ChiefOnboarding vs HRMS
ChiefOnboarding and HRMS are both HR and payroll software. ChiefOnboarding is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 934 GitHub stars. HRMS is open source under GPL-3.0, with 9k GitHub stars.
Which to pick
- Pick ChiefOnboarding when
- You hire regularly, use Slack, and want onboarding sequences without paying for an HR suite.
- Pick HRMS when
- A small or mid-size business wants open-source HR and payroll, especially alongside ERPNext.
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 and payroll on the Frappe framework covering employee lifecycle, leave, attendance, expense claims, appraisals, recruitment, payroll and tax, with a mobile app.
Small project with essentially one maintainer, under AGPL.
Payroll needs local tax rules configured for your country, and self-hosting means running Frappe.
Usable
Production-ready
Self-hosted server and cloud service
Self-hosted server, cloud service and mobile app
Python, Django and PostgreSQL
Python, Frappe, Vue and MariaDB
Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)
Open source, GPL-3.0 (strong copyleft)
Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.
Use inside your business is unrestricted, but anything you distribute that includes it must be released under the same license.
934 GitHub stars
9k GitHub stars
Established: started 6 years ago, latest release v2.5.1.
Established: started 4 years ago, latest release v16.53.0.
Other comparisons
More HR and payroll software
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from each project's README and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.