered the success of deployment."

"The performance module would be ideally updated next since it has not had the full review like the others have."

"They need to update the open enrollment and life events process, make it more flexible, and update the look and feel."

"Some reports are not accurate."

"Ultipro does not have preconfigured integrations with our external vendors for our health insurance, 401(k), or stock program to name a few."

"From an implementation standpoint (not at my current organization), taking the time to truly listen and understand unique complexities that might be outside standard capabilities of the system."

More UKG cons

"Reporting systems should be improved. If you want to report it on paper, if you want something more BI oriented, more high level predictive or more data-driven, it should be improved."

"Analytical tools have needed improvement."

"There are other enhancements that go untended that have been languishing for years."

"It is very unique as compared to other tools in terms of the employee master data and how it is organized. That's why sometimes the information needs to sit in two different systems because, in Workday, it is organized differently. This issue is not related to benefits. It is more or so related to how you categorize employees. I don't think this is a problem that could be solved. Workday is aware of this. It is one of those kinds of situations that you just got to live with."

"The security console should be made less complex."

"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."

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

"Setting up reports can be a bit tricky."

More Workday cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Earlier, the price of the product was reasonable. Under present circumstances, the price or cost of the product has been increased."

"I rate the solution's pricing a seven on a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive."

"We found the setup costs and pricing to be very reasonable."

"The XOXO program associated with Dayforce allows you to earn credits towards registration and accommodations at their annual Insight Conferences, which can be a real savings to the company when sending employees to the conference."

"Negotiate for everything you want."

"In terms of pricing, the product is expensive. However, it is crucial to take into account the manner in which the solution will be utilized and the availability of other alternatives."

"Ceridian continually enhances Dayforce HCM. Some of these enhancements they charge for and some are just straight enhancements with no extra charge."

"We paid for the implementation costs in the first year with the money that we saved by switching to Dayforce HCM."

"UKG's pricing and licensing model involves ongoing expenses based on the number of employees paid. The initial implementation cost is low when UKG implements it directly. However, when partners handle the implementation, it becomes more expensive since partners don't receive the monthly recurring fees."

"I wasn't involved in the pricing part. I'm a user, and I believe it is based on the user count. One thing that is nice about Ultimate is that you can learn how to use the system without additional fees. The learning aspect is the life of a product, and the training was a huge reason why we went with Ultimate. We did have some integration costs. They were a part of the implementation because of the integrations to other systems that we included in our implementation."

"The platform is not affordable but also not the most expensive."

"The pricing depends on the number of licenses we buy."

"While I am unsure of the licensing cost itself, the total cost of implementation and licensing for a company with over 5000 employees would be around 6,00,000. So, there are additional costs beyond licensing."

"If you're going for the full suite, it can be fairly pricey."

"The solution is flexible in terms of pricing."

"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."

"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."

"It's very, very expensive."

"I need to pay for a license. It is expensive."

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

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

"Workday is moderately priced - I'd rate its pricing three out of five."

More Workday pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Construction Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

University

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	48
Midsize Enterprise	43
Large Enterprise	48

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	43

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Ceridian Dayforce HCM?

Customizing the home screen was difficult; I could not remove certain tabs that were irrelevant to our users. The sea...

What is your primary use case for Ceridian Dayforce HCM?

We have used Dayforce HCM for our HR functionalities and for the learning module over the last five years. We actuall...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Ceridian Dayforce HCM?

The Learning Module add-on to Dayforce HCM was relatively inexpensive per user compared to other LMS’s.

What needs improvement with UKG?

UKG needs more publicity. It is a productive ERP ( /categories/erp ) application, but many people in the IT market ar...

What is your primary use case for UKG?

I worked for a healthcare organization and a university. Most organizations use UKG ( /products/ukg-reviews ) to trac...

What advice do you have for others considering UKG?

Publicity is very important for any software. If people aren't aware of UKG, despite its productivity, they won't use...

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 customizatio...

How easy is to maintain Workday, Oracle Cloud, and SuccessFactors?

I implemented Workday in 2024 and without having previous Workday experience, it was very challenging. I spent most o...

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 m...

SAP SuccessFactors vs Dayforce HCM

Comparisons

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Oracle HCM Cloud vs Dayforce HCM

Compared 8% of the time

ADP Workforce Now vs Dayforce HCM

Compared 5% of the time

PeopleSoft vs Dayforce HCM

Compared 4% of the time

Humi vs Dayforce HCM

Compared 4% of the time

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SAP SuccessFactors vs UKG

Compared 6% of the time

SAP HCM vs UKG

Compared 5% of the time

PeopleSoft vs UKG

Compared 3% of the time

ADP Workforce Now vs UKG

Compared 2% of the time

Paylocity vs UKG

Compared 2% of the time

More UKG Competitors

SAP SuccessFactors vs Workday

Compared 22% of the time

Oracle HCM Cloud vs Workday

Compared 7% of the time

SAP HCM vs Workday

Compared 6% of the time

BambooHR vs Workday

Compared 4% of the time

PeopleSoft vs Workday

Compared 3% of the time

More Workday Competitors

Product Reports

Dayforce HCM

Download Dayforce HCM product report

Download UKG product report

Download Workday product report

Also Known As

Ceridian Dayforce HCM, Ascender Talent Management, Ceridian Ideal

UKG Pro, UKG Dimensons, UKG Ready

No data available

Overview

Dayforce HCM offers an integrated platform that combines timekeeping, payroll, and benefits management, enhancing HR operations with mobile access and transparent pay details across North America.

