As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates 15Five 3/5 and Leapsome 3/5 in Talent Management. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 4 of the 6 judges pick 15Five and 2 pick Leapsome. 15Five scores higher on 5 of 7 criteria (Pricing transparency, HRIS sync, integrations & data portability, Performance reviews & calibration, plus 2 more). Leapsome scores higher on 2 of 7 criteria (Works council, visibility & AI disclosure and European sovereignty). Provenance — 15Five: Rest of world; Leapsome: EU-Made. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
The benches split rather than settle. 15Five's means lead on five criteria — performance reviews (7.3 to 6.7), goals and feedback (6.5 to 6.0), learning and development (6.3 to 6.0), integrations and portability (6.5 to 5.8) and pricing transparency (5.5 to 4.0) — and zero judges lean Leapsome on any of them. Leapsome leads on sovereignty (4.5 to 3.0) and codetermination and privacy (5.7 to 4.0), six judges leaning Leapsome on each with no ties. Weighted totals split too: the HR lead (6.4 to 6.0), the people analyst (6.7 to 6.0) and the skeptic (5.3 to 5.2) have 15Five ahead, while the works council (5.7 to 4.9) and the integrator (5.8 to 5.2) have Leapsome ahead; the SME owner's total shows no figure. Sovereignty attributes list Leapsome's data residency as EU only and jurisdiction as DE; 15Five's residency, jurisdiction and ownership as unknown; both carry US Cloud Act subprocess exposure.
Choose 15Five if
You need review cycles with auditable calibration — the 15Five verdict lists real-time calibration, a track-changes feed showing original versus calibrated scores, and rating-distribution reporting across managers, and four judges lean 15Five on performance reviews (7.3 to 6.7).
Your team depends on HRIS connections — the verdict lists sixteen named HRIS integrations with Okta and OneLogin provisioning, and integrations and portability leans 15Five four judges to zero (6.5 to 5.8).
You must budget before signing — 15Five publishes Perform at $11 and Engage at $4 per user per month, each billed annually, and pricing transparency leans 15Five six judges to zero (5.5 to 4.0).
You want succession planning in the same tool — the verdict lists a nine-box talent matrix with succession planning, within goals and feedback, where three judges lean 15Five (6.5 to 6.0).
Your priorities resemble the HR-lead and people-analyst weightings — those totals have 15Five ahead at 6.4 to 6.0 and 6.7 to 6.0.
Choose Leapsome if
You need EU-only data residency — the attributes list Leapsome's data residency as EU only and its legal-entity jurisdiction as DE, and sovereignty leans Leapsome six judges to zero (4.5 to 3.0).
Your works council scrutinizes codetermination and privacy — Leapsome leads 5.7 to 4.0 with six judges leaning its way, and the works-council judge totals 5.7 against 15Five's 4.9.
You require a published data processing agreement from a German-law entity — the Leapsome verdict credits Leapsome GmbH of Berlin, a published data processing agreement, and an EU/EEA-primary processing statement.
Your evaluation weights privacy and sovereignty heavily, as the integrator panel's does — that total has Leapsome ahead 5.8 to 5.2.
Your procurement calls for EU-made provenance — Leapsome is recorded as EU-made, from Leapsome GmbH in Berlin.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Head of HR
Runs the annual review cycle for four hundred people and has to defend every rating in it. Wants criteria fixed before the cycle starts, calibration across departments, reminders that chase managers so HR does not have to, and a review history the employee can see and sign.
15Five
This judge's pick
Leapsome
Criterion by criterion
Performance reviews & calibration
15Five
Self, manager, peer and upward reviews run on quarterly or semi-annual cycles against a competency assessment, calibration sessions let calibrators adjust scores in real time with rating-distribution reporting across managers, and a track-changes feed shows original versus calibrated scores — exactly the audit trail I need when a rating is challenged. Review history travels with each person (past calibration changes, previous cycle ratings), and evaluations and notes export for HR records. I found no public information on employee sign-off or acknowledgement of the finished review, or on a documented rule for what the employee, the manager and HR can each see.
Leapsome
Configurable recurring review cycles with templates, question banks and 360°, project, leadership and external review types, automated notifications that keep participants on track, and AI pre-reads before calibration that flag manager leniency with every adjustment under human review — the competency framework guiding review questions means criteria are set ahead of the cycle. The captured pages do not show employee sign-off on the final review, a documented rule for what the employee, manager and HR each see, or rating distributions across teams.
Goals, OKRs & continuous feedback
15Five
Weighted OKRs are tracked automatically through weekly check-ins, 1-on-1s carry agendas both sides add to all week plus notes and action items, feedback can be requested against goals, and recognition flows through High Fives — and the year-end review draws on the record, with AI-drafted reviews grounded in check-ins, 1:1 notes and goals rather than the manager's memory. I found no public information on goal cascading with dependencies and confidence tracking, logged goal history, or private versus shared parts of 1:1 notes.
Leapsome
Company, team and individual goals with alignment, 1:1s on structured agendas, and instant feedback and public praise that — together with meeting notes and goal progress — are available when writing the review, so the year-end draws on the record instead of memory. The pages do not show goal cascading with dependencies, a history of goal changes, or check-ins delivered through Microsoft Teams or Slack (only praise posts were shown there); admin analytics on feedback trends across teams are described.
