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 Team Lead
Approves leave for twelve people across two shifts and finds out about clashes too late. Wants requests and approvals on the phone, a named substitute on every request, minimum-staffing warnings before approval, and a team calendar that shows who is away without showing why.
absence.io
Urlaubsverwaltung
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Entitlements & German leave rules
absence.io
Remaining leave is kept permanently up to date, additional entitlements such as tenure-based and special leave are recorded, and parental leave appears as an absence type, which covers basic annual entitlements with balances and custom leave types. We found no public information on part-time proration, carry-over with an expiry date and notice, public holidays per federal state, or half-day and hourly leave, so I cannot place the product above the basic level.
Urlaubsverwaltung
The help pages document public holidays per German federal state, overridable per employee in their own account, down to the Augsburg Peace Festival and whether Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve count as half workdays, plus custom absence types such as training, cures and home office. We found no public information on how annual entitlement is set per contract, on part-time or joiner and leaver proration, or on carry-over with expiry and the notices the BAG requires, so I cannot confirm the balances are computed the German way.
Requests, approvals & team calendar
absence.io
The everyday flow is there: request and approval in a few clicks, native iOS and Android apps, a real-time team calendar that syncs with Google and Outlook plus subscription links, and approvals given straight from Teams or Slack with a daily broadcast of who is away. We found no public information on approvers configurable per team or department, push or email notifications on requests, substitutes named on a request, minimum-staffing warnings before approval, or a calendar view that hides the absence reason — the exact things I need across two shifts.
Urlaubsverwaltung
Employees can request and view absences from the mobile app, and the calendar side is what I would praise: shares at own, department and company scope, the company-wide view off by default and only for special roles, and absence-reason visibility depending on role, so colleagues see who is away without why. We found no public information on approvals from the phone, named substitutes, minimum-staffing or blackout rules, multi-level chains, or a logged history per request — the things that would stop me finding clashes too late.
Sick leave, eAU & continued pay
absence.io
Sick days are recorded as their own type and categorised by whether a doctor's note exists, with a child-needing-care category, which is basic sick-leave recording. We found no public information on eAU retrieval from the statutory health insurers, on counting sick days towards the six-week continued-pay limit, or on BEM thresholds, so nothing above the basic level is evidenced.
Urlaubsverwaltung
Sick notes are their own type with the certificate period recorded, employees can submit them themselves, child sick days are a separate type, and the tool reminds the employee and Office-permission holders when one continuous illness passes the six-week continued-pay mark — the EFZG six-week rule I personally watch. We found no public information on eAU retrieval from the health insurers, BEM handling, or privately insured certificates, and leave overlapping a sickness must be cancelled manually.
Payroll handover, time tracking & API
absence.io
A documented REST API, version 2 with OAuth 2.0 and Hawk, reaches absences, users and remaining leave; absences can be exported and connected to DATEV or other accounting systems, the direct DATEV connection covers expenses and travel costs, and time tracking and absence management sit in one system so balances stay together. We found no public information on absence types mapped to configurable payroll codes, monthly closing that locks past periods, or webhooks, so it stops short of a full payroll handover.
Urlaubsverwaltung
Absences and overtime sync automatically with the vendor's own time-tracking product, time entries can be locked, and worked hours export as CSV for Excel. We found no public information on DATEV or any other named payroll integration, payroll code mapping, webhooks, or a documented API, so I could not tell my payroll office how our absences reach them.
Health data, access & works council
absence.io
A data processing agreement is offered, general deletion and retention statements are published, and the vendor openly documents that it processes sick-day categories, but that is where the evidence ends. We found no public information on who may see a sickness reason or certificate, whether colleagues see only that someone is absent, access logging for health-related records, or documentation aimed at a works council — as a team lead I need the calendar to show who is away without showing why, and nothing published speaks to that.
Urlaubsverwaltung
The defaults read as though someone thought about it: sickness reasons are stored without the reason itself, absence-reason visibility is role-dependent, the company-wide calendar is off by default, the processing agreement is public, and there are commitments to deletion on request, automated deletion processes and a data-protection impact assessment. We found no public information on retention rules per record type, exportable access logs, or documentation aimed at a works council.
European sovereignty
absence.io
The contracting entity is absence.io GmbH in Munich with a German commercial register entry and VAT ID, hosting is stated to be exclusively on ISO-certified servers in Germany, a data processing agreement is offered, and Softgarden GmbH is named as sole owner. A subcontractor list is published online and EU processors are named, but we found no public information on the hosting infrastructure by name or on a data processing agreement covering sickness data as special-category processing.
Urlaubsverwaltung
Hosting is at Hetzner in Germany in an ISO 27001-certified datacenter, the contracting party is Focus Shift Software GmbH in Karlsruhe with a Mannheim register number, and a subprocessor list with locations is published — Hetzner in Germany for hosting, MailJet in Germany for email, Microsoft in Ireland for communication. Ownership is not established on the captured pages, and we found no public information that the processing agreement covers sickness data as special-category processing or that the vendor itself holds a certification, which keeps me from scoring higher.
Pricing transparency
absence.io
Starter, Pro and Complete are each priced publicly at 2,99€, 4,99€ and 7,99€ per Nutzer pro Monat, prices are stated net per user, there is no minimum term and monthly cancellation is possible, a 14-day trial needs no credit card, and the tiers say what sits where — time tracking and the personnel file from Pro, API and travel expenses in Complete, with all integrations included at no additional cost. An annual figure is nearly computable; we found no public information on minimum users or any setup fees.
Urlaubsverwaltung
For any organisation under 250 people the bill is computable from the public pages alone: 2,00 € per active user per month plus VAT, a 2,00 € per-employee add-on for time tracking, 10 % off for annual payment, a minimum of five users with a monthly minimum of 10,00 €, a thirty-day trial without automatic conversion, and both cancellation routes spelled out. Above 250 employees it becomes an individual offer, and we found no public information mapping eAU or payroll export to tiers.
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.