Same six-judge panel, same rubric — and the benches split by criterion. softgarden takes sovereignty 7.3 to 3.2 and applicant data governance 5.5 to 2.0, with six judges leaning softgarden on each, plus AI screening control 3.0 to 1.7 with five leans and one tie. d.vinci takes integrations and handover 2.8 to 1.7 with six leaning d.vinci, and job distribution 5.0 to 4.2 with five leaning d.vinci. Pricing transparency favors d.vinci at 5.2 to 4.5, with three leans d.vinci and three ties; candidate pipeline splits too: 3.7 to 3.3 for d.vinci, but two judges lean d.vinci, one softgarden, three tie. Weighted totals favor softgarden with five of six judges; employer branding sits level at 4.4 to 4.4. Both are DE-jurisdiction with EU-only data residency; d.vinci's ownership is founder-held and its subprocessor exposure US Cloud Act, softgarden's ownership unknown and subprocessor exposure EU-only.
Choose d.vinci if
You need integrations and handover — six judges lean d.vinci there, 2.8 to 1.7, the strongest lean of d.vinci's bench
Your team posts broadly and needs distribution reach — five judges lean d.vinci on job distribution, 5.0 to 4.2, with multiposting to over 500 job boards, Google for Jobs optimization and a career page the vendor calls "100% barrierefrei"
You want module prices you can read before a sales call — three judges lean d.vinci on pricing transparency, 5.2 to 4.5, with applicant management "ab 785 € pro Monat", career pages "ab 399 € pro Monat" and onboarding "ab 1020 € pro Monat"
Founder-held ownership is a requirement — d.vinci's sovereignty attributes list founder-held ownership, while softgarden's list ownership as unknown
Choose softgarden if
You need documented applicant-data governance — six judges lean softgarden, 5.5 to 2.0, on German data-centre hosting at named providers WIIT AG (formerly myLoc) and Equinix Germany GmbH in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, a downloadable processing agreement and ISO 27001/27017/27018 certification
Sovereignty leads your shortlist — six judges lean softgarden, 7.3 to 3.2; its subprocessor exposure is listed as EU-only while d.vinci's is listed as US Cloud Act
AI screening control is a gate in your evaluation — five judges lean softgarden, 3.0 to 1.7 with one tie; the d.vinci verdict found no public information on what its career-page AI agent does, which provider runs it or whether it can be switched off
Your data protection officer or works council signs off on the purchase — their weighted totals are 4.6 to 2.8 and 4.1 to 2.5 for softgarden
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Employer Branding Manager
Owns the career page and the job-ad budget. Wants a career site that works on a phone, applications without an account, and cost per applicant per channel rather than a logo wall of job boards. Reads a pricing page for what a posting on StepStone actually adds to the bill.
d.vinci
softgarden
This judge calls it a tie.
Criterion by criterion
Applicant management & hiring workflow
d.vinci
Configurable workflows with role-based rights and multi-entity management of subsidiaries and branches are confirmed, with unlimited users — but only as feature bullets. We found no public information on scorecards, interview scheduling with calendar integration, templated candidate emails, or any per-candidate record of who decided what at each stage.
softgarden
An application overview with team communication, dashboards reporting time-to-hire and time-to-interview, and a system history logging access attempts and changes to records take this above a bare inbox. We found no public information on pipeline stages per job, structured scorecards, interview scheduling, or hiring-manager access limited to their own vacancies, so decisions beyond the change log are not documented on the captured pages.
Multiposting, career page & candidate experience
d.vinci
The career page is the best-evidenced part for my budget: stated 100% barrier-free accessibility, one-click translations, Google for Jobs optimization, and application via XING, LinkedIn or upload instead of an account. Multiposting promises access to over 500 job boards but names none — we found no public information on the Bundesagentur für Arbeit or a major German paid board, nor on booking, budget tracking or source attribution per applicant.
softgarden
Multiposting to more than 1,200 job boards plus social media and Google Ads, a career page in both packages, and per-ad analysis of conversion rates and entry channels give me a real channel view rather than pure broadcast. The captured pages name no individual German boards, and we found no public information on mobile application without an account, an accessibility statement, or booking and budget tracking per board from inside the system.
