Best 8 performance management software solutions for 2025
In 2025, performance reviews aren’t annual checkboxes. They’re continuous, integrated systems with the potential to engage employees, drive growth, and increase organizational alignment. Plus, companies that prioritize performance enablement are 4.2x more likely to outperform competitors.*
If your performance management process still relies on spreadsheets or basic HR tools, you’re likely wasting time and missing key insights. But performance management software can change that.
The best solutions unite reviews, feedback, and development in platforms that are easy and enjoyable for managers and reports. They reduce repetitive admin work, support valuable performance conversations, and make growth visible across the company.
In this guide, we review eight leading tools for performance management in 2025 — comparing pricing, features, and user experience to help you find a platform that fits your needs.
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*McKinsey & Co, 2025
The information below is based on our research in May and June 2025. All user feedback referenced in the text has been sourced from independent software review platforms such as G2 and Capterra in May and June 2025.
What to look for when you’re buying performance management software
Choosing a performance platform is about finding a system that fits how your teams work. The right tool should streamline your review cycles, help managers have more valuable performance conversations, and make growth measurable across roles and departments. Here’s what to prioritize:
Core functionality that aligns with your processes
Look for platforms that support the kind of reviews and goal-setting structures you already use — or want to move toward. Whether you run annual reviews, quarterly cycles, or project-based check-ins, you need the flexibility to map your real-world processes without manual workarounds. Bonus points if the tool also helps you build consistency across teams or departments.
Usability for employees & managers
If the platform isn’t intuitive, it won’t get used — especially by time-strapped managers. Look for clean interfaces, self-service capabilities, and minimal setup friction. Features like automated reminders, templates, and in-context feedback tools make it easier for people to engage without extra admin. The smoother the experience, the higher your adoption rate.
Customization & flexibility
Your org isn’t static, and your performance system shouldn’t be either. Tools that let you customize review templates, rating scales, competency frameworks, and workflows will grow with you. Flexibility is especially key if you operate across multiple teams, countries, or job functions with different needs and rhythms.
Analytics that drive decisions
You need more than completion rates. A strong platform should give you visibility into skill gaps, performance trends, and participation by team or demographic. Look for tools that make it easy to segment data, export reports, and use insights to inform promotions, development planning, or organizational strategy.
Modular setup
Start with what you need — and grow from there. Modular systems let you roll out core features (like reviews or goals) now and layer on learning paths, engagement surveys, or compensation planning later. This avoids bloated setups while allowing you to scale without switching tools.
Part of a wider HR & people enablement suite
Performance doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The best solutions connect feedback, goals, learning, and meetings in one flow — so employee development becomes a continuous cycle, not a one-off event. Integrated systems help People teams save time, make better decisions, and drive stronger business alignment.
1. Leapsome
Leapsome is an industry-leading people enablement and HR platform that supports an impactful 360° approach to performance management. The Reviews module is designed to help HR teams, managers, and employees alike — whether you’re rolling out your first review cycle or scaling structured development across your entire organization.
It also integrates with the rest of the Leapsome suite, like Instant Feedback, Learning, and Goals, so you can engage employees and invest in their growth within the same intelligent platform.
Main features
- Performance reviews: Develop and automate a custom performance evaluation cycle for your organization with best-practice templates and question banks. Plus, leverage built-in AI capabilities to share more meaningful, actionable feedback.
- Continuous feedback & recognition: Take the awkwardness out of feedback and foster a rich, communicative company culture. Prompt colleagues for feedback, connect it with company values, and recognize great work with a public praise wall.
- Learning & development: Create custom learning materials and assign them to employees, or use out-of-the-box courses from Leapsome’s curated content library, with courses from partners like Ethena, Lawpilots, and GoodHabitz.
- Competency frameworks: Build detailed development frameworks (in minutes with the help of AI) to define role-based expectations, provide a clear path for development, and assess skills fairly.
- Goal-setting & tracking: Establish and collaborate on individual, team, and company goals and OKRs, visualize dependencies in goal trees, and sync objectives with reviews and 1:1s.
- Surveys: Run any kind of survey, including engagement, onboarding, and pulse. Dig into employee sentiment and use built-in analytics to understand how to make your organization an enjoyable, rewarding workplace.
- 1:1 meetings & check-ins: Use templates and AI-powered summaries to support performance-focused 1:1s.
- Comprehensive HRIS: Connect every stage of the employee lifecycle with built-in HR tools for employee data management, absence management, time tracking, and payroll preparation.
Leapsome is a top performance management software solution because…
Leapsome goes beyond traditional performance reviews. Our platform combines continuous performance management capabilities with integrated feedback, learning, and goal-setting — helping companies drive real development, not just track it.
