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With so many different performance appraisal software available, figuring out which is right for you is tough. You know you want software to help you track, analyze, and evaluate employee performance systematically, but you need to figure out which system is best. In this post, I'll help you make this choice easier by sharing my insights on the best performance appraisal software to create a fair and efficient performance management process based on my personal experience preparing over 1,000 performance reviews.

What is Performance Appraisal Software?

Performance appraisal software is a digital tool that helps HR specialists and managers evaluate their employees performance efficiently and fairly. It uses automations to make the appraisal process more efficient and less biased and more data-driven. It also offers the ability to set and track specific goals, and feedback mechanisms to offer structured and actionable recommendations.

Performance appraisal software helps HR specialists and business managers understand how efficient their teams are. These solutions help leaders assess the output of individuals and departments, allowing them to make objective, data-driven decisions regarding their employees that are free from unconscious bias. Ultimately, they help organizations build a stronger workforce by identifying areas for future growth and skill development.

Overviews Of The 10 Best Performance Appraisal Software

Here’s a brief description of each performance appraisal software to showcase each tool’s best use case, their noteworthy features, and pros & cons. I’ve also included screenshots to give a snapshot of their user interface too.

Best performance appraisal software for identifying career progressions

  • Free demo available
  • Flat rate user pricing, with a free version for businesses with up to 200 people
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Rating: 4.8/5

Deel Engage is a talent development platform that integrates comprehensive performance management tools, career development frameworks, and learning management systems into a unified solution.

Why I picked Deel: As a performance appraisal software, Deel Engage stands out with its robust and customizable 360° feedback reviews and advanced performance analytics. The platform allows businesses to run fully customizable performance reviews, tailoring feedback types, anonymity settings, and calibration steps to meet their specific needs.

Additionally, Deel’s performance analytics offer deep insights through tools like 9-box grids, radar charts, and skills matrices, enabling companies to identify high-potential talent and areas for development. These analytics provide an objective view of employee performance, ensuring evaluations remain unbiased and tailored to help identify career progressions and steps for organizational growth.

Deel Standout Features and Integrations

Features include AI-powered course creation, customizable 360° feedback reviews, advanced performance analytics, goal alignment with OKRs, real-time tracking with pre-built dashboards, comprehensive career progression frameworks, automated course assignments, and an extensive library of training resources.

Integrations include Slack, BambooHR, Workday, and Personio. Custom integrations through Deel's Open API are also available.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Career progression frameworks
  • 360-degree performance reviews
  • Advanced analytics and reporting

Cons:

  • Could have more customization options
  • Learning curve for new users

Best performance appraisal software for skill gap identification

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.3/5

Mitratech Trakstar is an employee performance management software that helps managers identify skill gaps and recommend personalized training modules. 

Why I picked Mitratech Trakstar: Mitratech Trakstar helps you assess your employees and provide actionable advice on how they can reach their career goals. The platform helps you measure employee competency for over 100 distinct competencies, enabling team leaders to identify skill gaps. Team leaders can also build training modules and courses for employees to help them develop their skills. 

Mitratech Trakstar enables managers and HR professionals to schedule regular check-ins, build improvement plans to increase the effectiveness of their team members, and collect data to make business decisions. The platform makes it easy to track the performance of all employees, and the automated reporting feature helps you understand how your strategies affect your workforce, so it’s ideal for medium and large organizations with a lot of employees. 

Mitratech Trakstar Standout Features and Integrations

Features include automation, succession planning, goal tracking, engagement surveys, competency assessments, and employee coaching. 

Integrations are available natively with many tools, including ADP Workforce, Google Workspace, Paylocity, Salesforce, and Slack. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Encourages instant feedback
  • Great for employee development
  • Efficient learning management system

Cons:

  • Cannot sort training modules by category
  • Some automated emails may end up in the spam folder

Best performance appraisal software for self-assessments

  • Free demo available
  • From $5-$10/user/month
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Rating: 4.7/5

PerformYard is a cloud-based performance management system that helps businesses to identify top performers based on self-assessment metrics. 

