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IBM Kenexa vs PageUp People comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

IBM Kenexa
Ranking in Talent Management
18th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (13th), Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software (8th)
PageUp People
Ranking in Talent Management
22nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Talent Management category, the mindshare of IBM Kenexa is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PageUp People is 1.3%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Talent Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Kenexa1.6%
PageUp People1.3%
Other97.1%
Talent Management
 

Featured Reviews

Karan Grover - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Suitable for larger-scale companies aiming to streamline and automate their processes digitally
The deployment of the solution took between six to eight months. When we introduced BrassRing at my company, we encountered several challenges. First, moving data from our old system to BrassRing was tough because it needed reformatting. Second, connecting BrassRing with our HR data was tricky due to manual processes for roles and departments. Third, setting up the workflow in BrassRing was complex. Fourth, configuring user access and approval levels was a detailed task. We also had to manage the change process, including running both old and new systems in parallel, communicating changes, and training users. Lastly, monitoring and reporting were needed to ensure data accuracy and proper system usage once everything was in place. We had a team of six to eight people managing the project from our side during the BrassRing deployment. I'm not sure about the size of the BrassRing team, and we also had our own technical team, which had three to four members. The solution required maintenance, particularly from my side as the administrator. Maintenance responsibilities were divided into two parts: some tasks we, as end-users, could control, while others were the responsibility of the BrassRing team. Payment-related tasks were a regular part of our responsibilities. I wasn't the only person maintaining the solution. There were three power users from Infosys, each responsible for a specific geography. My counterpart managed it in the US, and I, along with my colleague in India, managed it for other geographies.
CG
Director at Edge HR
Has all-inclusive pricing and good talent acquisition and onboarding components, and is an excellent product for mid-sized to large organizations
They could probably add surveying, as in engagement surveys, to their product. That would be something that would be valued by their customers. For instance, Culture Amp is a product that does a lot of the engagement stuff. They're diversifying into other aspects of talent management. It is not yet at the same scale as PageUp People, but it is an excellent product as well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Of all the current talent analytics offerings on the market today, IBM Kenexa Talent Insights is the most comprehensive end-to-end, data-agnostic analytics tool."
"It is extremely user friendly. It is very flexible in managing recruitment, especially when you have thousands of applicants as we did. We easily had over 20,000 applicants within a year for some of our positions, so it made it very easy to manage a large application pool. It was very easy to customize by recruiter preference. When you open up someone's profile to see their experience, education, or other things, you can customize that for yourself. It was flexible in that, and each recruiter could set up their preferences. It didn't have to be set up so that everyone had to have the same landing platform, which was very helpful. As someone who trained other HR people on how to use the system, it was very easy to pick up and learn."
"As I said, IBM are doing a great job with us at the moment, but we're always looking and speaking and open to having conversations with other people because the market's changing and IBM are aware of that."
"We like IBM; IBM has been great partners for us, they're really invested in our success, and they see us as a valuable client."
"I think the advantage of Kenexa is the degree to which we can configure to meet our specific needs."
"We acquired a pharmacy retailer three years ago, and Kenexa enabled us to actually standardize our employee engagement across both of those organizations, helping us understand at an enterprise level what was going on and, most importantly, how people were starting to feel about being acquired and joining the broader company space."
"We use the Viewpoint and that is an absolutely powerful tool; it is extremely helpful to get more insights, and to start a conversation with our employees to grow and improve."
"The ease of scaling is one of BrassRing's biggest strengths, making it a trusted choice for large companies."
"Most of features in PageUp are very useful."
"If you are looking for a product with great support, recruitment functionality, ease-of-use, and reliability, this is a great product."
"It is a reliable, simple to use, end-to-end system for employee lifecycle management."
"PageUp has a different model from other organizations; as part of their pricing structure, they tend to work with you very closely and not charge you for the setup, so there is one price all inclusive of setup, and for that reason, they become an attractive provider to work with."
"This product is user-friendly and great for reporting purposes."
"The talent acquisition and the onboarding components of the system are most valuable."
"Once automated through the system, the approval timeframe decreased to two days."
"It has a user-friendly interface in managing job requisitions for the end user."
 

Cons

"In the past year, there has been a significant increase in the amount of internal errors that are displayed."
"We're really looking forward to some of their enhancements to their onboarding portal, specifically for recruiters and hiring managers."
"IBM Kenexa has a lot of room for improvement. The solution is not advancing anymore in terms of the user experience and in the workflows."
"It needs to update its reporting and analytics tools."
"The reporting tool is helpful, but it is not the easiest to train on or is not as understandable for other HR pros. Their Workbench site, which is the administrator site that you use to update your website, is not user-friendly. When updates are required, it is not that easy to manage because Workbench is not user friendly. It required more work from the admins. They have Workbench training, which actually was very unhelpful. It took eight hours to complete, and it was not very helpful. Their customer service when it comes specifically to their Workbench site is not helpful."
"We have about 50 requests for enhancements in the system right now."
"Being in a silo of my own world, my wish would be that everything that's available in their legacy views would be moved into their new Talent Suite products, so we could move over to that."
"There are tools that actually are not there where clients need them, especially the survey analytics to analyze verbatim in different languages."
"They could probably add surveying, as in engagement surveys, to their product. That would be something that would be valued by their customers. For instance, Culture Amp is a product that does a lot of the engagement stuff. They're diversifying into other aspects of talent management. It is not yet at the same scale as PageUp People, but it is an excellent product as well."
"It is probably not as scalable as SAP SuccessFactors or other talent management systems that are available in the global marketplace."
"There are sometimes problems when loading the system; it can be very slow."
"Maybe there is a need to improve the interface so that we will be able to easily search for modules in regards to the system fix."
"Personally, I believe that they could be more proactive in assuring that, as a client, you are getting the best ROI possible."
"The automated removal of historical data would be great if the user could remove it on an ad-hoc basis when required."
"In the Boolean search functions, I would like to be able to search CVs in regards to the skills using the AND/OR functions as well as keywords."
"Initially, we experienced issues with the stability of the learning management module as we migrated 50,000+ existing training records from our old system."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kenexa was fairly priced. However, in 2019, before I left my previous organization, they significantly increased their pricing. It can be affordable, but their pricing is going up. It is not just licensing; it is how many applicants you have in your system on the database side."
"PageUp has a different model from other organizations. As part of their pricing structure, they tend to work with you very closely and not charge you for the setup. So, there is one price all inclusive of setup, and for that reason, they become an attractive provider to work with. Here in Australia, the education sector has gravitated very heavily towards PageUp."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
25%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
 

Also Known As

IBM Smarter Workforce, Outstart
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sweet Spot International (SSI), Leo Burnett Worldwide (LBW), Sika AG, Legacy Health, Apollo Group Inc., Regeneron, Transurban Group, National Health Service, New Zealand Police, Overland Footwear, Yealands, Johnson Controls, Allscripts, Kerry Foods, Masterpet, AMD, Balfour Beatty
MYER, Target, coles, Fujitsu, Michael Hill
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Kenexa vs. PageUp People and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.