ChiefOnboarding vs HiBob
ChiefOnboarding and HiBob are both HR and payroll software. ChiefOnboarding is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 934 GitHub stars. HiBob is a commercial product from HiBob.
Which to pick
- Pick ChiefOnboarding when
- You hire regularly, use Slack, and want onboarding sequences without paying for an HR suite.
- Pick HiBob when
- A distributed tech or services company with a few hundred staff wants HR software employees like using.
Side by side
An employee onboarding platform that sends new hires tasks, resources and introductions through Slack or a web portal on a schedule.
HR platform (Bob) for midsize, often multi-country companies, with records, time off, performance, compensation and payroll in some countries.
Small project with essentially one maintainer, under AGPL.
Native payroll covers few countries, so many customers still need a separate payroll provider.
Usable
Production-ready
Self-hosted server and cloud service
Cloud service and mobile app
Python, Django and PostgreSQL
Not published
Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)
Closed source, sold by HiBob
Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
934 GitHub stars
847 Wikipedia readers a month on phones
Established: started 6 years ago, latest release v2.5.1.
Not known
Other comparisons
More HR and payroll software
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.