Why I picked PerformYard: PerformYard allows employees to set their own goals and track their progress. The software makes it easy for team members to access and complete self-assessment forms, and it compiles the data into actionable progress reports. A user’s growth progress can be shared with co-workers, which is a great way for employees to motivate themselves and summarize their accomplishments for others. 

Managers and HR professionals who use PerformYard save time when running recurrent review cycles. The platform’s automation feature enables you to schedule recurring reviews ahead of time, and the solution’s notification system lets you know when you have to complete manual steps. 

PerformYard is a good HR solution for organizations that value employee growth. 

PerformYard Standout Features and Integrations

Features include goal management, continuous feedback, 360 degree reviews, one-on-one feedback, quarterly check-ins, and self-assessments. 

Integrations are available natively with multiple apps, including ADP, BambooHR, Gusto, Rippling, and Workday. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Easy task and goal tracking
  • Benchmarking tool allows managers to compare employee evaluations
  • Encourages employee coaching

Cons:

  • Surveys cannot be edited after launch
  • Every user creates their own goals without templates, which can lead to confusing results

Best for integrated HR management

  • 30-day free trial
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.1/5

Paycor is a comprehensive HCM solution that offers integrated HR management, including payroll, HR software, talent acquisition, talent management, and workforce management. The tool is best known for providing a wide range of HR solutions in one platform, making it a convenient and efficient option for leaders and HR teams.

Why I picked Paycor: I chose Paycor's performance appraisal software because it provides a robust suite of integrated HR management tools that cater to various aspects of employee management, including talent acquisition, talent management, and workforce management. What makes Paycor stand out is its emphasis on continuous feedback and development, which moves beyond the traditional annual performance review, fostering a culture of ongoing improvement and engagement.

Paycor Standout Features and Integrations

Features include AI-powered sourcing, AI job post drafter, large database of candidates, custom workflows, interview scorecards, candidate dashboard, employee onboarding flows and compliance, referral management, multi-job board posting, and reporting and analytics tools.

Integrations include HireTech, Emburse Certify, Zillion, Points North, FMLA, Tapcheck, Instant Pay, Sterling, Wageworks, and Ignite.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Customizable dashboard.
  • User-friendly interface that is easy to navigate.
  • Offers comprehensive features for HR management, including performance reviews and hiring tools.

Cons:

  • Reporting features are somewhat limited and could use more customization options.
  • Some users have experienced issues with the self-service interface, particularly with leave or vacation requests.

Best performance appraisal software for one-on-one feedback

  • Free demo available
  • From $11/seat/month
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Rating: 4.7/5

Lattice is a performance appraisal solution that helps businesses schedule, run, and manage 1:1 feedback. 

Why I picked Lattice: Lattice is a lightweight performance management tool that integrates with dozens of solutions. The software enables your team members to provide feedback in real-time from wherever they work, and makes it easy for them to share a few words about a co-worker or manager. The solution also enables employees to request feedback, set goals, and take ownership of their performance development. 

Lattice enables HR professionals and managers to schedule and run pulse surveys, objectives and key results (OKR) reviews, and one-on-one interviews. The platform’s 1:1s are easy to manage by both team leaders and employees, and you can connect your other surveys and reviews to the 1:1 meeting agenda so they can serve as talking points or reminders. 

Thanks to its variety of helpful features, Lattice is a great HR software for businesses of all sizes. 

Lattice Standout Features and Integrations

Features include 360-degree feedback, one-on-one interviews, goal setting, public recognition, continuous feedback, and analytics. 