Learning, skills & succession
15Five
Growth Studio brings individual development plans, performance improvement plans and succession planning together with a 9-box talent matrix, career paths and development plans, competencies and skills mapping, microlearnings, and LearnUpon as a named LMS integration — so the succession conversation finally sits in the same tool as the rating. I found no public information on skills-gap analysis against role requirements, learning-path completion tracking with mandatory training, internal mobility shown against open positions, or exportable training records.
Leapsome
A shared competency framework with skills defined and visualised by level, an integrated learning system with enrolment, progress and completion tracking, quizzes assessing skill growth, and compliance and soft-skills content from a marketplace of pre-integrated providers, with learning paths tied to goals. We found no public information on talent reviews or succession plans for key roles, skills-gap reporting against role requirements, or exportable training records.
Works council, visibility & AI disclosure
15Five
Every AI feature is named and described — AMAYA, Kona, AI-Assisted Reviews, Focus Briefs, Meeting Assistant — with inputs listed (reviews, goals, 1:1 notes, check-ins, compensation, development plans plus work context), agents scoped to existing permission settings, a human kept in the loop, and generative-AI terms that ban using output for employment decisions while naming OpenAI as a sub-processor barred from training. The privacy policy states retention while the account is active, whole-account deletion, and that Kona collects meeting transcripts and recordings. I found no public information on anonymity minimums for survey results, access logging for review data, retention configurable per data type, or documentation aimed at a works agreement — which is precisely what I would need to get this past a works council.
Leapsome
Every AI feature is described by what it does, can be disabled at any time, and runs as drafts under human control, with the terms prohibiting automated employment-related decisions without human review, OpenAI named as the AI provider, a trust centre listing the DPA, subprocessor list and AI transparency documentation, and EU AI Act conformity stated. For a works agreement I would still need a stated minimum group size for anonymous results (only that anonymity settings exist is shown), access logging on review data, retention configurable per data type, and works-council templates, none of which the captured pages show.
HRIS sync, integrations & data portability
15Five
Named HRIS integrations run from Workday, UKG and ADP down to BambooHR and Gusto, an HRIS Connector syncs automatically in minutes, Okta and OneLogin sync provisioning including onboarding and deactivation, Teams and Slack are integrated, and an API and SFTP are offered. Evaluations, notes and performance data export for maintaining HR records. I found no published API limits, webhooks, or a stated bulk export of the complete goal and feedback history, and the terms warn that account data may be permanently lost on termination — for four hundred people's history, that clause gets negotiated before signature.
Leapsome
The Personio sync is deep — job title, department, manager, teams and reporting lines flow across automatically and user accounts are created for new joiners — alongside single sign-on, Slack and Teams, custom API and SFTP help, and a claim of over one hundred integrations. The terms promise a download of customer data as CSV or similar within thirty days of termination, a genuine exit path, though the pages do not show SCIM provisioning, webhooks, published API limits, or a second named HR system.
European sovereignty
15Five
This is 15Five, Inc. of San Francisco under California law and venue, the privacy policy states personal information may be transferred and stored in the United States, the United Kingdom or the customer's country, and OpenAI appears in the AI terms with Zuora handling payments. A Data Processing Agreement with Standard Contractual Clauses is offered on request, GDPR rights are listed, and the Irish Data Protection Commissioner is named as the supervisory authority — that is the paperwork level and no more. I found no public information on EU hosting as standard or an EU contracting entity.
Leapsome
The contracting entity is proven European — Leapsome GmbH registered at Amtsgericht Charlottenburg under German law with Berlin venue — with a GDPR Article 28 data processing agreement published and ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and EU AI Act conformity stated. The privacy policy says processing takes place primarily within the EU/EEA, but OpenAI is named only as the AI provider with its processing region unstated, the referenced subprocessor list was not captured, and a New York office exists.
Pricing transparency
15Five
Perform is $11 per user per month and Engage $4 per user per month, each billed annually with its module contents listed by name and the AI capabilities inside Perform rather than a priced add-on; manager training packages start at $49/month. I can budget the two core modules for a given headcount from the public pages alone. I found no public price for the Compensation tier or the combined platform, and no minimum headcount, minimum term or VAT treatment — so the real annual invoice for a full module mix is not computable yet.
Leapsome
The pricing pages show the HRIS tiers at "7 €/Mitarbeiter/Monat" for the basis package and give different figures for the Pro tier ("10 €/Mitarbeiter/Monat" in one capture, "10 € 5 €/Mitarbeiter/Monat" in another), with monthly or annual billing and EUR, USD or GBP. Add-ons such as salary benchmarking and learning courses are named and we found no public prices for them, and the captured learning page carries no prices at all, only a demo request — so the annual cost of the review cycle is not computable from public pages alone.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
15Five
Leapsome
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
US CLOUD Act reach
US CLOUD Act reach
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates both 3/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 4 of the 6 judges pick 15Five and 2 pick Leapsome. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is 15Five or Leapsome European?
15Five is not European by provenance (Rest of world). Leapsome is European (EU-Made). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.