No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

SAP HCM vs Workday HCM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 21, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
1.0
SAP HCM boosts ROI by automating processes, improving decision-making, and supporting talent management with quick results.
Sentiment score
5.7
Workday HCM delivers significant time savings and ROI through streamlined HR tasks, reducing manual work, and enhancing engagement.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
SAP HCM support is generally satisfactory but inconsistent, with delayed enhancements and variable response times needing improvement.
Sentiment score
6.6
Workday HCM support is generally responsive, with a strong community, though customization in regions like Korea needs improvement.
Not all requests are attended to promptly.
Vice President & Group Head People & Workplace Management at PLDT Enterprise
I am totally satisfied with the response time and quality of support.
sap technical lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
My impression of SAP HCM's technical support is great, as we get a lot of help and good feedback from them.
Assistant Manager at Kashiv Biosciences
With Workday, I can pick up the phone, call them on Teams, and they answer immediately.
Senior people and systems analyst at B_labs & Mylo
Making tech support more accessible could help with customization needs.
Senior Lead - Portal Rewards at BrowserStack
You typically get a response the same day.
Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
SAP HCM offers scalable and adaptable solutions for enterprises and smaller organizations, supporting global compliance and thousands of users.
Sentiment score
7.6
Workday HCM is scalable and flexible, ideal for medium to large enterprises with diverse global roles and customization options.
This solution deserves a 10 because we can easily scale and upgrade to new versions.
Dev Ops Engineer at simplelogic
SAP HCM is quite scalable.
Vice President & Group Head People & Workplace Management at PLDT Enterprise
We have moved from 800 to 1,600 headcount, and I have found it to be very scalable.
Senior Lead - Portal Rewards at BrowserStack
Workday Human Capital Management is very much scalable; all you need is a browser to work or access your data, even for implementation purposes.
Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
SAP HCM is stable and reliable, with occasional issues, and transitioning to cloud solutions is suggested for future stability.
Sentiment score
7.9
Workday HCM is highly stable, with a 97% uptime and minor weekly login slowness, praised for its reliability and adaptability.
I would rate its stability as nine out of ten.
Vice President & Group Head People & Workplace Management at PLDT Enterprise
I would rate the stability of SAP HCM as seven out of ten.
Manager IT at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
I have never seen a breakdown of the software or any late response.
Senior Lead - Portal Rewards at BrowserStack
 

Room For Improvement

SAP HCM struggles with an outdated interface, integration issues, complex payroll, and high costs deterring smaller enterprises.
Workday HCM faces challenges in customization, reporting, integration, pricing, performance, and usability, needing improvements and enhancements.
SAP HCM needs to be more customizable to fit unique organizational processes.
Manager IT at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
SuccessFactors, a globally recognized and more easy-to-use tool, serves as a great substitute for some SAP HCM needs.
Assistant Manager at Kashiv Biosciences
The organizational management (OM) side needs improvement due to frequent reorganization.
Vice President & Group Head People & Workplace Management at PLDT Enterprise
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.
Senior people and systems analyst at B_labs & Mylo
The compensation module is not dynamic enough or flexible enough to accommodate the complexities in our salary structure.
Senior Lead - Portal Rewards at BrowserStack
Creating complex reports has a steep learning curve and often requires specified training.
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

SAP HCM is costly, suited for large businesses, with complex licensing and possibly competitive pricing with bundled modules.
Workday HCM is seen as expensive, with tiered pricing based on modules and headcount, offering significant features and ROI.
SAP HCM is quite expensive, but considering solutions like Oracle, they are similar.
Vice President & Group Head People & Workplace Management at PLDT Enterprise
SAP HCM is costly compared to other ERPs like Microsoft Dynamics or Oracle, and I would rate the cost as one out of ten.
Manager IT at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
I would rate pricing for SAP as one because the price is high.
sap technical lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

