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Recruiting

Firefish

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Firefish Software Ltd · www.firefishsoftware.com

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Firefish: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai Firefish: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai (dark)

Add ?theme=dark to the image address for dark backgrounds. The badge shows the category and the month of the latest evaluation, and EU-Made where that is the product’s provenance. It never shows a score.

Firefish at a glance

Vendor
Firefish Software Ltd
Headquarters
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026
Data hosting
Default not stated; pages mention Netherlands source, captured 3 Nov 2026
Free plan
Yes, per the vendor’s own page source, captured 3 Nov 2026
Panel verdict
The AI panel rates Firefish 2/5, the mean of 6 judges. Firefish Software Ltd is a recruitment CRM the vendor describes as built for UK recruitment agencies, supporting contract, temporary and permanent desks, with AI, automation and email sequencing. how scores are made
As of
Vendor pages captured 3 Nov 2026; evaluated by the panel 3 Nov 2026. all sources

Firefish alternatives, European ones first →

Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Employer Branding Manager

Weighted verdict

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.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Employer Branding Manager

Panel median The Employer Branding Manager This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.
Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion Panel median The Employer Branding Manager
Applicant management & hiring workflow 2 of 5 2 of 5
Multiposting, career page & candidate experience 2.5 of 5 2 of 5
Retention, deletion & talent-pool consent 1.5 of 5 1 of 5
AI screening transparency & control 3 of 5 3 of 5
HR handover, integrations & API 2 of 5 2 of 5
European sovereignty 2 of 5 2.5 of 5
Pricing transparency 0.5 of 5 1 of 5

Applicant management & hiring workflow

How this is scored

The daily work of hiring: pipeline stages per job, collaboration with hiring managers, structured evaluation, interview scheduling and candidate communication — judged on whether a decision is documented rather than merely made.

0 — Not an applicant tracking system; applications cannot be managed in the product.

3 — Applications collected per job with a status pipeline, notes or comments on each candidate, and email to candidates from the system.

5 — Configurable pipeline stages per job, hiring managers invited to rate or comment on candidates, and interview scheduling with calendar integration and email templates.

8 — Hiring-manager access limited to their own vacancies, structured scorecards or interview kits, approval workflows for requisitions and offers, bulk actions with automated but reviewable candidate communication, and a history on each candidate of every stage change and who made it.

10 — The pipeline is an auditable record of a fair process: every decision attributed and reasoned, evaluation criteria fixed before applications arrive, reporting on time-to-hire and drop-off per stage, and the full history exportable per candidate for an AGG dispute.

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The Employer Branding Manager

Applications arrive from Indeed and StepStone straight into the CRM with applicant status updates, and each desk manages shortlists, interviews and offers with candidate email synced in one place. We found no public information on configurable pipeline stages per job, hiring managers rating or commenting on candidates, or a history of who moved a candidate between stages. The Hiring Manager Portal is only an add-on module, with no detail published on what it lets managers do. 1 3 4 5

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Multiposting, career page & candidate experience

How this is scored

Getting a vacancy in front of the right people and letting them apply: job-board distribution for the German market, the career page, and an application process that does not lose candidates on a phone.

0 — Not a publishing tool for vacancies; the product neither hosts job ads nor sends them to job boards.

3 — A hosted job list or career page with an online application form, and postings to free job boards or aggregators.

5 — A branded career page, multiposting to several named job boards including at least one major board in the German market (StepStone, Indeed, the Bundesagentur für Arbeit or similar), and an application form that works on a phone.

8 — Multiposting with booking and budget tracking per board from inside the system, the Bundesagentur für Arbeit and Google for Jobs covered, source attribution per applicant, a career page in several languages with an embeddable widget, application without an account, and the form configurable per job.

10 — Distribution is measured, not only broadcast: cost and applicants per channel reported, the career page meets a stated accessibility standard, one-click or CV-parse application on mobile, and candidates can see their own status and withdraw themselves.