Retention, deletion & talent-pool consent
d.vinci
The privacy policy states storage is limited to purpose and statutory periods and names an external data protection officer, but that governs the vendor's own website. We found no public information on automatic deletion after a configurable deadline post-rejection, talent-pool consent with expiry, or a log of who viewed or exported an applicant file.
softgarden
Automatic deletion of applicant data configured by the employer to its own requirements, a recommended six-month retention period, a four-week SLA for data-subject requests, and a log of access attempts and changes to records form a defensible baseline. We found no public information on talent-pool consent or its expiry, retention rules per country, or candidate self-service for their own data.
AI screening transparency & control
d.vinci
Career pages are marketed with an integrated AI agent, and we found no public information on what it evaluates, where it runs, whether it can be disabled, or which provider supplies it. We also found no public information on any candidate ranking or matching feature, or any EU AI Act position — one unsourced AI bullet point is a works-council conversation waiting to happen.
softgarden
AI features are named — a screening assistant, an interview assistant, job-ad text creation and candidate matching — and sold with the assurance 'Transparent und ohne Blackbox'. That is a benefit description with a transparency slogan: we found no public information on the inputs each feature evaluates, a switch per feature, whether a human acts before any rejection, or the model provider used.
HR handover, integrations & API
d.vinci
Interfaces for connecting various partners and a Microsoft Teams integration for video interviews are listed, and the onboarding module collects documents via scan or photo upload. We found no public information on API documentation, webhooks, SSO, e-signature, or a handover to a named German HR or payroll system such as Personio or DATEV — partner interfaces without names tell me nothing about the retyping problem.
softgarden
The hire is carried forward by softgarden's own onboarding module through pre-boarding, re-boarding and offboarding, and a scheduling provider appears among the named subcontractors. We found no public information on a documented API, SSO, e-signature, or handover to any named HR or payroll system, so how a hire reaches an HR system like Personio or DATEV is not shown.
European sovereignty
d.vinci
The contracting entity is clearly German — d.vinci HR-Systems GmbH, Hamburg, registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg under HRB 93221, a family-owned company — and the privacy policy publishes subprocessors, though that list covers website tools and includes non-EU providers such as Dovetail in Australia and Figma on US servers. We found no public information on where the applicant-management data itself is hosted or where the AI agent processes anything.
softgarden
Applicant data is stated to be hosted in German data centres at named providers — WIIT, formerly myLoc, and Equinix in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf — under a Berlin contracting entity with a published register number, alongside a subcontractor list naming the parsing provider Textkernel, a downloadable and digitally signable data-processing agreement, ISO 27001/27017/27018 certification, and the statement that no third-country transfer of applicant data occurs. Ownership could not be confirmed in the independently sourced attributes, and a US Cloud Act caveat is flagged around the support tool Intercom — engaged via its Irish entity, with softgarden arguing it is not a subcontractor — which keeps this a notch below the top.
Pricing transparency
d.vinci
Module floors are public with the pricing basis named as employee count, unlimited users, postings and onboardings, and support included: Bewerbermanagement ab 785 € pro Monat, Karriereseiten ab 399 € pro Monat, Onboarding ab 1020 € pro Monat. But these are starting prices — implementation workshop costs are confirmed as additional without amounts, and we found no public information on minimum term, VAT treatment, or what a paid job-board posting adds to the bill.
softgarden
The Core package is publicly priced 'ab 199 € / Monat' with five included jobs, unlimited users, and VAT treatment given as 'Alle Preise zzgl. MwSt.' — more than a mere starting price. But the All-in-One package is 'Individuelle Preisgestaltung', and we found no public information on job-board posting costs, prices for the AI modules, or the minimum term, so a real annual invoice is not computable from the public pages; a brochure with all packages and prices is offered for download, but its contents are not shown on the captured pages.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
d.vinci
softgarden
Legal entity
Incorporated in DE
Incorporated in DE
Ownership
Founder-held
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
EU only
Subprocessors
US CLOUD Act reach
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.