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Greenhouse vs SmartRecruiters comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Greenhouse
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SmartRecruiters
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software category, the mindshare of Greenhouse is 9.2%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartRecruiters is 6.4%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
 

Featured Reviews

CD
An affordable and easy-to-use product that is really intuitive and is one of the most stable applicant tracking systems
The product is easy to use. It's really intuitive. The things are laid out well. The search function seems to be better than other products. When I search for a name, some of the applicant tracking systems struggle to find the name, and I have to keep spelling out the entire name. Greenhouse has a better search function than other products and finds candidates quicker. I haven’t had issues with bugs. I have noticed other products freezing up or acting weird for some reason. However, Greenhouse is a solid solution. It has a really nice layout that tells us about upcoming events.
SUMANTA  GHOSH - PeerSpot reviewer
A user-friendly tool that functions without any glitches
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, but we manage the employee lifecycle with the help of SAP, and I don't see the integration of SmartRecruiters with SAP happening quite seamlessly, making it an area where improvements are required.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I think the ease of use is one of the most valuable features."
"It provides very good flexibility to create filters. Therefore, I can look at candidates' progress across different stages. I can also follow candidates to get updates about where they are in the cycle."
"Greenhouse has a better search function than other products and finds candidates quicker."
"Job publishing and application tracking are the most valuable features. You can keep the flow of a candidate's application into one system. The whole collaboration can also be done within the system, which means that you can schedule interviews and add your feedback and ratings there. You can also communicate with the candidates. The analytics part of it is also very valuable. It is a useful feature that we use quite a lot. We don't really use other features such as recruitment marketing or CRM candidate relationship management in SmartRecruiters."
"The all-encompassing ability to manage the process cohesively out of the SmartRecruiter system was valuable."
"The candidate experience was better because the whole process was there."
"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."
"SmartRecruiters is a candidate management system or ATS system that we use for recruitment purposes."
"I used the free version, which I found valuable."
"It is a really user-friendly tool, and its implementation is quite wide. It is very easy to manage users and build your workflows. Overall, it works very well for the customization of the workflows for us. The recruitment team has generally found the whole platform useful. We were looking to kind of expand it by using the CRM functions that it has. However, with COVID and recruitment being on the freeze, we weren't really able to make the most of the tool. They are, however, finding it useful to actually build up their talent pools and client candidates to be able to contact them when we kind of have this freeze off."
"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."
 

Cons

"There are dashboards that I can see, but for pending things that I have to look at, it should provide alerts. For example, if there are 10 new people who are added to the job that I'm involved with, it should provide me with a chart or notification so that I am prompted to look at it. Currently, I have to go and look at the dashboard. There should be a little bit of intelligence to prompt action."
"Probably the biggest issue with Greenhouse is that the scheduling portion isn't very strong or smart."
"If we have to schedule multiple interviews in Greenhouse, we will have to schedule them individually."
"The filters are not accurate. The results are inaccurate when filtering multiple criteria, such as country and hiring manager."
"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."
"SmartRecruiters' on-click application process could be better."
"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."
"Some features are not as straightforward or user friendly to implement."
"We require greater flexibility for customization with our employer branding. Currently, it is very much driven by the SmartRecruiters design. We are using a SaaS solution, so we are powered by what is in the core product itself. A disadvantage of being a SaaS solution is that there aren't many customization options because you are literally buying it out of the box. You use whatever is offered to you in a box as much as you can, and that might be a problem sometimes because customizations are not achievable. They should definitely improve and provide more flexibility for customizations. For a large organization like ours, they can provide more flexibility on the authorization side of things. They could create a much more flexible way of access and separate the IT or help desk access when they need to go into the system and do some fixes. Currently, it is set up in a way that that you have access for everything or nothing, which is not useful in terms of the separation of duty that we have. There are also other things like matrix, where we can have a better and deeper kind of analysis."
"I don't see the integration of SmartRecruiters with SAP happening quite seamlessly, making it an area where improvements are required."
"We ran into some serious issues related to language barriers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is pretty affordable for startups and medium-level companies."
"The one thing I didn't like, and what caused me to move from Greenhouse, was that they wanted to bump us up almost 20% over what the previous cost was."
"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."
"I wasn't involved in its acquisition, but I would assume that SmartRecruiters is pretty pricey."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"SmartRecruiters is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
19%
Computer Software Company
10%
Non Profit
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Healthcare Company
12%
Government
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 Greenhouse?
Greenhouse has a better search function than other products and finds candidates quicker.
What needs improvement with Greenhouse?
When we use Lever, we can look at five different calendars at once and schedule a candidate for five different interviews. I don't think that we're able to do that with Greenhouse. Lever just makes...
What is your primary use case for Greenhouse?
We use the product to post jobs and organize job descriptions. We also use it for applicant tracking, reviewing resumes, reaching out to applicants, and scheduling appointments.
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

Zenefits, Pinerest, Airbnb Inc., BrightRoll, Vimeo LLC, Evernote
Atlassian, Aol, IBM, Napa, Skechers
Find out what your peers are saying about Greenhouse vs. SmartRecruiters and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.