IceHrm vs Pingboard

IceHrm and Pingboard both sit in the HR technology space, but they cover different breadth. IceHrm is a full HR toolkit covering employee management, leave,…

Best for IceHrm: IceHrm fits organizations wanting a complete HR toolkit — leave, attendance, payroll reporting, performance reviews, and recruitment — in one system, and that want the flexibility to self-host for free, buy a one-time $2,499 Pro license, or go with managed IceHrm Cloud.
Best for Pingboard: Pingboard fits organizations, now within the Workleap ecosystem, that specifically want dynamic, auto-updating org charts and an employee directory with custom profiles, HRIS data sync, and engagement features like its 'Who's Who' game, starting at $149/month for 20 users.

At a Glance

 IceHrmPingboard
Primary categoryHRHR
RatingNot documentedNot documented
Pricing modelFreemiumSubscription
Starting priceFree$4/user/month (billed annually)
Free planYesNot documented
Free trialNot documentedNot documented
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb
Team collaborationNot documentedNot documented
AI featuresNot documentedNot documented
Public APIYesNot documented

Key Differences

Scope of HR Functionality

IceHrm: IceHrm covers employee management, leave management, time & attendance, payroll & reports, performance reviews, recruitment, and task management — a broad HR toolkit.

Pingboard: Pingboard focuses on org charts and an employee directory, with custom profiles, planning org charts for scenario work, and an interactive Who's Who engagement game.

A buyer needing payroll reporting or recruitment workflows will not find that functionality in Pingboard, while a buyer only needing org visualization may find IceHrm's broader toolkit unnecessary overhead.

Pricing Structure

IceHrm: IceHrm offers a free self-hosted open-source community edition, a $2,499 one-time IceHrmPro self-hosted license, and custom-priced IceHrm Cloud.

Pingboard: Pingboard's published Basic plan starts at $149/month for 20 users, with an Essential plan at $299/month for 50 users.

A one-time license cost behaves very differently in a budget than an ongoing per-month subscription, especially at scale.

Deployment Options

IceHrm: IceHrm offers a choice of self-hosted (free open-source or $2,499 one-time Pro) or fully managed cloud hosting with a 99.9% uptime SLA, automatic updates, and daily backups.

Pingboard: Pingboard's documented facts do not mention a self-hosted option; it operates as a cloud product, now as part of Workleap's suite.

Self-hosting options matter for organizations with data-residency requirements or that want to avoid recurring cloud subscription costs.

Company Status and Ecosystem

IceHrm: IceHrm is headquartered in Australia and states it is used in 150+ countries, operating as its own product.

Pingboard: Pingboard, founded in 2013 in Austin, Texas, was acquired by Workleap and now operates within Workleap's broader employee experience ecosystem, reportedly used by over 70,000 leaders worldwide across that suite.

Being part of a larger employee-experience suite can mean access to more integrated tools, but also means pricing and roadmap now reflect the parent company's strategy rather than a standalone vendor.

Employee Engagement Features

IceHrm: IceHrm's documented feature set does not include a specific engagement/team-building activity feature.

Pingboard: Pingboard includes a 'Who's Who' game, an interactive face-to-name matching activity designed for team engagement.

Lightweight engagement features can help distributed or growing teams put names to faces, which is a different goal than administrative HR record-keeping.

Feature-by-Feature

Core HR Operations

FeatureIceHrmPingboard
Employee data managementAvailableAvailable
Leave managementAvailableUnavailable
Time & attendance trackingAvailableUnavailable
Payroll reportsAvailableUnavailable
Performance reviewsAvailableUnavailable
Recruitment / applicant trackingAvailableUnavailable

Org Visualization & Directory

FeatureIceHrmPingboard
Dynamic auto-updating org chartsNot documentedAvailable
Employee directory with custom profilesNot documentedAvailable
Scenario/planning org chartsNot documentedAvailable
Team engagement activity (e.g. Who's Who)UnavailableAvailable
HRIS data sync / Excel importNot documentedAvailable

Deployment & Cost

FeatureIceHrmPingboard
Free self-hosted editionAvailableUnavailable
One-time license optionAvailableUnavailable
Published monthly subscription priceUnavailableAvailable
Mobile apps (iOS/Android)AvailableNot documented

Pricing Compared

Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.

