In the computed table, HRworks leads payroll readiness (5.5 vs 3.7; six judges lean HRworks, none Personalwolke), recruiting and onboarding (4.3 vs 0.0; six to none), employee data governance (4.5 vs 3.0; six to none), sovereignty (5.7 vs 4.0; six to none) and core HR records (4.0 vs 3.2; five to none, one tie). Time and absence is the most contested: 6.2 vs 5.7, two judges leaning HRworks and four tying. Personalwolke's lead is pricing transparency (1.7 vs 0.5; four judges lean Personalwolke, two tie): published prices exist for Personalwolke, while HRworks publishes no prices and pricing was not weighted in HRworks's verdicts. Per-judge weighted totals favor HRworks, from The IT Integrator's 4.8 vs 2.6 to The Payroll Officer's 5.6 vs 3.5. Both list EU-only data residency and US Cloud Act subprocessor exposure; HRworks's legal entity jurisdiction is DE, Personalwolke's is AT. We found no published verdict summary for Personalwolke.
Choose HRworks if
You run payroll through DATEV and want a partner interface — six judges lean HRworks on payroll readiness (5.5 vs 3.7), and its verdict names DATEV as a partner.
You need recruiting and onboarding inside the same HR suite — six judges lean HRworks on recruiting and onboarding (4.3 vs 0.0).
Your data protection officer prioritizes employee data governance — six judges lean HRworks (4.5 vs 3.0).
You require a German legal entity — HRworks's legal entity jurisdiction is DE, and six judges lean HRworks on sovereignty (5.7 vs 4.0).
You need smartphone time capture with breaks, overtime and minus hours — HRworks's verdict evidences these, and time and absence stands at 6.2 vs 5.7 (two lean HRworks, four tie).
Choose Personalwolke if
You need published prices before talking to sales — four judges lean Personalwolke on pricing transparency (1.7 vs 0.5), and published prices exist for Personalwolke.
You require an Austrian legal entity — Personalwolke's legal entity jurisdiction is AT.
Time and absence is your main requirement and you would let price decide a tie — four judges tie the two there (5.7 vs 6.2), and Personalwolke holds the pricing transparency lean.
You want EU-only data residency together with published prices — Personalwolke lists data residency as EU-only and publishes prices.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Works Council Advocate
Sits on the Betriebsrat and has to approve this rollout under BetrVG §87. Reads every feature for whether it can monitor behaviour, and asks what is logged, who can read it and what can be switched off. A tool that cannot answer those questions does not get installed, however good it is.
HRworks
This judge's pick
Personalwolke
Criterion by criterion
Digital personnel file & data model
HRworks
A digital personnel file holding "sämtliche Personaldaten und Dokumente" with configurable roles and need-to-know access is confirmed, and pay-transparency requirements are said to be implemented in software. But the evidence evidences no org chart, no custom fields and no dated history of contract or compensation changes, so it sits between the flat-structure and full-file anchors.
Personalwolke
A 'digitale Personalakte' and Personalverwaltung are named, but the evidence says nothing about org structure, custom fields, or dated change history on contract and salary — I cannot co-determine a file whose audit trail and field permissions are undocumented. Vacation aliquotation for entry, part-time and exit hints at some date awareness, but that is entitlement maths, not record history.
Payroll handoff
HRworks
DATEV "Corporate und Schnittstellen Partner" status plus ADDISON as a named partner, with a Payroll module in the base suite, is a vendor-maintained named integration beyond a generic export. The evidence is silent on variable pay, absences, mid-month joiners/leavers and any pre-payroll check, so it cannot reach the certified-integration anchor.
Personalwolke
A 'Schnittstelle Lohn/Gehalt' exists as an option and 'vorbereitende Lohnabrechnung' plus the travel module's Lohnverrechnungsanbindung show a handoff is intended — but no payroll system is named anywhere, no format is defined, and mid-month joiners/leavers and a pre-payroll check are unaddressed. That is above a bare CSV export, below a named integration.
