As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates absence.io 2/5 and Urlaubsverwaltung 2.5/5 in Absence Management. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 0 of the 6 judges pick absence.io and 6 pick Urlaubsverwaltung. absence.io scores higher on 1 of 7 criteria (Payroll handover, time tracking & API). Urlaubsverwaltung scores higher on 6 of 7 criteria (Health data, access & works council, Sick leave, eAU & continued pay, European sovereignty, plus 3 more). Provenance — absence.io: EU-Made; Urlaubsverwaltung: EU-Made. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
The bench splits along one line. Absence.io takes payroll handover at 5.0 to 3.7, with 6 judges leaning its way and 0 leaning Urlaubsverwaltung — its DATEV connection covers expenses and travel cost reports. Urlaubsverwaltung leads absence data protection 6.0 to 2.5 and sick leave and eAU 5.0 to 3.0, 6 judges leaning its way on each, citing sickness stored without the medical reason. It also leads sovereignty 7.3 to 6.3 and pricing transparency 7.8 to 7.0 — each 5 leans, 1 tie — plus leave policies 4.0 to 3.2. Requests and approvals genuinely split: 1 lean absence.io, 2 lean Urlaubsverwaltung, 3 ties. The five weighted totals listed each favor Urlaubsverwaltung, from 4.6 vs 4.1 to 6 vs 4.6 — yet payroll handover stands 6 to 0 for absence.io. Both list EU only data residency and US CLOUD Act reach subprocessor exposure; absence.io's legal entity jurisdiction is DE, Urlaubsverwaltung's is unknown.
Choose absence.io if
You hand payroll to DATEV — absence.io leads payroll handover 5.0 to 3.7 with 6 judges leaning its way, and its documented DATEV connection covers expenses and travel cost reports.
Your team builds custom integrations — absences and time tracking export over the open REST API (v2, OAuth 2.0 and Hawk).
You need the vendor's legal entity jurisdiction stated — absence.io lists DE, while Urlaubsverwaltung's jurisdiction is listed as unknown.
You run fewer than five active users — Urlaubsverwaltung's published pricing sets a minimum of five active users and a 10,00 € monthly minimum (plus VAT), while absence.io publishes monthly cancellation with no minimum term.
Choose Urlaubsverwaltung if
You weigh absence data protection most — Urlaubsverwaltung leads 6.0 to 2.5 with 6 judges leaning its way; sickness is stored without the medical reason and visibility is role-dependent.
Your team needs sick leave and continued pay handled — sick leave and eAU runs 5.0 to 3.0 with 6 judges leaning Urlaubsverwaltung, and the data protection judge credits a six-week continued-pay reminder.
You need documented leave policies — Urlaubsverwaltung leads 4.0 to 3.2, with 5 judges leaning its way and 1 tie.
Subprocessor documentation matters to your review — sovereignty runs 7.3 to 6.3 (5 leans, 1 tie), with hosting in Hetzner's ISO 27001 certified datacentre in Germany and a published subprocessor list.
Your payroll accountant weighs the whole rubric, not just handover — their weighted total is 5.1 for Urlaubsverwaltung versus 4.2 for absence.io.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Payroll Accountant
Closes payroll in DATEV every month and corrects whatever arrived late. Wants absences exported with the right payroll codes, the eAU result attached to the sick day, the six-week continued-pay limit counted per illness, and past months locked once they are paid.
absence.io
Urlaubsverwaltung
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Entitlements & German leave rules
absence.io
Leave requests with approval, a real-time team calendar and remaining-leave balances kept current are the documented core, and the processed data categories list parental leave, tenure-based extra days and special leave as distinct types. I found no public information on part-time proration, public holidays per federal state, configurable carry-over with expiry and notice before leave lapses, or half-day and hourly leave, so I would still compute entitlements outside the tool.
Urlaubsverwaltung
Public holidays are handled properly: country and federal-state selection with a per-employee override, specials like the Augsburg Peace Festival, and Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve configurable as full, half or non-workdays, alongside custom absence types such as training, cure and home office. Overtime reduction can be applied for in hours with a configurable minimum, which is as close to hourly leave as the captured pages get. We found no public information on part-time proration, carry-over with expiry and its notices, or retroactive recalculation of entitlements.
Requests, approvals & team calendar
absence.io
Requests, approvals and a real-time team calendar are the homepage pitch, approvals can be given straight from Slack and Microsoft Teams, calendars sync with Outlook and Google through ICS feeds, and native iOS and Android apps exist. I found no public information on multi-level approval chains, substitutes named on the request, minimum staffing rules or blackout periods, delegation while an approver is away, or calendar visibility that hides the absence reason.
Urlaubsverwaltung
Employees request and view absences from iOS and Android apps, and privileged roles — Office, Chef, department head, approval responsible — release applications, with three documented overtime workflows from self-responsible to fully approved. Calendars are shared per person, department or company in iCal format into Outlook, Google and Apple Calendar, and the department view is limited to absences a person has a legitimate interest in. We found no public information on multi-level approval chains, named substitutes, staffing or blackout rules, or a Teams or Slack integration, and the Google Calendar and Exchange integration is marked deprecated with removal in version 5.