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The Employer Branding Manager

Multi-posting to StepStone boards in a few clicks plus the Indeed sync with Direct Apply, pre-screen questions on adverts and applicant source tracking cover the board side of my job well. We found no public information on a branded career page, an application form that works on a phone, application without an account, or cost and applicants reported per channel — so I can distribute but cannot measure what each channel earns. 5 6

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Retention, deletion & talent-pool consent

How this is scored

What happens to the data of people who were not hired: automatic deletion on a configurable deadline, talent-pool consent that expires, data-subject requests, and access logging — the criterion the employer is actually liable for.

0 — The vendor states that applicant data is kept with no means of deleting it, or the product holds no applicant data at all.

3 — Applicant records can be deleted or anonymised by hand, and GDPR compliance is stated for applicant data.

5 — Automatic deletion or anonymisation after a configurable period following rejection, and candidates asked for consent before they are kept in a talent pool.

8 — Retention rules per country or entity, talent-pool consent with expiry and automated re-consent requests, a documented way to answer access and erasure requests or candidate self-service, a log of who viewed or exported an applicant file, and permissions a works council can review.

10 — Governance that can be evidenced: deletion runs are logged and reportable, special-category data can be excluded or restricted by field, every export is recorded, and the vendor publishes how deletion propagates to backups and to the job boards and tools it syncs with.

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The Employer Branding Manager

A GDPR workflow triggers when new candidate data enters the CRM, automated communications are stated to be GDPR compliant, candidates manage their own preferences, and talent pools can even add candidates automatically with notifications. We found no public information on deletion or anonymisation of applicant records on a configurable deadline, consent expiry for the talent pool, or a log of who viewed an applicant's file — the things I am liable for. 4 6 7

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AI screening transparency & control

How this is scored

Whether any automated ranking, matching, parsing or rejection is disclosed, explained and switchable — recruitment is a high-risk use under the EU AI Act, and an undisclosed score next to a candidate's name is a co-determination matter (BetrVG §§ 94, 95). A product without AI features is judged on stating so.

0 — The vendor describes AI that rejects or ranks candidates automatically with no human step and no way to switch it off.

3 — AI features (CV parsing, matching, text drafting) described with what they do, and a statement that a human makes the hiring decision.

5 — Each AI feature described with its purpose, AI features optional or switchable per account, and either the model provider named or a statement that candidate data is not used to train models.

8 — AI outputs shown with their reasoning to the recruiter, the model provider named as a subprocessor, candidates informed when AI is used, protected attributes stated to be excluded, EU processing available for the AI features, and the vendor's EU AI Act position published.

10 — The vendor treats recruitment AI as the high-risk system the law says it is: documentation a works council can base an agreement on, bias testing described and repeated, logs of every AI-assisted decision retained for audit, and every AI feature off by default until the customer enables it.

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The Employer Branding Manager

The published AI policy names Microsoft Azure OpenAI as the provider, states candidate data is not used to train models, keeps processing in Firefish-controlled Azure environments, and puts human oversight over all decisions, with each agent's purpose described including the matching that ranks and scores candidates by percentage. We found no public information on the reasoning behind a match being shown to the recruiter, candidates being informed that AI is used, protected attributes being excluded, or AI features being switchable or off by default. 2 3 8 9

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HR handover, integrations & API

How this is scored

The hire does not end in the ATS: handover to the HR system and payroll, identity and calendar integration, e-signature for contracts, and an API a team can build on.

0 — A closed tool with no integrations, no API and no export.

3 — A CSV or Excel export of candidates, and a few named integrations such as email or calendar.

5 — Named integrations with calendar and video-interview tools, a handover of hired candidates to at least one named HR system, and a documented API or an integration platform such as Zapier.

8 — Maintained integrations with several named HR systems common in DACH (Personio, DATEV-connected systems, SAP SuccessFactors or similar) carrying the hire's data without retyping, SSO and SCIM, e-signature for offers and contracts, webhooks, and an API with published limits.

10 — Integration is designed rather than bolted on: a versioned API with a deprecation policy, handover that carries documents and consent status into the HR record, deletion that propagates to connected systems, and the vendor maintaining the German integrations itself.

