BambooHR® vs. Kudos®

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BambooHR®
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
BambooHR is an cloud-based human resources solution that provides onboarding, payroll, and benefits management. It also offers automated time-off management and employee self-service.
$10
per month per user
Kudos®
Score 8.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Kudos® is an employee engagement and recognition platform, that harnesses peer-to-peer recognition, casual rewards, values reinforcement, and open communication to help organizations boost employee engagement, reduce turnover, improve culture, and drive productivity and performance.N/A
Pricing
BambooHR®Kudos®
Editions & Modules
Core
$10
per month per user
Pro
Contact Sales
per month
Elite
Contact Sales
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BambooHR®Kudos®
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsKudos® pricing is based on the number of users and the length of the contract.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BambooHR®Kudos®
Features
BambooHR®Kudos®
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
280 Ratings
3% below category average
Kudos®
-
Ratings
Employee demographic data8.3251 Ratings00 Ratings
Employment history8.0252 Ratings00 Ratings
Job profiles and administration8.0252 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.7235 Ratings00 Ratings
Organizational charting7.7257 Ratings00 Ratings
Organization and location management8.1247 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)7.3146 Ratings00 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.6
191 Ratings
7% below category average
Kudos®
-
Ratings
Pay calculation8.1138 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors6.8103 Ratings00 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment7.4103 Ratings00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.1146 Ratings00 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.3138 Ratings00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management7.9155 Ratings00 Ratings
Reimbursement management7.493 Ratings00 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.8
243 Ratings
8% above category average
Kudos®
-
Ratings
Approval workflow8.6237 Ratings00 Ratings
Balance details8.5226 Ratings00 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment9.2129 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.5
273 Ratings
4% above category average
Kudos®
-
Ratings
View and generate pay and benefit information8.5185 Ratings00 Ratings
Update personal information8.9267 Ratings00 Ratings
View company policy documentation8.4236 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee recognition7.9165 Ratings00 Ratings
View job history8.8252 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
74 Ratings
13% above category average
Kudos®
-
Ratings
Tracking of all physical assets9.174 Ratings00 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.2
221 Ratings
4% below category average
Kudos®
-
Ratings
Report builder7.3213 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.4211 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data6.8156 Ratings00 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.1
231 Ratings
2% above category average
Kudos®
-
Ratings
New hire portal8.4218 Ratings00 Ratings
Manager tracking tools7.8204 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.8
158 Ratings
3% below category average
Kudos®
-
Ratings
Corporate goal setting7.0117 Ratings00 Ratings
Individual goal setting7.8152 Ratings00 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility9.169 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance tracking7.5146 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.8
177 Ratings
1% below category average
Kudos®
-
Ratings
Performance plans7.2162 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance improvement plans7.2138 Ratings00 Ratings
Review status tracking8.697 Ratings00 Ratings
Review reminders8.1101 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.7154 Ratings00 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.0
81 Ratings
14% above category average
Kudos®
-
Ratings
Create succession plans/pools8.846 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate ranking9.067 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate search9.068 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate development9.359 Ratings00 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
193 Ratings
1% above category average
Kudos®
-
Ratings
Job Requisition Management7.7147 Ratings00 Ratings
Company Website Posting7.6157 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to Social Media9.291 Ratings00 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting7.4153 Ratings00 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention7.588 Ratings00 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.1174 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.1184 Ratings00 Ratings
User Ratings
BambooHR®Kudos®
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(288 ratings)
9.1
(13 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(17 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(215 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.3
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.7
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(147 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.5
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.9
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
9.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.9
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BambooHR®Kudos®
Likelihood to Recommend
BambooHR
For companies with a "complex" PTO policy, it's one of the easier solutions to use I have seen. By complexity, I mean having different reasons for your time off and different amounts of time you can request on that end. If you need simple file sharing, it will work as well. For people who require more robust training material, it might not be the best fit.
Read full review
Kudos®
Kudos is especially useful and helpful during project deployment where team members can be awarded kudos and appreciation and motivation for their team efforts in meeting milestones and targets. In some instances, the reward types or gifts may seem irrelevant to some departments in certain regions or my company' operations in other parts of the African continent.
Read full review
Pros
BambooHR
  • Ease of use for established staff and admins, all the way down to brand new hires.
  • Integrations, especially for posting and managing jobs during the hiring process.
  • Making regularly occurring things like meetings and assessments easy to customize and to action easily.
  • Being able to assign out tasks for onboarding and offboarding.
Read full review
Kudos®
  • One of the most useful aspects of this tool is that it allows you to save the profile of each of the employees individually and to be able to track their activities and give them the recognition they deserve.
  • Another useful feature of "kudos is that the system allows you to assign badges to each profile based on their job performance.
  • I also really like that the platform has a dedicated portal for employees. In which they can see their badges, recognitions and awards obtained for their efforts.
Read full review
Cons
BambooHR
  • The biggest issue is on performance assessments. We are not able to customize the reminder dates so the automated reminder dates shown to people and on the email reminders is often misaligned with our actual internal deadlines. This causes a lot of confusion each review cycle.
  • Also on performance management, there is no way to push feedback to a supervisor for their direct report. The only way is if the manager requests the feedback from you. This limits the opportunity for people to give real time feedback throughout the half.