Integrations are available natively with hundreds of solutions, including BambooHR, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Okta, Slack, and Zenefits. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Enables employees to provide discreet feedback directly to managers
  • You can add comments and action items to reviews
  • Great one-on-one review feature

Cons:

  • Interface can be a little cumbersome at times, nesting some features under multiple menus and submenus
  • Using pulse, weekly, 1:1s, and OKR reminders can disrupt your employees

Best performance appraisal software powered by AI

  • 30-day free trial + free plan available
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.8/5

Profit.co is an AI-enabled OKR software designed to help businesses execute their strategies by focusing on goals, measuring progress, and achieving results. 

Why I picked Profit.co: I like that Profit.co offers AI-powered performance reviews, which include 360-degree reviews, 1:1s, recognition, and surveys. This all-in-one system ensures that performance appraisals are not just a once-a-year event but a continuous process that provides real-time feedback and goal alignment.

The software's ability to capture comprehensive feedback through customizable questionnaires and review templates allows organizations to gain deeper insights into individual performance and make actionable improvements. Additionally, the integration of OKRs with performance management helps in aligning individual and team goals with the organization's objectives.

Profit.co Standout Features and Integrations

Features include OKR management, real-time reporting, task management, collaborative workspaces, checklists, awards, pulse surveys, employee engagement, portfolio roadmaps, risk management, earned value management data, and dashboards.

Integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, Gmail, Zapier, Outlook, MS Outlook Calendar, Power BI, Google Calendar, DOMO Connector, Google Sheets, MS Excel, and Jira.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Reporting offers actionable insights
  • Comprehensive goal-tracking capabilities
  • High level of customization

Cons:

  • Some new users may find the tool complex
  • Task management features could be more robust

Best performance appraisal software for pre-built and customizable employee evaluations

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.6/5

ClearCompany is a configurable HR management system that helps companies identify top performers using their own evaluation processes and criteria. 

Why I picked ClearCompany: ClearCompany is a great performance management solution for organizations that want to build their own reviews and evaluations. Besides offering pre-built review templates, the software also gives you the ability to build assessments from scratch and create your own templates. 

ClearCompany enables you to build your own forms with different sections, questions, measurement scales, and multi-stage evaluation processes. You can add timed stages, approval breaks, and track your team’s evaluation progress. 

Thanks to the customizable assessments it helps you create, the system is a great option for organizations that have a highly-trained workforce and need specific evaluations. ClearCompany is best for companies based in the U.S. and Canada.

ClearCompany Standout Features and Integrations

Features include new hire reviews, performance reviews, competency and role-based reviews, 360-degree reviews, and time-based reviews. 

Integrations are available natively with dozens of tools, including AccuTrace, BambooHR, Checkr, Glassdoor, and Indeed. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Real-time feedback
  • Helpful goal-tracking and alignment tools
  • Highly customizable evaluations

Cons:

  • No boolean search
  • The interface looks somewhat dated

Best performance appraisal software for automated engagement surveys

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $8/user/month
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Rating: 4.8/5

Leapsome is an HR platform that helps organizations assess employee engagement and make data-driven decisions to increase employee retention. 

Why I picked Leapsome: Leapsome is a customizable HR system that helps you simplify your performance evaluation processes with templates. The solution enables you to create templates for all your needs, such as weekly 1:1s, daily huddles, quarterly performance analyses, and so on. You can choose your to-do items, set your priorities, sync the platform with your calendar and mailing software, and rely on its notifications to perform time-sensitive tasks. 

Leapsome’s surveys are well structured, encouraging users to rate their colleagues and share feedback. The survey structure helps raters to express their thoughts without losing time, so the evaluation process is not intrusive. 

Thanks to its user-friendly pulse surveys, Leapsome is a great app for HR teams that want to improve their company culture. 

Leapsome Standout Features and Integrations

Features include automation, new hire onboarding tools, a skill framework, 1:1s, team meetings, and public and private recognition. 

