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 Talent Acquisition Lead
Fills sixty roles a year across three locations with a team of two. Wants pipelines hiring managers actually use, scorecards that make a decision defensible, and multiposting that reaches the German boards without a separate login. Unmoved by a match score she cannot explain to a candidate.
d.vinci
softgarden
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Applicant management & hiring workflow
d.vinci
The pricing page evidences configurable workflows, roles and rights, and management of multiple entities and locations — that maps to my three sites — plus central applicant data and Teams video interviews. But I found no public information on structured scorecards, interview scheduling with calendar integration, or a per-candidate history of stage changes, and a hiring decision I cannot document is not one I can defend to a manager or a candidate.
softgarden
What the pages show is an applicant overview with team communication, dashboards with time-to-hire and time-to-interview, and a system history that logs access attempts and every change to records — that history is exactly what I want when a decision is contested. But we found no public information on structured scorecards, on hiring-manager access limited to their own vacancies, or on approval workflows for requisitions and offers, and process configuration is described only at a basic level in the Core package. That leaves a decision made but not documented the way I can defend it.
Multiposting, career page & candidate experience
d.vinci
Multiposting to over 500 job boards, Google for Jobs optimization, one-click translations, a career page the vendor calls '100% barrierefrei', and application via XING, LinkedIn or upload are all stated. The pages name no specific German board, so I cannot tell whether the Bundesagentur für Arbeit or the major German paid boards are included, and I found no public information on source attribution per applicant or how the application form behaves on a phone.
softgarden
Multiposting to more than 1,200 job boards plus social media and Google Ads, with conversion rates and entry channels analysed per advert, is real distribution muscle, and the career page is included in both tiers with SEO-optimised adverts. But the captured pages name no German board — we found no public information on the Bundesagentur für Arbeit or a major German paid board — and nothing on Google for Jobs markup, budget tracking per board, or a mobile application without an account. For filling sixty roles a year across German locations, the unnamed-board gap is the one that bites.
Retention, deletion & talent-pool consent
d.vinci
The privacy policy states data is kept only as long as the purpose or statutory retention periods require, with no transfer to third parties beyond stated purposes. I found no public information on automatic deletion after a configurable period following rejection, on talent-pool consent, or on a documented route to answer a candidate's access or erasure request — the liability the employer actually carries.
softgarden
Automated deletion of applicant data configurable to our requirements with a recommended six-month retention, a stated four-week answer time for data-subject requests, and a system history logging access attempts and record changes cover most of what I am actually liable for. We found no public information on talent-pool consent or its expiry, on candidate self-service for their own data, or on whether deletion runs are logged and how deletion propagates to backups and connected boards. The access logging pushes it above the middle of the scale; the silence on talent-pool consent holds it back.
AI screening transparency & control
d.vinci
An integrated AI agent is marketed for the career pages with no published statement of what it does, what it evaluates, where it runs, or whether it can be switched off. I found no public information on AI screening or matching in the applicant management itself; nothing published here could ground a works-council agreement about the agent.
softgarden
A KI Screening Assistant and candidate matching are marketed, with the use cases listed and the assurance that the AI is "transparent und ohne Blackbox" — but we found no public information on what the matching evaluates, whether each feature can be switched off, which model provider runs it, or where the processing happens. A match score I cannot explain to a candidate or a works council is precisely what these pages leave open, and the co-determination question stays unanswered.
HR handover, integrations & API
d.vinci
The pages mention interfaces for connecting diverse partners and a Microsoft Teams integration for video interviews. No HR or payroll system for the handover of a hire is named, and I found no public information on a documented API, SSO, e-signature, or any DACH HR system such as Personio or DATEV-connected tools — so as far as public evidence goes, my hires would be retyped.
softgarden
An onboarding module and an in-house media arm show the hire continues past the offer inside the vendor's own suite, and the terms of use name Textkernel and Cronofy among engaged subcompanies. But we found no public information on an API, on handover to any HR system common in DACH such as Personio or DATEV-connected systems, on SSO, or on e-signature for contracts — so the retyping risk into the HR system is not settled by anything published.
European sovereignty
d.vinci
The legal notice confirms a German contracting entity, d.vinci HR-Systems GmbH at Amtsgericht Hamburg under HRB 93221, and the privacy policy names website-side tools such as Google Analytics, Zendesk and Figma. I found no public information on where applicant data is hosted, on contract terms covering applicant data as the customer's processing, or on which subprocessors — the 500-plus job boards and the AI agent — receive candidate CVs.
softgarden
German hosting on named WIIT and Equinix data centres in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, a Berlin contracting entity with a German register number and VAT ID, a published subcompany list including Textkernel, a downloadable data-processing agreement, ISO 27001/27017/27018 and DEKRA certifications, and the statement that no third-country transfer of applicant data takes place — that is most of the chain evidenced. Two things hold it back: the collected sovereignty information flags a US Cloud Act exposure via the support tool Intercom, which softgarden engages through its Irish entity and says only handles support requesters' business email, and we found no public information on where the AI matching runs or which provider it uses.
Pricing transparency
d.vinci
Starting prices are public for all three modules — 'd.vinci Bewerbermanagement ab 785 € pro Monat', 'd.vinci Karriereseiten ab 399 € pro Monat', 'd.vinci Onboarding ab 1020 € pro Monat' — with employee count as the stated basis, unlimited users, postings and applications, and support included, which suits my small team. Only from-prices are published, and I found no public information on how the price scales with headcount, on job-board posting costs, on the amount of the implementation workshop fees, or on minimum term and VAT treatment.
softgarden
The Core tier is public at ab 199 € / Monat including five advertised jobs and unlimited users, VAT treatment is given as "Alle Preise zzgl. MwSt.", and a brochure with all packages, functions and prices is offered for download. But the All-in-One tier is "Individuelle Preisgestaltung", and we found no public information on job-board posting costs, prices for the AI modules or other add-ons, or the minimum term — so the real annual invoice is not computable from the pages alone.
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.