  • I wish we had a way to track notes from employee 1:1s in BambooHR® so when we do our performance reviews we can track. That may be a module we didn't purchase but it would facilitate more continuous and comprehensive evaluation of people at review time.
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Kudos®
  • Rewards take a long time to be given out, but this I would put on the company's policy.
  • From my own perspective on a mobile phone, it's not so smooth like on desktop, like searching for a colleagues name sometimes is difficult.
  • Sometimes email notifications take too long to come, or they don't even come at all.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
BambooHR
There's nothing wrong with this platform. I would recommend it to any business starting with more than 10 employees. I will continue to use the program for as long as I need to, hoping they continue being tremendous and finding other ways to incorporate more technology.
Read full review
Kudos®
No answers on this topic
Usability
BambooHR
It is pretty intuitive and easy to use for most functions! This is helped by the clean and simple interface. The drop down filters and prompts are definitely strong points, and could be easily enhanced with more AI/automation features built in in future to make it even more efficient. I also like the playful icons, making it less dull as a HR tool :)
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Kudos®
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
BambooHR
Yes, there is a huge team in the back of the online platform or it looks like it because I have never been left without an answer when I have a question or waiting from a response on my chat .... There must be a huge team, this is so great and I always seem to have someone that is very knowledgeable too. So many times in the past I had to leave with customer service that would connect you with someone else because of the expertise, here everyone seems to be some kind of an expert in the HR function.
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Kudos®
No answers on this topic
Performance
BambooHR
I love BambooHR. Reports are easy to run and download and it usually covers any types of requests I get from the management team. You get excel or .csv downloads/reports and it is fast and simple, not too crowded so it is easy to read through. We don't integrate the tool yet but again, soon we will. we just did not had the time to utilize it yet but that's the plan.
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Kudos®
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
BambooHR
Support has always been excellent. I was skeptical about not having a dedicated account manager at first, but my concerns were quickly eased. I love the different options for communication. Being able to chat, send emails or call a representative are great so that my workflow isn't disrupted by having to complete a call. I have never had an issue reaching anyone and the email follow up is great!
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Kudos®
No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
BambooHR
I didn't have in-person training besides teaching my managers how to use the program. However, I couldn't omit this question (maybe a system glitch).
Read full review
Kudos®
No answers on this topic
Online Training
BambooHR
Overall this training was great and our implementation specialist was wonderful and very helpful. We felt really prepared once our training was completed, But we could get additional help immediately even when we were live. The continuation Support heros after implementation are wonderful and you can always get a LIVE person each time you call into their office.
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Kudos®
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
BambooHR
We implemented bambooHR in Fall, 2023 then implemented Payroll 1/1/24. A vital piece of information was not known or missed in that we are exempt from State Unemployment Tax and have a Reimbursement Set-up, so bambooHR did not send Payroll Reports to the State. Those reports need to be sent regardless if we are exempt or not.
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Kudos®
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
BambooHR
BambooHR® is not in the same category as others that I have used. BambooHR is truly comprehensive and if you pay for all the extras, you wouldn't need anything else. The parts we use are great for us and the fact that we can add custom fields means that our unique needs are addressed.
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Kudos®
I used to work at a company called Sparc that developed its own in-house platform called Teamphoria. It was great software that coupled a lot of the same features as workday but also with a recognition system. Essentially it allocated certain types of recognition levels per month, 1 platinum, 5 gold, 20 silvers, where each was worth a drawing ticket. At the end of the month, someone would be drawn from that pool based on their received recognition and then receive a gift card. However, some abused this system and devalued its purpose and inflated the meaning behind it. Kudos seems to do a good job by having a direct point/monetization system which isn't up for random chance. This can help even incentivize employees to go above and beyond, getting them to work harder since they are receiving recognition for it.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
BambooHR
Since my organization has dropped with employees, I always find ways to reduce costs. I thought there would be a cheaper option, but I was glad that my package included a lot for the price, and downgrading would cost more. The rep could have let me downgraded and taken me to a higher package. I am thankful that didn't happen.
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Kudos®
No answers on this topic
Scalability
BambooHR
There is so much you can do with this platform, it is incredible and so welcoming. We don't utilize it 100% yet just because we are growing and the HR team has not been able to concentrate on other areas offered to us but but we will soon. Which is also why we got the product, specifically because what BambooHR can do to help us meet our growing business needs.
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Kudos®
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
BambooHR
VERY professional!
Read full review
Kudos®
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
BambooHR
  • HR team members have been saved thousands of hours over the 3.5 years we've had BambooHR®. It saved me personally several hours a day once BambooHR® was set up. Specifically, onboarding, offboarding, and a formal Hiring system are the major time savers.
  • Employee Information is much easier to access and is all centralized. Employees are empowered to update their information when applicable, and we have designed custom access levels for different positions and managers to ensure every individual is seeing the appropriate types of information about employees.
  • We saved significant money by switching from Lattice to BambooHR®'s Performance Management solution. This solution is less advanced, but the simplicity meets our needs perfectly fine, and it even saves time for managers and employees by BambooHR®'s standard questions, carefully designed to get to the heart of performance and improvement.
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Kudos®
  • Incentivizes employee to work harder.
  • Helps with thanking our employees for jobs well done without having just a normal "Thank You."
  • Allows the employees to use kudos for company SWAG or items they may need in their lives and it's all possible to get thanks to KUDOS.
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ScreenShots

BambooHR® Screenshots

Screenshot of the Job Info tabScreenshot of Onboarding TasksScreenshot of a New Hire PacketScreenshot of an Employee Performance ReportScreenshot of Employee Satisfaction (eNPS®)Screenshot of Open Enrollment

Kudos® Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of