Sick leave, eAU & continued pay
absence.io
Sick days are recorded as their own absence type and are categorised with or without an incapacity certificate, with a category for a child needing care. I found no public information on eAU retrieval from the statutory insurers, on counting sick days towards the six-week continued-pay limit per illness, or on BEM thresholds — the certificate status is all payroll could rely on here.
Urlaubsverwaltung
Sick notes are their own type with the AU certificate period recorded, employees can submit their own notification, child sickness is a separate type, and the tool reminds both the employee and Office holders when one contiguous illness exceeds six weeks of continued pay — the per-illness count the payroll close needs. We found no public information on eAU retrieval from the statutory health insurers, BEM steps, or paper certificates for privately insured employees. Sickness inside booked vacation requires manual cancellation of the vacation, which the help page documents plainly.
Payroll handover, time tracking & API
absence.io
DATEV is named, but the direct connection covers expenses and travel cost reports only; absences and time tracking reach DATEV or other accounting systems through exports or the open REST API (v2, OAuth 2.0 and Hawk, JSON), and time tracking is the vendor's own module from the Pro plan upward. I found no public information on mapping absence types to configurable payroll codes, on a monthly closing that locks past periods once they are paid, or on webhooks and published API limits — the period lock is what I miss most.
Urlaubsverwaltung
Absences and overtime sync automatically with the vendor's own Zeiterfassung tool, whose entries can be locked and carry a full change history showing who changed what, and worked hours export per employee as CSV for Excel. We found no public information on an export or integration for DATEV or any other payroll system, absence types mapped to payroll codes, or a documented API with limits. For a monthly DATEV close that means manual re-keying, and nothing in the captured pages shows a period lock for absence months.
Health data, access & works council
absence.io
A data processing agreement, a named data protection officer, the Bavarian supervisory authority and deletion when the purpose ends are documented, and the privacy notices confirm sickness days and certificate status are processed. I found no public information on roles restricting who may see a sickness reason or certificate, on access logging, on retention rules per absence record, or on any documentation aimed at a works agreement.
Urlaubsverwaltung
The data protection page enumerates what is processed — sickness notes without the reason, absence data, working times — states that visibility is role-dependent and the company-wide calendar is off by default, and the department calendar shows only absences a person has a legitimate interest in. The AVV is publicly viewable without requesting it, a DPIA per Article 35 GDPR is described, deletion runs when the purpose ends with automated processes, and logfiles go after seven days. We found no public information on field-level permissions per leave type, logged access to sickness records specifically, or documentation aimed at a works council or works agreement.
European sovereignty
absence.io
Hosting is stated exclusively on ISO-certified servers in Germany, the contracting entity is absence.io GmbH in Munich with a Munich commercial-register entry, Softgarden GmbH is named as sole owner, and EU processors (UserLane, eKomi, Softgarden) plus Stripe and Mailjet are listed with an online subcontractor list referenced. The hosting infrastructure itself is not named, the complete subcontractor list sits on a separate page I did not see, and the privacy notices state personal data goes to Google LLC in the USA for the website, so I stop short of full marks.
Urlaubsverwaltung
Hosting runs in Hetzner's ISO 27001 certified datacentre in Germany, the contract partner is Focus Shift Software GmbH of Karlsruhe (HRB 737998, Mannheim court), and a subprocessor list with locations is published: Hetzner for hosting, MailJet in Berlin for email, Microsoft Ireland for communication, and optional Gravatar receiving only the e-mail address. The AVV is public. We found no public information on the ownership structure, so sovereign end to end is not established.
Pricing transparency
absence.io
Every tier is priced publicly — Starter 2,99€, Pro 4,99€ and Complete 7,99€ per user per month, net — with a 10% annual discount, no minimum term, monthly cancellation, a 14-day trial without payment details, and per-tier feature lists showing time tracking in Pro and the API in Complete. I found no public information on a minimum user count or priced add-ons — the NGO special conditions carry no figure — and no eAU feature is documented whose tier placement could be stated.
Urlaubsverwaltung
A buyer under 250 users can compute the invoice: 2,00 € per active user per month plus VAT, a minimum of five active users and 10,00 € per month, annual payment with 10 % discount, and the time-tracking add-on at 2,00 € per employee per month — with monthly billing in arrears, 14-day cancellation on monthly terms or one month's written notice on the annual contract, and a 30-day trial with no automatic conversion all public. Above 250 employees the price becomes an individual offer. The captured pages give different states for the pricing page: the 1 October capture shows the full prices, the 13 October capture only a redirect to focus-shift.de/preis.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
absence.io
Urlaubsverwaltung
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 Urlaubsverwaltung higher: 2.5/5 against 2/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 0 of the 6 judges pick absence.io and 6 pick Urlaubsverwaltung. 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 absence.io or Urlaubsverwaltung European?
absence.io is European (EU-Made). Urlaubsverwaltung is European (EU-Made). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Where do absence.io and Urlaubsverwaltung store customer data?
Per the vendors’ own pages as captured — absence.io: Default not stated; pages mention Germany. Urlaubsverwaltung: Default not stated; pages mention Germany.