Granular customization options, powerful AI capabilities, and a modular setup make Leapsome an ideal fit for scaling orgs that want structure and adaptability. It’s especially valuable for lean People teams looking for a comprehensive performance management system (plus robust HRIS and people enablement features) that’ll evolve with them over time.
- Industry-leading performance management and people enablement platform
- Combines performance, learning, and engagement in one system
- Highly customizable templates and workflows
- Built-in people analytics and AI capabilities
- Clean interface that’s easy for managers and employees to use
- Works for hybrid, remote, or in-person teams
- Strong customer support and live onboarding resources
- Supports 38 languages
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- Some HRIS features are still in development
- The range of features can cause an initial learning curve
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“Leapsome is a great tool: it gives HR the power to be creative and offers many options to run processes exactly the way you want them to run.”
Marie-Claire Haag-Fundinger
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Leapsome is saving us lots of time during our performance appraisals and helps us build an open, value-oriented feedback culture. We’ve compared several platforms, and Leapsome stood out convincingly — it’s user-friendly, intuitive, and highly customizable. As a manager, I love how fast and openly the team at Leapsome reacts to our feedback and suggestions.
Dr. Christian Grobe
Leapsome enhances meaningful feedback and employee engagement. It’s a must-have for every company at any stage. We are growing toward 750 employees, but the rollout was easy, fast, and successful nonetheless. The great customer support helped us through the whole onboarding process.
Thore Schӓck
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With the help of the people analytics, you can quickly understand the significance of the results. We also frequently use the 1:1 function, which, although very simple, is extremely useful.
Erica Ancobia
We see the People team as a partner team rather than an admin team. We want to focus on our employees and not on processes. With Leapsome, we have automated the manual work around feedback and career development so that we can spend our time with our people: understanding their needs, guiding them through their very own DCMN lifecycle, and helping them find purpose in what they do.
Theresa Jasaraj
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Book a demo2. Lattice
Lattice is a performance management and engagement platform built to support fast-growing companies. It focuses heavily on performance reviews, continuous feedback, and goal-tracking, with features that are designed to help managers have more meaningful discussions and get aligned with team members.
Lattice now includes some core HRIS features, but its main strength lies in people management. It’s often used by companies with foundational HR systems that want to layer on performance-focused workflows.
Main features
- Performance reviews: Customizable review cycles with templates for 360° reviews, manager reviews, and self-assessments.
- 1:1s & feedback: Tools for 1:1 meetings, exchanging feedback, and recognizing wins across teams.
- Growth & development plans: Skill matrices and development frameworks with structured milestones.
- Goals & OKRs: Possible to set team and company goals, track progress, and connect objectives to performance.
- Surveys: Different kinds of surveys, like pulse and eNPS. Plus, you can segment results by team or location.
- People analytics: Granular insights across performance, engagement, and progress toward goals at both individual and group levels.
- Intuitive UI and modern design
- Strong templates and frameworks for reviews and feedback
- Solid manager tools for continuous performance conversations
- Built-in engagement surveys
- Integrates well with tools like Slack, Workday, and BambooHR
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- Some features, like goals, analytics, and dashboards, may feel clunky or limited without upgrades
- Less flexibility in customizations, custom workflows, and review structures
- May require multiple add-ons or bundles to match platform-level tools
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3. 15Five
15Five is a performance and engagement platform designed to help companies create high-performing, feedback-driven cultures. It’s best known for its check-in tools and continuous feedback model — ideal for orgs looking to move away from annual review cycles and build manager-employee alignment into everyday workflows.
While 15Five doesn’t offer core HR or learning tools, the platform’s strengths lie in building habits around coaching, feedback, and recognition.
Main features
- Performance reviews: Automated 360° feedback survey cycles complete with self, peer, and upward feedback.
- Recognition tools: Peers can appreciate and celebrate their colleagues with high-fives and public praise.
- Manager training: Built-in training resources and coaching frameworks.
- Engagement surveys: Engagement surveys, pulse surveys, manager effectiveness surveys, and more. Plus, an integrated Predictive Impact Model and built-in reporting and analytics.
- 1:1s & check-ins: Designed to help users get the most out of their meetings and focus on priorities, challenges, and progress with short, structured updates.
- Strong focus on manager-employee relationships
- Suitable for building habits of reflection and feedback
- Check-in tools support remote and distributed teams
- Science-based templates and coaching prompts
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- Limited customization for complex organizational structures
- Limited self-service options for employees
- May require an internal audit for company-wide feature adoption
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4. HiBob
HiBob (also known as Bob) is a modern HR platform that combines core HRIS capabilities with performance management and culture tools. While not a dedicated 360° feedback software, HiBob allows for peer reviews and 1:1 feedback inside performance cycles.
It’s especially popular with global companies that want a visually appealing, customizable platform that balances HR operations and the employee experience.
Main features
- Performance reviews: Structured performance management cycles with customizable templates and manager guidance.
- Continuous feedback: In-app feedback and shoutouts to encourage ongoing performance conversations.
- Goals & OKRs: OKRs and individual goals that can be linked to performance metrics.
- Surveys & engagement: Engagement surveys with dashboards to track sentiment trends.
- Org charts & employee records: Employee record management, org structure, and PTO management in one place.
- Custom workflows: Possible to build tailored processes for continuous performance management.
HiBob is a top performance management software solution because…
HiBob brings performance, feedback, and culture-building tools into a single, customizable platform. For global teams that want to integrate performance management into their broader HR workflows without sacrificing UX, HiBob is a practical option. Plus, the platform’s social-style interface makes it easy to collect peer-to-peer feedback during and outside review cycles. Just keep in mind that development paths and skill-building tools aren’t part of the core offering.
- Combines performance tools with HRIS functionality
- User-friendly interface and visually rich dashboards
- Custom workflows adapt to different company structures
- Global localization and compliance support
- Integrates with Slack, Microsoft Teams, and payroll platforms
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- Some performance features may feel lightweight
- Limitations for larger or more complex organizations
- Not focused on manager enablement or career pathing
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5. Culture Amp
Culture Amp is an employee experience platform known for its engagement, feedback, and culture-focused performance tools. While it’s not a full HRIS or learning platform, it provides structured performance review workflows and development frameworks prioritizing employee sentiment and inclusion.
It’s a strong fit for companies that value feedback culture, psychological safety, and DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging) in their performance strategy.
Main features
- Performance reviews: 360° reviews, plus granular automations, templates, and in-app prompts and reminders.
- Continuous feedback: Team members can exchange feedback anytime, not just during formal reviews.
- Employee development: Individual development plans (IDPs), skills tracking and coaching, and integrations with more robust learning platforms.
- Goal tracking: Possible to establish OKRs and SMART goals, plus progress tracking and team alignment features.
- Engagement surveys: Pulse and lifecycle surveys with prebuilt benchmarks and science-backed questions.
- Analytics dashboards: Data breakdowns across demographics and geographies, with predictive indicators of attrition risk or engagement drops.
Culture Amp is a top performance management software solution because…
Culture Amp prioritizes employee feedback and inclusion in every performance conversation. For companies focused on building a supportive culture and enriching the employee experience, Culture Amp might be a solid choice. That said, you may need to supplement with additional tools for learning, career development, or advanced goal frameworks.
- Strong integration between engagement and performance
- Emphasis on employee voice and inclusive practices
- Built-in survey science and benchmarking data
- Tools for self-reflection, peer reviews, and manager development
- Customizable review cycles and feedback templates
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- Limited flexibility in reporting, goal frameworks, and workflow automation
- No built-in learning or compensation tools
- Learning curve for 1:1 functionality
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6. PerformYard
PerformYard is a dedicated performance management platform built for organizations that want structure, consistency, and clarity in how they evaluate and develop employees. It focuses heavily on formal reviews, goal tracking, and documentation — making it a solid choice for companies in regulated industries or those with formalized HR processes.
Unlike the other broader platforms on this list, PerformYard doesn’t try to cover engagement or learning. It stays focused on structured performance management.
Main features
- Performance reviews: Annual, biannual, or rolling reviews tailored to departments or roles.
- Performance documentation: Centralized system for employee document management, like review and feedback records.
- Feedback workflows: Possible to facilitate continuous or scheduled feedback throughout the year.
- Goal tracking: Individual and team goals, progress tracking, and goal linking with cascading goals and/or alignment trees.
- 1:1s & check-ins: Managers and employees can create agendas, track notes, and follow up on action items.
- Compliance support: Locked review cycles, role-based access, data retention policies, change tracking, and encrypted storage.
PerformYard is a top performance management software solution because…
PerformYard brings order and consistency to performance reviews and goal tracking, especially for companies with compliance needs or formal HR processes. If your top priority is structured documentation and reliable workflows (and you don’t need engagement or development features), PerformYard is a focused, no-frills solution.
- Built specifically for structured performance management
- Strong documentation and compliance support
- Works well for regulated industries or audit-heavy environments
- Simple interface for managing review cycles and feedback
- Reliable customer support
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- Narrow platform — no engagement, learning, or compensation tools
- The goal-setting workflow can be cumbersome
- Limited analytics and reporting compared to broader platforms
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7. Deel
Deel is best known as a global payroll and compliance platform, but it has recently expanded its HRIS capabilities, including light performance management features. It’s especially relevant for distributed teams that manage international employees or contractors who need basic performance tracking baked into a global-first HR suite.
Performance tools aren’t Deel’s core strength, but they may be enough for teams already using the platform for other purposes.
Main features
- Performance reviews: Customizable review cycles, templates, cycle tracking, and reviewer assignment.
- Feedback: Employees and managers can request feedback from peers ad hoc.
- Goal-tracking: Employees and managers can set goals tied to broader team or organizational objectives and facilitate goal status updates.
- 1:1 check-ins: Built-in tools for regular manager-employee conversations, with space for agenda-setting and shared notes.
- Compensation alignment: Performance-linked compensation decisions and visibility controls.
- Contractor & international employee management: Compliant contracts in 150+ countries, flexible global payments, self-service portal, and Employer of Record (EOR) capabilities.
Deel is a top performance management software solution because…
Deel covers the essentials for performance tracking within a global HRIS. For small to mid-sized companies already using Deel for international hiring, it can simplify admin and centralize performance data. But if performance enablement is your focus, Deel is more of a supporting tool than a standalone solution.
- Ideal for global teams already using Deel for payroll or HR
- Consolidates core HR and performance data in one place
- Easy to roll out alongside existing Deel workflows
- Excellent compliance support
- Streamlined UI with minimal onboarding neededç
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- Basic performance management features compared to the other options on this list
- No support for learning paths, feedback culture, or engagement
- Not as suitable for organizations with international employees
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8. Rippling
Rippling is a unified platform that combines HR, IT, and finance workflows, with performance management offered as one of its modules. While performance isn’t its core focus, Rippling gives teams basic review and goal-tracking capabilities inside an all-in-one operating system for workforce management.
It’s best suited for organizations prioritizing integration and centralized control across departments, especially if HR and IT share responsibilities.
Main features
- Performance reviews: Customizable review cycles, cycle templates, timeline controls, eligibility filters, and calibration.
- Goal-setting & tracking: Multilevel goal-setting, goal alignment, goal visibility, progress tracking, and integration with performance reviews.
- Employee records & data sync: Unified employee profiles, document management, lifecycle management, and compliance and access control.
- Org-wide automations: Trigger-based automations based on events like new hires, promotions, or the end of a probation period.
- Reporting: Cross-functional visibility across HR, IT, finance, and performance, including prebuilt and custom reports, dynamic filtering, and automated schedules.
- Modular HR stack: Foundational module is the core HRIS, plus add-ons for payroll, benefits, time and attendance, recruiting (ATS), and more.
Rippling is a top performance management software because…
Rippling keeps performance reviews and goals tightly connected with the rest of your HR and IT systems. Adding performance management is a natural extension for companies that already use Rippling to manage employees, devices, and payroll, even if it’s not as robust as standalone platforms.
- Centralized system that reduces tool sprawl
- Strong automation capabilities for workflows and triggers
- Works well for scaling orgs that need multiple systems under one roof
- Performance data connects directly to HR and IT records
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- The performance module is less advanced than purpose-built tools
- Lacks engagement, learning, or development frameworks
- Setup complexity increases the more modules you have
- May require technical support for deep configuration
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Why customers love us
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Leapsome has been an absolute game-changer for me in terms of my professional growth and development. What I love best about Leapsome is how it has empowered me to take control of my career journey. The user-friendly interface and intuitive design of Leapsome have made it incredibly easy for me to navigate and utilize the platform.
Victor J.
Enterprise (1000+ employees)
Leapsome stands out as a best-in-class platform that seamlessly addresses a spectrum of organizational needs, excelling in performance management, employee engagement, OKRs, and learning. Its unparalleled strength lies in its deep integration with existing tools, effortlessly connecting with our HRIS, Slack, Calendar, and Jira.
Jamie S.
Mid-market (50-1000 employees)
Our company is new to Leapsome, but the onboarding has been fantastic. Our Leapsome contact has worked with us every step of the way to make sure that the review process will be easy on HR and all employees. He has walked us through the process step by step to create a review that will be ready to roll out pretty much immediately.
Karen H.
Mid-market (50-1000 employees)
Frequently Asked Questions
Common Pricing questions
The best solution depends on your company size, goals, and how formal and in-depth your processes are. For growing teams that want a customizable, all-in-one platform, Leapsome stands out — especially with features like AI performance management, modular setup, and integrated 360° feedback software.
Big tech firms often use performance management systems that can scale with complex team structures and global operations. Common choices include Leapsome, Lattice, Culture Amp, and Workday — depending on company preferences and priorities.
Performance management software helps companies run structured review processes, set and track goals, collect feedback, and support employee development over time. Platforms like Leapsome also include features for engagement surveys, compensation, 1:1 meetings, people analytics, and core HR processes to manage all aspects of the employee experience and lifecycle in one place.
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