Integrations are available natively with dozens of solutions, including HiBob, Microsoft Active Directory, Rippling, Slack and Workday. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Good goal tracking features
  • Searchable assessment database
  • Efficient employee coaching tool

Cons:

  • Notes can be carried from one meeting to another, so separating them at the end of the day can be confusing
  • Colleague feedback is auto-set as private, so managers may miss it unless the default setting is changed

Best performance appraisal software that works within Slack & MS Teams

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $7/user/month
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Rating: 4.7/5

Peoplebox is a comprehensive platform that integrates talent analytics, performance management, and employee engagement tools, making it the best choice for organizations looking for a comprehensive solution for managing and analyzing their talent.

Why I picked Peoplebox: I chose Peoplebox because it provides a holistic platform that encompasses performance management, strategy execution, employee engagement, and people analytics. Its distinctive capability to conduct performance reviews directly within Slack and MS Teams, coupled with features like automated engagement surveys and anonymous messaging, makes it a unique offering in the market.

Peoplebox Standout Features and Integrations:

Peoplebox's features work together to help organizations bridge the gap between their OKR strategy and their OKR execution. It accomplishes this by making it easy to track action items, and hits & misses, with the intention of identifying blockers or bottlenecks before they impact productivity. Other features include OKR management, KPI tracking, productivity check-ins, pre-defined nudges, automated performance reviews, people insights, survey templates, and feedback management.

Integrations are available with a number of tools, including Asana, Google Sheets, Jira, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Okta, Slack, Salesforce, and others.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Slack integration and notifications, including the ability to conduct check-ins
  • Ability to automate reports and launch recurring employee engagement and pulse surveys is helpful
  • Useful feedback features including performance reviews, 1:1, and Coffee Connect

Cons:

  • Anonymous feedback not available
  • Long load times for longer task lists

Best for encouraging employees to be active in their growth

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.5/5

Paylocity is a cloud-based human capital management (HCM) platform that combines HR, payroll, talent management, benefits administration, employee experience, and workforce management functionalities into an all-in-one solution.

Why I picked Paylocity: The performance management features of this software are designed to encourage employees to take a more active role in their development and growth. Employee self-evaluation is facilitated through the platform and employees can track their progress with the journal feature, adding text or video to keep a record of their accomplishments and milestones.

Performance assessment templates give a clear outline of what's being evaluated and help managers spot opportunities for promotions and upskilling. Managers and employees can set performance goals together in the software, and come back to them regularly to maintain alignment. 360 feedback helps create a clearer, more well-rounded assessment of employee performance.

Paylocity Standout Features & Integrations

Features include 360 feedback, performance appraisal templates, employee journal, video and text notes, self-evaluations, goal setting and tracking, employee recognition, and peer recognition.

Integrations include Azure, Clover, Concur, Expensify, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle NetSuite, QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, Square, Xero, 24HourFlex, and 4MyBenefits. An API can also be used to configure additional integrations.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Peer recognition and feedback are facilitated
  • Employees are encouraged to take action on their goals
  • Robust, all-in-one platform for HR

Cons:

  • Limited customization options
  • Steep learning curve, complex system

10 Best Performance Appraisal Software Summary

This comparison chart summarizes basic details about each of my top performance appraisal software selections. You can view pricing details and the availability of free trials or demos side-by-side to help you find the best software that works for your budget.

Tools Price
Deel Flat rate user pricing, with a free version for businesses with up to 200 people
Mitratech Trakstar Pricing upon request
PerformYard From $5-$10/user/month
Paycor Pricing upon request
Lattice From $11/seat/month
Profit.co Pricing upon request
ClearCompany Pricing upon request
Leapsome From $8/user/month
Peoplebox From $7/user/month
Paylocity Pricing upon request
Compare Software Specs Side by Side

Compare Software Specs Side by Side

Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.

