BambooHR® vs. Gem

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BambooHR®
Score 8.5 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.
$250
per month
Gem
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Gem is a recruiting platform that brings together ATS, CRM, sourcing, scheduling, and analytics — plus 650+ million profiles to source from — with AI built into every workflow.N/A
Pricing
BambooHR®Gem
Editions & Modules
Core
$250
per month
Pro
Contact Sales
per month
Elite
Contact Sales
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BambooHR®Gem
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional DetailsDiscount for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BambooHR®Gem
Features
BambooHR®Gem
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.6
Ratings
3% below category average
Gem
-
Ratings
Employee demographic data8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Employment history7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Job profiles and administration7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Organizational charting6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Organization and location management8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)7.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
6.6
Ratings
19% below category average
Gem
-
Ratings
Pay calculation7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors5.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment6.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration5.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Direct deposit files7.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Reimbursement management6.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.7
Ratings
8% above category average
Gem
-
Ratings
Approval workflow8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Balance details8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.0
Ratings
1% below category average
Gem
-
Ratings
View and generate pay and benefit information7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Update personal information8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
View company policy documentation8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee recognition7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
View job history8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
Ratings
12% above category average
Gem
-
Ratings
Tracking of all physical assets9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
6.8
Ratings
10% below category average
Gem
-
Ratings
Report builder6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data6.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.7
Ratings
3% below category average
Gem
-
Ratings
New hire portal8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Manager tracking tools7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.5
Ratings
5% below category average
Gem
-
Ratings
Corporate goal setting6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Individual goal setting7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility9.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance tracking6.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.5
Ratings
4% below category average
Gem
-
Ratings
Performance plans6.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance improvement plans6.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Review status tracking8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Review reminders8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
Ratings
15% above category average
Gem
-
Ratings
Create succession plans/pools9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate ranking9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate search9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate development9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.8
Ratings
1% above category average
Gem
-
Ratings
Job Requisition Management7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Company Website Posting7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to Social Media9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BambooHR®Gem
Small Businesses
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Breezy HR
Breezy HR
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.7 out of 10
Breezy HR
Breezy HR
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 9.9 out of 10
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 9.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BambooHR®Gem
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.9
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.9
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BambooHR®Gem
Likelihood to Recommend
I think if you're a small organization and you're trying to get out of paper, this is a really good first step to doing that. I've heard from other people that are in larger organizations where they have thousands of employees that there may be better platforms, but for smaller organization it's awesome.
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Gem is a in my opinion a necessity for any TA team in this market. It's no longer possible to be competitive with just LinkedIn - it's easy for candidates to lose those messages. Gem allows you to get noticed by candidates and stay competitive in this market!
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Pros
  • BambooHR® allows you to preview as a user in a specific access level. This is VERY helpful for providing instructions to employees or double checking that information is secure.
  • BambooHR® customer support is unmatched. Any time I have a question, I can quickly get an answer as well as additional resources.
  • Employees are able to easily find their information without coming to HR for questions. This cuts down on the questions coming into HR departments, big and small.
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  • He does great at the moment of follow up candidates.
  • It has a great AI that helps to automatically leave the status of the candidate depending on their response.
  • Save you a lot of time helping you to find the contact info of the candidate automatically.
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Cons
  • Notices for approving hours don't always coincide with pay periods well.
  • Payroll reports are by pay period without the ability to combine hours, etc. into a monthly report.
  • There is not an easy way to fix payroll errors. Must get it right the first time.
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  • It would be nice I could send emails through Gem instead of following that process on Linkedin for candidates who do not have their email id.
  • I would be nice it I am given an automated analysis of how my sequence did.
  • Connecting it not only to LinkedIn but to other sites such as Github and Slack may improve the search scope to recruiters.
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
BambooHR® is helpful, but I still handle some tasks manually due to missing features relevant to my needs. Certain processes require additional functionality, limiting full automation. While it streamlines HR operations, gaps in usability mean I must supplement workflows with manual efforts to ensure efficiency and meet specific business demands.
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No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
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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No answers on this topic
Performance
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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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
The support can be slow as they are a US based company and therefore we often have to wait for them to be online before we can speak to somebody and they are not particularly responsive to emails. The service itself has always been helpful and in most cases, the issue was resolved.
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No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
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).
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
As far as I can recall, everything went well with doing it online and got questions answered. Was thankful to work with a dummy file to get used to some practices prior to getting our own domain within bamboo to then place our personnel information in the system, this helped a lot!
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
I needed a system that was easy to use from an admin level as well as employee level. We run a pretty simple operation as we do not have shift diffs or multiple approval levels. Some of the systems reviewed were too much for us and, as a result, too expensive. BambooHR® fit our needs and budget accordingly.
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I haven't used any other product like Gem. I think is very hard to find products with such great features that compare to Gem, Gem has everything that pretty much you may need for your duties, you have updated contact info, have email sequences, statistics for each project created, and also a great and friendly interface that makes a very easy to use tool.
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Scalability
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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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • 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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  • Our response rates have increased significantly year after year.
  • Our percentage of sourced hires has gone from 17% to 32@
  • We have seen stronger and more engaged candidates through email sequences than LinkedIn Recruiter InMails.
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ScreenShots

BambooHR® Screenshots

Screenshot of Job Info TabScreenshot of Onboarding TasksScreenshot of New Hire PacketScreenshot of Employee Performance ReportScreenshot of Employee Satisfaction (eNPS®)Screenshot of Open Enrollment

Gem Screenshots

Screenshot of an overview of how Gem brings together ATS, CRM, sourcing, scheduling, and analytics — plus 650+ million profiles to source from — with AI built into every workflow.Screenshot of the AI that surfaces the best matches during the application review process, streamlines collaboration with hiring teams, simplifies offer flows, and automates routine administrative tasks.Screenshot of the search tool, used to conduct searches across 650M+ profiles with AI that delivers the best matches for any role.Screenshot of where the AI finds optimal interview times, coordinates across time zones and calendars, and automates reminders — giving recruiters hours back to focus on candidate relationships.Screenshot of where to use AI to personalize messaging to each candidate’s unique characteristics. This can reach across multiple communication channels including SMS.Screenshot of an example of simplified candidate management. Gem’s interactive dashboard helps recruiters grab a quick, visual snapshot of their candidate pipeline, identify candidates that need immediate attention, and hold their hiring managers accountable to SLAs.