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 HR IT Integrator
Has to connect the ATS to the HR system, the calendar and identity. Wants a documented API, SSO that is not an enterprise upsell, and a hire that arrives in Personio or SAP with its documents rather than as a PDF someone retypes. Judges integrations by who maintains them.
d.vinci
softgarden
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Applicant management & hiring workflow
d.vinci
The pricing page states configurable workflows and roles/rights, management of multiple companies and branches, and application via XING, LinkedIn or upload, plus Microsoft Teams video interviews — more than a fixed pipeline. We found no public information on scorecards, structured evaluation, interview scheduling with calendars, templated emails, or any record of who changed a stage or decided a hire.
softgarden
The captured pages show an application overview with team communication, a dashboard with appointments, to-dos and KPIs including time-to-hire and time-to-interview, and a system history that logs access attempts and changing operations on records — that history is the closest thing to an audit trail here. We found no public information on structured scorecards, pipelines configured per job, hiring-manager access scoped to their own vacancies, or interview scheduling tied to calendars.
Multiposting, career page & candidate experience
d.vinci
Multiposting access to more than 500 job boards and Google for Jobs optimisation are stated, and the career page product is claimed "100% barrierefrei" with one-click translations into several languages. No German board is named — we found no mention of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit or any specific paid board — and no public information on source attribution per applicant, per-board booking and budgets, or candidates viewing their own status and withdrawing.
softgarden
Multiposting to more than 1,200 job boards plus social media and Google Ads is claimed, with a career page and SEO-optimised job ads in both packages, per-ad conversion and intake-channel analytics, and media competence from the 1.000jobboersen.de merger so booking sits inside the vendor's own offering. We found no public information naming German boards such as the Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Google for Jobs markup, cost per channel, or the mobile application experience.
Retention, deletion & talent-pool consent
d.vinci
The privacy policy states that personal data is stored only as long as the stated purposes or statutory retention periods require, and that no transfer to third parties beyond those purposes takes place. We found no public information on configurable automatic deletion after rejection, talent-pool consent, a documented route for access or erasure requests, or logging of who viewed or exported an applicant file.
softgarden
Automated deletion of applicant data configurable by the responsible party, with a recommended six-month retention, a system history logging access attempts and changing operations, a documented four-week data-subject-response obligation, a compliance contact and a downloadable DPA — that is real governance for what the employer is liable for. We found no public information on talent-pool consent with expiry, per-country retention rules, candidate self-service, or how deletion propagates to backups and job boards.
AI screening transparency & control
d.vinci
The only AI we found is an integrated AI agent on the career pages, described as a benefit with no statement of what it evaluates or answers, no per-feature switch and no provider named. We found no public information on AI matching, ranking or CV parsing of applicants, and no published EU AI Act position.
softgarden
AI use is stated for job ad texts, communication, candidate matching and process structuring, with named features including a screening assistant and interview assistant, and the vendor's claim is "Transparent und ohne Blackbox". That is a general transparency assurance: we found no public information on inputs, per-feature switches, the model provider, informing candidates, or a published EU AI Act position — and an unexplained score next to a candidate is exactly what a works council will ask about.
HR handover, integrations & API
d.vinci
The entire integration statement is "Schnittstellen für die Anbindung diverser Partner" — interfaces for connecting various partners — with not one partner named, no public API documentation, and no German HR or payroll system mentioned anywhere, so a hire reaching Personio or SAP arrives as retyping. The concrete integrations shown are Microsoft Teams video interviews and an onboarding module with scan and photo upload of documents; we found no public information on SSO, SCIM, e-signature or webhooks.
softgarden
The subprocessor list names Textkernel and Cronofy, so parsing and scheduling services exist in the chain, and an onboarding module is offered — but onboarding here is softgarden's own module, not a handover. We found no public information on a documented API, SSO, SCIM, e-signature, webhooks, or a handover to a named HR system such as Personio, DATEV-connected systems or SAP SuccessFactors, nor on who maintains any integration; for a hire arriving in the HR system with its documents rather than a retyped PDF, nothing here is evidenced.
European sovereignty
d.vinci
The contracting entity is German and evidenced: d.vinci HR-Systems GmbH, Hamburg, Amtsgericht Hamburg HRB 93221, with a data protection officer reached in Munich. Hosting location for applicant data is not stated, and the subprocessors named in the privacy policy are the vendor's own website tools — Google Analytics, Figma on AWS servers in the USA, Dovetail in Australia, Zendesk with its data centre in Frankfurt — while we found no public information on product-level subprocessors such as CV parsing, or on where the career-page AI agent processes.
softgarden
A German contracting entity with a Berlin register entry, hosting in named German datacenters (WIIT and Equinix Germany in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf), a published subprocessor list including Textkernel and Cronofy, a downloadable DPA, ISO 27001/27017/27018 certification, and the statement that no third-country transfer of applicant data takes place. The one caveat in the captured material is Intercom in the support chain, engaged via its Irish entity, where softgarden argues it acts as controller rather than subprocessor and only support requesters' business email addresses are shared; we found no public information naming the provider behind the AI features.
Pricing transparency
d.vinci
All three modules carry public starting prices — Bewerbermanagement "ab 785 € pro Monat", Karriereseiten "ab 399 € pro Monat", Onboarding "ab 1020 € pro Monat" — on an employee-count basis with unlimited users, postings, applications and onboardings, and support included. Implementation workshop costs are stated to apply but are not priced, and we found no public information on the employee-count scaling itself, job-board posting costs, minimum term or VAT treatment.
softgarden
Core is public at "ab 199 € / Monat" with five included jobs and unlimited users, and VAT is stated as "Alle Preise zzgl. MwSt." — but All-in-One is "Individuelle Preisgestaltung" tailored to hiring volume, so the top tier is a sales conversation. We found no public information on job-board posting costs, add-on prices for the AI or onboarding modules, or the minimum term, though a brochure claims to hold all packages, functions and prices.
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.