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The Employer Branding Manager

An open API with its own documentation and terms, an integration marketplace spanning job boards, communications and pay-and-bill, and a route for third-party developers to connect are all documented. We found no public information on handover of hired candidates to a named HR system such as Personio or a DATEV-connected tool, calendar or video-interview integrations, e-signature for contracts, or single sign-on — the marketplace names categories, not the systems. 1 10 11

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where applicant data lives, who the contracting entity is, who the subprocessors are — including the job boards, CV parsers and AI providers the system passes CVs to. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; weighted higher here than in categories holding the customer's own data, because every record belongs to a third party who never chose the vendor. Dimensions the evidence does not establish are unknown, not non-European.

0 — Vendor, contracting entity and hosting all shown to be outside the EU, with no data processing agreement offered.

3 — A privacy policy and a data processing agreement offered, with hosting or the contracting entity outside the EU or not established.

5 — EU hosting stated and an EU contracting entity or EU representative, with a data processing agreement offered.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessor list published with locations including CV-parsing and AI providers, and a DPA that covers applicant data as the customer's processing.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: European ownership, entity, hosting and every subprocessor, certification published, and the AI and CV-parsing features run within the EU on providers the customer can see.

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The Employer Branding Manager

Hosting is stated as EU only on named Microsoft Azure regions in the Netherlands and Ireland, a Data Processing Agreement is published, and Microsoft Azure OpenAI is named for AI processing alongside a statement that no other third party processes data except on explicit request. We found no public information on the contracting entity's jurisdiction, and beyond Azure we found no published subprocessor list with locations. 2 7 8

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real annual cost from public pages alone: the pricing model (per employee, per open job, per recruiter seat), job-board posting costs, add-ons for AI, career page or integrations, and the minimum term.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A public "from" price, a free tier, or one priced tier, with the rest on request.

5 — Prices for each tier public with the billing period (per month or per year) and the pricing basis (employees, jobs or seats).

8 — Every tier priced publicly with its basis and limits, add-on prices listed, job-board posting costs or the booking model stated, minimum term and VAT treatment given.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given company size, number of open roles and recruiter seats, with every add-on, posting package and overage published.

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The Employer Branding Manager

The plan names Basic, Professional and Enterprise appear publicly and the StepStone integration is stated to be 'free to all Firefish customers on Basic, Professional or Enterprise packages', with talent pools gated to an upgrade to Professional. No price, billing period, per-seat or per-job basis, or minimum term is published anywhere we read, so I cannot compute an annual cost, and nothing says what a StepStone posting itself adds to the bill beyond that free integration. 1 6 7

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 6 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Hosting location Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Hosting options Not determined — uncited Report an error
Open source Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data processing agreement Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Transfer impact assessment Not determined — uncited Report an error

Questions about Firefish

Is Firefish European?

Not determined: the vendor’s pages as captured do not say where Firefish is based.

Where does Firefish store data?

The default storage location for customer data is not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026. The vendor’s pages mention Netherlands as hosting location, per the vendor’s page captured 3 Nov 2026.

Does Firefish have a free plan?

Yes. Firefish has a free plan, per the vendor’s page captured 3 Nov 2026.

What are the best alternatives to Firefish?

As of 3 Nov 2026, the panel rates Recruitee (3.5/5), Pinpoint (3.5/5) and softgarden (3.5/5) highest among the other 31 Recruiting products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is Recruitee (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: Firefish alternatives.

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (11)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor page www.firefishsoftware.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Security / trust page — found from the homepage www.firefishsoftware.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Applicant management & hiring workflow — found from sitemap www.firefishsoftware.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Applicant management & hiring workflow — found from sitemap www.firefishsoftware.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Multiposting, career page & candidate experience — found from sitemap www.firefishsoftware.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Multiposting, career page & candidate experience — found from sitemap www.firefishsoftware.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Retention, deletion & talent-pool consent — found from sitemap www.firefishsoftware.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  8. 8 AI screening transparency & control — found from sitemap www.firefishsoftware.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  9. 9 AI screening transparency & control — found from sitemap www.firefishsoftware.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  10. 10 HR handover, integrations & API — found from sitemap www.firefishsoftware.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  11. 11 HR handover, integrations & API — found from sitemap www.firefishsoftware.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →