I am looking for HR software — where do I start?
Last updated: 22 August 2026
Start with your biggest bottleneck, not with a product. “HR software” is not a category but an umbrella term for at least seven kinds of system that barely overlap. A core HR system solves something entirely different from recruitment software or absence management. Start by comparing products and you often end up comparing things that cannot be compared.
From bottleneck to category
Find the line below that comes closest to your situation. If more than one rings true, start with the one your colleagues say most often.
| What you recognise | What you are probably after |
|---|---|
| Employee data is scattered across folders and spreadsheets | HRIS (core HR system) |
| Applications get lost in inboxes; candidates wait too long | ATS (recruitment software) |
| Payroll takes days every month, or goes wrong | Payroll |
| You want to hire someone in a country where you have no office | Employer of Record (EOR) |
| You do not know how your people are doing, or why they leave | Employee surveys or engagement |
| Absence files do not meet the Dutch Gatekeeper Act | Absence management software |
| Training is tracked in a spreadsheet | Learning & development (LMS) |
When you do not need new software
This is here because it is just as often the right answer. Below roughly ten employees, a spreadsheet plus a good payroll administrator usually solves more than a system does. It also pays to check whether your current vendor has a module you are not using yet — that saves you a whole selection process.
And if the real bottleneck is a working agreement rather than missing software, a new system changes nothing. An absence process that is wrong on its merits is still wrong in another product.
Review site or matchmaker?
Both exist, and they do different things. On a review site you search a catalogue of ratings yourself. That works well when you already know what you are after and want to see what users think of it.
A matchmaker turns the direction around. You describe your situation once — size, region, budget, requirements, which integrations you need — and get back the vendors that meet those criteria. The filtering moves from you to the system, and you do not have to explain who you are to every vendor again.
That is how OptioHR works. What it means for the order and the selection is set out in our methodology: a listing in the directory is free, comparison tables are alphabetical, and matching runs purely on the criteria from the intake. A paid subscription only changes how a vendor presents itself, never whether or where it appears.
What a good selection costs you in time
Count on a few weeks: pinning down the bottleneck, writing requirements, speaking to three to five vendors, sitting through demos and calling references. Most of that time goes into explaining your situation over and over. An intake takes that part away — the rest, the conversations and the judgement, stays human work.
Going further on your own
Prefer to read first? The knowledge base covers the selection steps per category, including checklists and what to ask in a demo. If you already know your category, go straight to the overview per category.
Or take the free intake. It takes about fifteen minutes and produces a reasoned shortlist. You are not committed to anything, and your details only go to a vendor once you agree to it yourself.