Compare Software

Other Options

Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best performance appraisal software list:

  1. IntelliHR

    Performance appraisal software for actionable performance insights

  2. Cornerstone OnDemand

    For employee skill mapping and creating growth plans

  3. Engagedly

    For streamlining the employee review process

  4. Namely

    Performance management in an all-in-one HR tool

  5. bob

    Performance appraisal software for goal setting

  6. Kallidus Perform

    Performance appraisal software for self-development

  7. Betterworks

    For increasing the frequency of performance conversations

  8. Eden

    Performance appraisal software for peer reviews

  9. BambooHR

    Performance appraisal software for automated review cycles

  10. eloomi

    Performance appraisal software for continuous performance improvement

Selection Criteria

Wondering how I selected the best performance appraisal software for this article? Here’s a summary of my selection and evaluation criteria: 

  1. User Interface (UI): Performance appraisal tools should help your team perform their tasks without wasting time. I selected solutions that offer clean, intuitive interfaces, so your team members can find the right functionalities and share feedback, rate their co-workers, and review each others’ performance. 
  2. Usability: Performance appraisal solutions should be easy to use because they should enable all your team members to share continuous feedback, no matter their tech skills. I chose software solutions that simplify the performance review process and encourage your team to share their opinions at regular intervals. 
  3. Software Integrations: Performance appraisal shouldn’t be siloed. It should be an integral part of your review process. As a result, I chose performance appraisal tools that integrate with the rest of your human resources tools, such as your human capital management (HCM) tool, human resource information system (HRIS), talent management solution, and so on.
  4. Value for Price: Most performance appraisal tools offer a wide variety of features and functionalities. I selected solutions that help you achieve multiple goals so you can get a nice return on your investment.

Performance Appraisal Software: Frequently Asked Questions

What is a performance appraisal?

A performance appraisal is a review of an individual’s work performance and productivity. It involves assessing their skills, achievements, personal growth, and progress towards predefined goals and objectives.

Are there different types of performance appraisals?

Performance appraisals can be divided in:

  • Self-appraisals
  • Peer appraisals
  • 360-degree appraisals
  • Culture-fit appraisals
  • Trait-based appraisals
  • Role-based appraisals

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using performance appraisal software?

The main advantage of using performance appraisal software is that it ultimately leads to an improvement in your team’s performance. By identifying your team’s strengths, weaknesses, and potential, you can take corrective actions and create workflows that improve your team’s efficiency and output.

The main disadvantage of using performance appraisal software is that it can lead to unconscious bias. Raters can unconsciously rank employees based on their historical performance rather than actual results, so they can end up favoring some team members and underrating others.

Other Resources

Feedback helps you boost your team’s performance and improve your company culture. And performance appraisal software can help you keep track of your team’s evolution and respond to it proactively. As Lindsay Gainor from Kent Power said

The more frequent the feedback, the less heavy and daunting the formal performance conversations become. The greatest tool for this is having a 1:1 with each person on your team on a regular, frequent basis. This allows you to connect deeper than the day-to-day conversations in passing. It is a time to check in personally, talk about performance wins and challenges, and discuss development plans.

Not sure which one of these solutions is right for your needs? We have an article on How To Choose The Right Performance Management System For You that can help. 

Also, to help you get the most out of your performance appraisal software, I recommend reading these guides too:

Lastly, if you want to receive expert advice on how to motivate your employees directly in your inbox, subscribe to the People Managing People newsletter

Kim Behnke
By Kim Behnke

Kim Behnke is an HR Tool Expert & Writer for People Managing People. She draws on her 9 years of human resources experience and her keen eye for systematic processes to support her analyses of the top HR tools on the market. She is passionate about maximizing efficiencies and streamlining workflows to ensure internal systems run smoothly. Kim's HR experience includes recruitment, onboarding, performance management, training and development, policy development and enforcement, and HR analytics. She also has degrees in psychology, writing, publishing, and technical communication, and recently completed a Certified Digital HR Specialist program through the Academy to Innovate HR. When away from her desk, she can usually be found outside tending to her ever-expanding garden.