IceHrm

Free — $0 Monthly
Cloud — From $12/month Monthly
Enterprise — Custom pricing Custom

Pingboard

Pingboard — $4/user/month billed annually ($5/user/month billed monthly) monthly or annual
Enterprise (250+ employees) — Custom (contact sales) annual

Pros & Cons

IceHrm

Pros

  • Genuinely free tier for teams of five or fewer employees
  • Open-source, self-hostable codebase gives full data control
  • Low per-employee cost on the cloud plan compared to most HRIS competitors
  • Covers the full HR lifecycle in one product, from attendance to payroll
  • No long-term contract commitments on cloud hosting plans

Cons

  • Interface and UX feel less polished than premium SaaS competitors like BambooHR
  • Self-hosted edition requires PHP/MySQL server administration skills
  • Limited third-party integration marketplace compared to larger HR platforms
  • Customer support is primarily email-based outside the Enterprise tier
  • Company size and financial backing are less established than major HR SaaS vendors

Pingboard

Pros

  • Org charts stay automatically up to date via HRIS integrations
  • Simple, affordable per-user pricing for smaller teams
  • Easy-to-navigate employee directory improves internal transparency
  • Onboarding tools help new hires ramp up faster
  • Now backed by Workleap's broader employee-experience product suite

Cons

  • Now bundled into Workleap's product ecosystem, which may add complexity for buyers wanting a standalone tool
  • Limited advanced analytics compared to full HRIS platforms
  • Enterprise pricing for 250+ employee organizations requires a custom sales conversation
  • Less brand recognition since the 2023 Workleap acquisition and rebrand
  • Primarily an org chart and directory tool, not a full HR system of record

Use Cases

Choose IceHrm: IceHrm fits organizations wanting a complete HR toolkit — leave, attendance, payroll reporting, performance reviews, and recruitment — in one system, and that want the flexibility to self-host for free, buy a one-time $2,499 Pro license, or go with managed IceHrm Cloud.
Choose Pingboard: Pingboard fits organizations, now within the Workleap ecosystem, that specifically want dynamic, auto-updating org charts and an employee directory with custom profiles, HRIS data sync, and engagement features like its 'Who's Who' game, starting at $149/month for 20 users.
Need both: A mid-sized company could run IceHrm as its core HR system of record for payroll reports, leave management, and recruitment, while using Pingboard specifically for its stronger org-chart visualization and employee-engagement features like the Who's Who game, syncing employee data from IceHrm into Pingboard via HRIS integration or Excel upload.

IceHrm

  • Affordable HRIS for Small Businesses — Small companies that have outgrown spreadsheets use IceHrm's Cloud plan to centralize attendance, leave and employee records without paying enterprise SaaS prices.
  • Self-Hosted HR for Data-Sensitive Organizations — Organizations with strict data residency or compliance requirements deploy the open-source edition on their own infrastructure to keep employee data fully in-house.
  • End-to-End Hiring and Onboarding — Growing teams use IceHrm's applicant tracking and performance review modules together to manage the full employee lifecycle from recruitment through review cycles.

Pingboard

  • Visualizing company structure — HR teams give employees a clear, always-current view of reporting lines and teams.
  • New hire onboarding — New employees use a self-serve directory to learn who's who and how teams are organized.
  • Scaling org charts accurately — Fast-growing companies keep org charts accurate automatically instead of manually updating slides.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does IceHrm's pricing compare to Pingboard's?

IceHrm offers a free self-hosted community edition, a $2,499 one-time IceHrmPro license, or custom-priced IceHrm Cloud. Pingboard publishes a Basic plan at $149/month for 20 users and an Essential plan at $299/month for 50 users, an ongoing subscription rather than a one-time cost.

Does IceHrm include org charts like Pingboard?

IceHrm's documented feature list does not include a dedicated org-chart tool; it focuses on employee management, leave, attendance, payroll, performance reviews, and recruitment. Pingboard's core product is specifically dynamic, auto-updating org charts and an employee directory.

Can Pingboard be self-hosted like IceHrm?

No. Pingboard's documented facts do not mention a self-hosted option; it operates as a cloud product within the Workleap suite. IceHrm offers a free open-source self-hosted edition in addition to cloud hosting.

Is Pingboard still an independent company?

No. Pingboard was acquired by Workleap and now operates as one of Workleap's employee experience products, though it still operates under the Pingboard name, per its own FAQ.

Which tool includes payroll functionality?

IceHrm includes payroll and reports as part of its documented feature set. Pingboard's documented facts do not mention payroll functionality; it is focused on org charts and employee directories.

Read the full IceHrm review · Read the full Pingboard review