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Dayforce HCM vs Workday comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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

Dayforce HCM
Ranking in Talent Management
20th
Ranking in Cloud HCM
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Talent Intelligence (5th)
Workday
Ranking in Talent Management
2nd
Ranking in Cloud HCM
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (1st), Talent Acquisition (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Dayforce HCM is 2.6%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday is 10.5%, down from 18.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Workday10.5%
Dayforce HCM2.6%
Other86.9%
Cloud HCM
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Noorkah - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Enterprise Financial Systems at City of Columbus
Greatly improved our efficiency with its integrated time and attendance module
Dayforce has given us near to real-time access to time sheets and clockings since it has an integrated time and attendance module. Within six minutes of someone clocking in, we can see them on the timesheets. Dayforce has enabled us to smooth out our payroll system so not everything is happening at the end of the payroll cycle. We can see the impacts during the week and make it a lot more manageable. It's also been helpful for benefits administration with employees being able to file life and work events online. They can access their pay stubs, request leave, change their address, update their direct deposit details, and other things. We've become much more efficient, and much less paper driven.
Eslam Abo Elnaga - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Employees like being able to see what entitlements/balances that they have for their time away."
"It provides real-time information with great reports."
"Our employee benefits enrollment is managed through Ceridian Dayforce, which makes for a limited manual process."
"We used the solution to do a lot of performance management during the review cycle and it helped us alleviate the administrative burden."
"The solution's payroll portion is very streamlined."
"The initial setup is easy."
"We have been able to automate many of our manual processes."
"The tool has improved a lot in the area of its mobile application, especially considering its added security features, like single sign-on capabilities."
"Performance and good usability are the two most valuable features of this solution."
"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."
"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 use which is overall user-friendly."
"The user interface is good and very easy to use."
"The solution is stable."
"This product is leaps and bounds above the competition. Part of the reason is that it is built with modern technology. It has no legacy coding in it at all."
"Workday is easy to use. Timesheet and resource management are also easy."
 

Cons

"An area for improvement could be a little more testing before implementing hotfixes to make sure they do not interfere with any active customized products."
"The solution's dashboards and geofencing could be improved."
"Dayforce has its gaps like every HR system, but nothing comes to mind at the moment."
"I would like to see more built-in forms. This would save a lot of time during the year-end process."
"One area to be improved is the solution's reporting function, which can be cumbersome."
"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 the solution to improve its customer service communication."
"Customizing the home screen was difficult; I could not remove certain tabs that were irrelevant to our users."
"In a future release we could like to have access to asset, supply and treasury management functionalities."
"Workday could give us industry-specific or vertical-specific solutions."
"The solution has some features missing when you put them in the test studio or Confluence Studio. I would like the tool’s coding to be easier to understand and automated. Most of the coding these days is automated. Any query given can pull the answer directly which can make the solution easier to understand."
"We would like to see improvement in the mobile app variant of this solution. The time sheet entry and approval, and the geo-tagging features all need to have their functionality updated, in order to be comparable with other products on the market."
"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."
"I'm not sure they have added this feature yet, but there should be a cellphone version, so we do not need to do it on a laptop. I'd like to log in on a cellphone and have the same features. I'm not sure if that is already available or if it's on the roadmap, but that would be a great feature."
"One potential feature that could be added is the ability to streamline business processes through quick tips and guided tours. This would allow for a smoother and more guided experience for colleagues as they navigate through different processes and steps. It would be similar to a guidance system or a step-by-step tutorial that could be added after the business process to guide users through it."
"For time management, it does not have a calendar generator. For example, if you want to have a shift calendar for an entire year, you need to push the entire year's calendar into the system instead of being able to generate it using a time management pattern."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Ceridian continually enhances Dayforce HCM. Some of these enhancements they charge for and some are just straight enhancements with no extra charge."
"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."
"Earlier, the price of the product was reasonable. Under present circumstances, the price or cost of the product has been increased."
"We paid for the implementation costs in the first year with the money that we saved by switching to Dayforce HCM."
"We found the setup costs and pricing to be very reasonable."
"I rate the solution's pricing a seven on a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive."
"Workday is an expensive solution."
"I need to pay for a license. It is 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."
"With a bigger budget, I would recommend SAP."
"I rate the product’s pricing a ten out of ten."
"Workday is moderately priced - I'd rate its pricing three out of five."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Non Profit
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise42
 

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 search functionality is poor as there's no way for administrators to tag keywords t...
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 actually just migrated to a new learning management system.
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 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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Ceridian Dayforce HCM, Ascender Talent Management, Ceridian Ideal
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACCO Brands
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!
Find out what your peers are saying about Dayforce HCM vs. Workday and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.