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Personio 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

Personio
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
6th
Average Rating
5.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Cloud HCM (19th), HR Analytics Software (8th)
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 (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software category, the mindshare of Personio is 1.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartRecruiters is 3.8%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SmartRecruiters3.8%
Personio1.1%
Other95.1%
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
 

Featured Reviews

RT
Global Talent Acquisition Lead at Career Break
Offers strong HR features but recruiting module needs essential improvements
The analytics and reporting aspect in Personio for the recruiting part was below expectations compared to some other applicant tracking systems. It is clunky and cannot be tailored to specific needs. The reporting and analytics for the recruiting part are insufficient. The ability to filter applications based on filtering questions added to applications was missing in recruiting. Other recruiting software performs this function much better. Keyword searches within applicants' resumes in the database within recruiting were not possible. I brought this up with the Personio account manager and was told it was on the development list, but these are essential features for any recruiter. I would advise companies looking for an ATS and considering Personio to get a separate recruiting piece of software that can interface with Personio instead.
Anudeep Kamuni - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Lead - TA ops & Analytics | Strategy Growth & Leadership at a recreational facilities/services company with 10,001+ employees
Efficiently automates tasks but lacks certain features in terms of usability
There are a couple of areas of improvement. SmartRecruiter lacks certain features in terms of usability. For instance, we cannot move candidate profiles, interview feedback, notes, and activities related to one candidate when transitioning from one job to another. We have to manually copy and paste everything for that specific candidate. This is a significant drawback. Additionally, the filters are not accurate. The results are inaccurate when filtering multiple criteria, such as country and hiring manager. This level of inaccuracy is unexpected for an application, especially for smaller organizations. It should have been corrected easily. Moreover, the CRM module lacks video reporting capabilities. These are some the biggest improvement I would like to see.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"As an HR tool, Personio is really good; it is straightforward adding your organizational structure through it with the accounting codes so you can interface with many accounting modules and payroll modules."
"Personio provides an opportunity to set up structure with certain steps, creating a clear interviewing process, which resulted in hiring better candidates faster because having a system in place is better than having none."
"It has a lot of good features. We post all of our jobs through the system, and they have a marketplace where you can share the job post with the job boards they're working with. It is integrated with all the records about from where the applications are coming. We have all of our candidates gathered there. We can set up our own hiring processes depending on the type of job and then move them through the process there. It is also possible to involve hiring managers and give them access so that they can also track the candidates and have a look at TBE and interact in the system, which is very useful. We also use SmartRecruiters for job approvals before posting the job as well as for offer approvals before sending an offer. We have everything in the system itself, and everything is being tracked, which is very good for us. It is a reliable system, and you can use it for the full cycle of recruitment. You can really adapt it to your processes. When it comes to the configuration, it is easy to configure. Something that is good with SmartRecruiters is that they are always working on improvements. Every quarter, they have different enhancements or product releases, which is something that we appreciate."
"It was very good to see how the platform works and how easy it became for us to see our data and to analyze the information received."
"It has a neat functionality built in where it rates candidates. So, before you even look at the resume, you see a rating, and it is based on keywords. For example, it will tell you that an applicant is a frontend engineer and has used React, Angular, etc. It gives you a heads up so that you don't have to go through a hundred resumes on Monday morning eliminating applicants. It will tell you that this applicant's skills match 87%, which is pretty neat. You can skip the ones that are rated 25% or something."
"SmartRecruiters is much more user-friendly; it's much easier for both candidates and recruiters."
"What I really like about SmartRecruiters is communication and collaboration between candidates and internal clients or managers."
"I found the core product quite useful. It is easy to use and quite user-friendly. They have also got other options, such as CRM and HRS. They have other versions such as smart distribute, which is an HRS type of system to analyze and get permissions needed from the applicants. In terms of pricing, SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors."
"SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors, and considering the type of features and services it provides, it is probably one of the best solutions in the market."
"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."
 

Cons

"The analytics and reporting aspect in Personio for the recruiting part was below expectations compared to some other applicant tracking systems."
"Personio is not scalable as an ATS, and I struggle to work with it."
"Some features are not as straightforward or user friendly to implement."
"The filters are not accurate. The results are inaccurate when filtering multiple criteria, such as country and hiring manager."
"SmartRecruiters' on-click application process could be better."
"Sometimes, there is this language or communication barrier in terms of what the applicants mentioned. SmartRecruiters sometimes has trouble understanding certain types of keywords or has certain types of language, translation, or grammar issues."
"The major improvement area is how it integrates with other systems; that's where we've had some sort of pain points."
"There were problems with integrations around other systems and each one had to be custom-built, which took a little while to get set up and running."
"Sometimes, there is this language or communication barrier in terms of what the applicants mentioned. SmartRecruiters sometimes has trouble understanding certain types of keywords or has certain types of language, translation, or grammar issues."
"The first pain point for us is when we're scheduling interviews with candidates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I wasn't involved in its acquisition, but I would assume that SmartRecruiters is pretty pricey."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Healthcare Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Personio?
I cannot provide information about the setup costs as I am not responsible for the financial aspects.
What needs improvement with Personio?
The screening of candidates in the ATS part is quite complicated. In Greenhouse, you can have a CV of one person on one page at a time, zoomed in immediately for easy screening. In Personio, it req...
What is your primary use case for Personio?
I'm a consultant, so I do in-house recruiting, embedded recruiting for various clients, and one of my clients is using Personio as their ATS, so that's how I work with it. As a recruiter, I primari...
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Comparisons

 

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Sample Customers

Orderbird, HelloFresh, Stylight, TURCK, HolidayCheck, ZenMate, Amorelie, UNU, raisin
Atlassian, Aol, IBM, Napa, Skechers
Find out what your peers are saying about Personio vs. SmartRecruiters and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.