Dayforce HCM delivers comprehensive HR, payroll, and talent management tools within a cloud-based solution. It simplifies ACA, FMLA, and COBRA compliance while providing mobile and web access to payroll information. Its reporting capabilities are robust, and it features intuitive content management. The platform enhances efficiency with integrated time and attendance management, meeting payroll needs across Canada and the US. However, areas for improvement include retro pay calculations, user-friendliness, reporting, and customer service. Users also highlight the need for advancements in the Recruiting module, calendar integration, custom forms, and addressing import glitches and additional feature costs.

What are the key features?

Integrated Timekeeping: Streamlines payroll by eliminating manual entries.
Benefits Module: Simplifies management of ACA, FMLA, and COBRA.
Mobile and Web Access: Provides transparency in pay details.
Time and Attendance Integration: Boosts administrative efficiency.
Comprehensive Suite: Reduces reliance on multiple software for HR, payroll, and talent management.

Which benefits and ROI should users consider?

Streamlined Payroll: Efficient for companies operating in Canada and the US.
Robust Reporting: Enhances decision-making with comprehensive data analytics.
Intuitive Content Management: Simplifies HR management processes.

Organizations use Dayforce HCM for managing payroll, benefits administration, recruiting, and performance management, integrating HR functionalities on a cloud platform. Industries appreciate its ability to manage HR tasks efficiently, providing analytics and mobile features essential for handling HR processes and reporting.

Dayforce

UKG offers a comprehensive suite for payroll processing, HR management, and business intelligence, integrating seamlessly with systems like PeopleSoft and Workday. Its cloud-based service enhances workforce management across industries with advanced customization and intuitive use.

UKG's extensive features include payroll processing, business intelligence reporting, and self-service options for employees and managers. The platform is designed for ease of integration, providing a user-friendly experience with extensive onboarding tools and robust data management. While UKG excels in configuration and reporting capabilities, it requires improvements in customer support and benefits administration flexibility. Implementation can be complex, and areas such as real-time support and automated processes need refinement.

What are UKG's most valued features?

Payroll Processing: Streamlined for accurate and efficient transactions.
Business Intelligence Reporting: Offers insightful data analytics to inform decision-making.
Employee and Manager Self-service: Empowers users with access to essential tools and information.
Benefits Administration: Manages employee benefits with ease.
Data Integration: Ensures seamless interaction with other systems, enhancing performance.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Improved Employee Satisfaction: Cloud-based updates foster an engaging environment.
Streamlined HR Activities: Integrates with existing systems to enhance operation efficiency.
Ease of Use: Users appreciate its intuitive design and customization options.

UKG is leveraged across multiple industries for its robust functionalities in payroll and HR management, supporting recruitment, onboarding, and workforce dynamics. The platform's integration with time management and learning modules supports comprehensive employee management and compliance across global deployments.

Workday provides a cloud-based platform offering robust human capital management features, emphasizing security, user-friendliness, and operational efficiency through workflow automation.

Workday is utilized by organizations for human capital management, supporting everything from employee recruitment to retirement, payroll processing, and performance tracking. It centralizes HR operations to increase efficiency and manage employee data effectively. Its business process framework allows for drag-and-drop functionality, which along with real-time reporting, enriches the user experience. Workday's modules cover talent, compensation, benefits, and learning, enhancing the workforce management approach. Though integration with external systems can be complex, its usability and flexible configuration support adaptability. Users seek enhancements in customization, reporting, interface usability, and speed, particularly in financial, timekeeping, and payroll modules. Expanding automation, API connectors, language support, and introducing country and industry-specific modules would significantly boost its capabilities. Pricing remains a concern among users.

What are Workday's most important features?

Security: Ensures data protection with robust measures.
User-Friendliness: Intuitive design for ease of use.
Centralized Data Management: Consolidates employee information in one platform.
Real-Time Reporting: Delivers up-to-the-minute insights for decision-making.
Workflow Automation: Streamlines processes to reduce manual tasks.

What benefits should be evaluated when considering Workday?

Operational Efficiency: Automation streamlines HR processes and reduces redundancies.
Enhanced Usability: Integrated modules improve user interaction and efficiency.
Scalability: Adaptable configurations meet diverse business requirements.
Integration Capabilities: Connections with other systems bolster functionality.

Workday is implemented in a range of industries, including finance, healthcare, and technology, offering specialized HR management solutions tailored to each sector's unique requirements. These implementations improve workforce management and align HR strategies with organizational goals, showcasing its adaptability across different business landscapes.