SAP HCM delivers automation, seamless integration, and robust features for productivity, insights, and scalable data management with user-friendly interfaces.
Workday HCM centralizes HR tasks with user-friendly tools, seamless integration, automation, and robust analytics for efficient data management.
When we face challenges and raise tickets, Red Hat provides support within an hour, fixes bugs, and allows us to move to production after resolving issues.
Dev Ops Engineer at simplelogic
The main benefit SAP HCM provides is that we have all the information in one place; it is basically one centralized system with all the information rather than having multiple systems across the organization.
sap technical lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Capturing all the attendances and absences is a huge task that must be completed before running payroll.
Vice President & Group Head People & Workplace Management at PLDT Enterprise
We now have real-time visibility into our global headcount and labor costs, which allows our leadership to make faster data-driven decisions.
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
What I appreciate best about Workday is the recruiting component.
Senior Analyst at Eos Intelligence
The interface of Workday is superior.
Senior people and systems analyst at B_labs & Mylo
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP HCM
Ranking in Benefits Administration
2nd
Ranking in Talent Management
3rd
Ranking in Cloud HCM
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Workday HCM
Ranking in Benefits Administration
1st
Ranking in Talent Management
2nd
Ranking in Cloud HCM
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of SAP HCM is 3.6%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday HCM is 8.7%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Workday8.7%
SAP HCM3.6%
Other87.7%
Cloud HCM
 

Q&A Highlights

MK
VP/Managing Director Federal Healthcare at Groundswell
Apr 17, 2023
 

Featured Reviews

VikasDhumale - PeerSpot reviewer
Dev Ops Engineer at simplelogic
User interface simplifies task management with easy issue identification and quick resolutions
We don't currently need third-party solutions because Red Hat provides security through RH-ACM. This Red Hat product helps us identify vulnerabilities in Pods, YAML files, and other components. When we encounter vulnerability issues, we raise tickets, implement Red Hat's solutions, and close the tickets. OpenShift is predominantly implemented in banking sectors. Banking sectors require Enterprise edition platforms due to RBI guidelines. While small-scale industries might use Kubernetes on AWS platform, major banks such as SBI and Central Bank of India prefer OpenShift for its Enterprise edition status and comprehensive support from Red Hat. IPI setup is straightforward, but air gap environment setup is more challenging as it requires configuring HAProxy, DNS, manual DNS server, creating ignition files, downloading images, and creating separate repositories. Regarding competition, based on my knowledge, OpenShift has limited competitors apart from Red Hat. IBM has acquired Red Hat for OpenShift, and they run OpenShift on their Linux platform, making IBM the primary competitor. This product deserves a rating of 10 out of 10.
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud HCM solutions are best for your needs.
905,526 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

MK
VP/Managing Director Federal Healthcare at Groundswell
Apr 17, 2023
Apr 17, 2023
Hi Michael, My top reasons to consider SAP SuccessFactors would be: 1. Robustness of the Core Employee Central. 2. GDPR Compliance and Audit tracking capability for transactions given the healthcare industry regulations. 3. Scalability of the solution, especially if your organization is spread over multiple geographical locations. 4. Vast support ecosystem and string tech capabilities. 5. La...
See 2 answers
Ashwin Bhadouria - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager I.T. SAP HCM at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Feb 27, 2023
Hi, is HCM the only requirement with the organization, or are other solutions also required? As far as HCM is concerned, SAP is comprehensive and can be tailored as per requirements. Thanks - Ashwin
Vasu Narasimha - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder & CEO at BluTech Talent Plus LLP
Apr 17, 2023
Hi Michael, My top reasons to consider SAP SuccessFactors would be: 1. Robustness of the Core Employee Central. 2. GDPR Compliance and Audit tracking capability for transactions given the healthcare industry regulations. 3. Scalability of the solution, especially if your organization is spread over multiple geographical locations. 4. Vast support ecosystem and string tech capabilities. 5. Lastly, leverage SAP S/4HANA.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise40
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise50
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SAP HCM?
SAP HCM is the one of the best ERP for an organization with a small to large scale business. It has the most efficient payroll functionality. Regards : SAP HR classes in pune
What do you like most about SAP HCM?
HCM is a very important module that each organization should want to use. It will help any organization to calculate and control the cost of their human resources.
What is better, SAP HCM or SAP SuccessFactors?
When it comes to user experience, SuccessFactors is unquestionably superior, as it provides end users with a new experience and an advanced user interface. Additionally, the entire concept of SF is...
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...
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 of 2025 putting out fires and cleaning up the business processes that came with l...
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

SAP Human Capital Management
Workday Human Capital Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City of Cape Town, ADAMA Agricultural Solutions Ltd., TransAlta Corporation, Keolis, PT XL Axiata Tbk, National Football League (NFL), Plan International, Yoh, A Day & Zimmermann Company, China Talent Group (CTG TMO), Umicore S.A., Butterfield Bank, Skrill Group Ltd.
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 SAP HCM vs. Workday HCM and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
905,526 professionals have used our research since 2012.