Recruiting & Applicant Tracking

For the broader HRIS see HR & HRMS. For interview scheduling specifically see Appointment Booking or Calendars.

Open source / self-host ATS

• ★ OpenCATS — long-running OSS ATS; PHP; LGPL. The default if you want a free self-hosted ATS today. UX is dated but functional.
• ★ Frappe HR Recruitment — recruitment module of Frappe HR; Kanban-style pipeline, candidate portal; pairs with ERPNext. GPLv3.
• ERPNext Recruitment — same module, surfaced through ERPNext.
• Hire (by Gohire / community forks) — newer, lighter alternatives surfacing in 2025–26; vet activity.
• Odoo Recruitment — solid, but the good features (auto-screening, source analytics) sit in Enterprise.

Hosted (free tiers)

• ★ Zoho Recruit Free — single recruiter, decent feature set; the most usable genuinely-free hosted ATS.
• Workable — free trial only (15 days); strong product.
• Recruitee — free trial; modern UI.
• Manatal — free trial; AI-flavored sourcing.

Modern / startup-flavored (paid)

• ★ Ashby — modern, analytics-first; the strong 2024–26 startup pick; paid.
• ★ Greenhouse — incumbent for mid-market; structured hiring opinionated; paid.
• Lever — competitor to Greenhouse; paid.
• Workday Recruiting — enterprise; paid.
• Pinpoint — UK-flavored; paid.
• Polymer — newer; paid.
• Paraform — recruiter-marketplace + ATS; paid.

Sourcing / candidate research

• LinkedIn Recruiter — incumbent for outbound sourcing; paid.
• Hiretual / hireEZ — AI sourcing; paid.
• SeekOut — sourcing + diversity analytics; paid.
• AmazingHiring — engineering-focused.
• Gem — sourcing CRM that sits on top of LinkedIn / Greenhouse; paid.

Interview scheduling

• ★ Cal.com — free / OSS; collective + round-robin events fit recruiting. See Calendars.
• GoodTime, Modernloop, Prelude — recruiting-specific scheduling; paid; integrate with Greenhouse / Lever / Ashby.
• Calendly — works for simple cases; paid above small free tier.

Assessments / take-home tests

• CodeSignal, HackerRank, Coderbyte — coding assessments; paid.
• Codility — same niche.
• Karat — interview-as-a-service.
• TestGorilla — broader skill assessments; free trial.
• Roll your own — a public GitHub repo with the take-home + a deadline is fine for most engineering roles.

Reference / background checks

• Checkr — modern API; see Compliance.
• HireRight — incumbent.
• Searchbug, Sterling — alternatives.
• Crosschq — automated reference checks.

Job board distribution

• LinkedIn Jobs, Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter — incumbents.
• WeWorkRemotely, RemoteOK, Hacker News "Who is Hiring" — remote / dev focused.
• AngelList Talent / Wellfound — startup-focused.
• Most ATSes auto-distribute to the major boards.

Pick this if…

• Default OSS ATS: OpenCATS or Frappe HR Recruitment.
• Free hosted, very small team: Zoho Recruit Free.
• Modern startup, paying: Ashby.
• Mid-market, structured hiring: Greenhouse.
• Engineering team, just need a Notion + form: skip an ATS until you're hiring more than ~5 people / quarter.