Absence & working-time
HRworks
Working-time capture via smartphone or stationary system, transparency over breaks, overtime and minus hours, monthly overviews, vacation and sick leave, and an explicit "automatisch EuGH- und DSGVO-konform dokumentiert" claim meet the recording duty at a basic level. But "Kontrolle der Soll- und Ist-Stunden" by Vorgesetzte is a monitoring capability with no evidence of configurable monitoring limits, tamper-evident records, holiday calendars or a labour-inspection export — the §87 questions go unanswered.
Personalwolke
Vacation management in days and hours with proration for Eintritt, Teilzeit, Austritt and Karenz, approval workflows, and 'komplexe Zeitwirtschaft inkl. Berechnung' with terminal support go beyond the basics. But the evidence is silent on break and rest-period rules, overtime accounts, tamper-evidence and — my question — any works-council-configurable monitoring limits; a start/stop function is not documented compliance with the BAG/ArbZG recording duty, and live project-time bookings raise exactly the monitoring questions nobody answered.
Recruiting & onboarding
HRworks
"Bewerbermanagement von A bis Z", a jobs portal in corporate design, AI job-ad drafts and onboarding document collection are confirmed. The evidence gives no evidence of structured stages, rejection handling, GDPR applicant retention and deletion, or a candidate-to-employee handover without re-entry, so it stays below the anchor-5 flow.
Personalwolke
Nothing: the module list is Time, Travel, Project Time and HR-Expert, and nowhere in the evidence is there an applicant list, a careers page, an onboarding checklist or any trace of a join path. Hiring evidently lives outside this product.
Employee data protection & co-determination
HRworks
A Bitkom Consult audit confirming GDPR compliance, ISO 27001, DPA and TOM on request, need-to-know roles, logged inputs and logins, and a privacy mode for service requests are more than a procurement checklist. But no retention periods are stated, deletion is never shown as executable, the audit log records inputs and logins rather than who read what, and nothing documents that Personalcontrolling analytics can be switched off — I could not pass this through a works council vote on these pages alone.
Personalwolke
The DPA is available 'auf Anfrage' only — precisely the anchor-3 situation — and beyond SSL and Google-Authenticator 2FA the evidence offers no role model, no retention or deletion rules, no audit log of who read what, and no way shown to switch monitoring or reporting features off. That the vendor's own privacy policy runs Hotjar for 'Verhaltensdaten' with pseudonymised user profiles tells me behaviour analysis is in their culture even if it is not in the product.
European sovereignty
HRworks
HRworks GmbH in Freiburg (HRB 5406) with German Sitz und Gerichtsstand, EU server location as standard and AWS named as the hosting provider is a solid EU answer. The subprocessor list is entirely absent — the buyer knows the data centre but not the chain behind it.
Personalwolke
An Austrian GmbH in the Firmenbuch and a server 'in Österreich und damit innerhalb der EU' are genuinely solid and better than most. But the subprocessor disclosure stops at two website analytics tools, names no data-centre provider or product-side processor chain, and leaves Hotjar in the chain without an explained safeguard — for a §87 assessment I cannot verify where personnel data actually flows, so this sits just below the standard baseline.
Pricing transparency
HRworks
The pricing page shows no numbers at all — "Erhalten Sie Ihr passendes Angebot" — with an HR WORKS Pro tier described but unpriced. A claim of "transparente Preise ohne Mindestlaufzeiten" and a free trial exist, but no per-employee price is public, so an HR lead cannot compute any part of the invoice from these pages.
Personalwolke
The pricing page states a model — module- and user-based monthly rent, a one-time setup fee, multi-module and loyalty discounts, 30-day trial — but not a single euro figure for any tier or module, and the setup fee amount is unstated. No HR lead can compute the annual invoice from these pages; the price is a sales conversation.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
HRworks
Personalwolke
Legal entity
Not determined
Incorporated in AT
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
EU only
Not determined
Subprocessors
Not determined
EU only
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.