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Open-source Workable alternative for teams that want their data back

Looking for an open-source or self-hosted Workable alternative? What Workable does that Vekt doesn't, what changes when you self-host, and who should stay.

By 10 min readworkable-alternativeself-hostedcomparison

If you are searching for an open-source Workable alternative, start with one fact: Workable is a hosted product only, so there is no Workable you can run on your own servers. The choice is between renting a broad recruiting and HR suite, and running a smaller ATS yourself, on hardware you pick. This guide sets out that trade honestly, from the people who build Vekt, an open-source recruiting platform you host yourself.

We read Workable’s own pricing page, features page, home page, Workable Agent page and security and data privacy article on 6 November 2026. Every Workable fact below comes from one of those pages, and every Vekt fact from its repository.

The short answer

  • Stay on Workable if you want recruiting and HR in one subscription, post to many job boards, run video interviews and assessments, and want an AI agent that sources passive candidates for you. Vekt does none of that today.
  • Consider self-hosting if you hire a few roles at a time, want candidate data on infrastructure you choose, want to pick (or run) the model that reads CVs, and want code you can read and change under the MIT licence.

What Workable is

Workable is a hosted recruiting platform that has grown into a recruiting and HR suite. Its home page says it is “Trusted by 35,000+ teams worldwide”.

The pricing page lists three plans with public prices: Standard at $299 a month ($3,588 a year), Premier at $599 a month ($7,188 a year) and Enterprise at $719 a month ($8,628 a year). Each plan has a company-size selector running from 1–20 to 1000+ employees, and the page doesn’t say which size the listed prices apply to, so check the figure for your own headcount. Plans bundle recruiting and HR (“Bundle recruiting and HR to save up to 20%”). On Standard, texting, video interviews and assessments are paid add-ons; Premier includes them. There is a 15-day free trial.

The feature list is long. Every plan includes posting to 200+ job boards, a careers page builder, a talent CRM, candidate self-scheduling with calendar sync, interview kits and scorecards, a reporting suite, a mobile app, GDPR tools, API access and data export, plus HR features such as onboarding, time off and an employee directory.

Workable’s AI is called Workable Agent. According to its Agent page, it sources from “400M+ profiles”, sends outreach, chats with candidates and scores CVs and answers against job criteria. Workable says recruiters “still own the relationship and the final call”, that reviewers can “Review, override or reject any decision instantly”, that “protected characteristics are excluded by design”, and that admins can “Disable the Agent across your entire account at any time”. The same page also says “Obvious no’s filtered automatically”. AI use is billed in credits: the pricing page says every plan includes 3,000 free credits, with packs from $600 for 5,000.

Workable also takes data protection seriously. Its security article lists ISO 27001, ISO 27017, SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3, describes retention periods “that trigger the automatic deletion of candidates once the retention period has expired”, and a consent checkbox on application forms.

What Workable does that Vekt doesn’t

Workable is a much bigger product. Before you consider leaving it, know exactly what you would lose. Vekt has none of the following today:

  • HR. Onboarding, time off, time tracking, an employee directory, e-signatures and payroll preparation are all in Workable’s plans. Vekt is an ATS only.
  • Job-board distribution. Workable posts one job to 200+ free and premium boards. Vekt publishes jobs on its own careers page.
  • Sourcing. Workable’s talent CRM, passive candidate sourcing and the Agent’s 400M+ profile search find people who haven’t applied. Vekt only works with candidates who apply.
  • Interview scheduling, kits and scorecards. Workable has candidate self-scheduling with calendar sync, plus interview kits and scorecards. Vekt structures the application (screening questions, an AI-ranked reading order) but not the interviews after it.
  • Video interviews, assessments and texting. One-way video interviews, “science-backed assessments” and texting are in Premier or available as add-ons. Vekt has none of them; it sends candidates email.
  • Reporting. Workable has pre-built reports, a custom report builder and scheduled report emails. Vekt shows applications per job sorted by score and records job page views.
  • Integrations. Workable’s features page cites “270+ partners and integrations” and an API; its home page mentions an MCP server. Vekt has a documented REST API (Swagger UI at /api-docs) and no ready-made integrations.
  • Mobile app and SSO. Workable has iOS and Android apps and single sign-on. Vekt runs in the browser, signs users in with email and password, and has two roles, admin and recruiter.
  • Certifications, support and a vendor. Workable lists four security certifications and 24/7 support. Vekt is a young open-source project with no certifications and no support contract.

What changes when you self-host instead

Self-hosting moves both control and work to you. With Vekt, specifically:

Where the data lives. Workable’s security article says it runs on “top-level cloud providers (Google and AWS)”; it doesn’t name regions on that page. With Vekt, the SQLite database and uploaded CVs sit in the db-data and uploads Docker volumes on a server you choose. Candidate data stays on your servers when scoring runs on a local model through Ollama; if you choose OpenAI or OpenRouter, the redacted CV text goes to that provider, and candidate emails are sent through Resend.

Which model reads the CV. Workable doesn’t name the model behind its Agent and says it is “developing our own in-house models”. In Vekt you set AI_PROVIDER to openai, openrouter, ollama or mock (the default) and pin the model in .env. Before any model sees a CV, Vekt strips the name, email, phone, URLs, date of birth and declared personal attributes. Each evaluation stores the provider, model, prompt hash and evaluator version, so you can tell later which model produced a score.

How AI affects decisions. In Vekt, a candidate below the score threshold is marked needs review, not rejected, and gets no email until a recruiter decides. Automatic rejection exists only as an admin opt-in (AUTO_REJECT_BELOW_THRESHOLD). Status emails wait 48 hours by default and are cancelled if a recruiter changes the decision in that window. The scores are a reading order, not a measurement: they are uncalibrated and have never been tested against hiring outcomes. We explain why in what Vekt’s AI can’t do.

Your data, literally. Workable says its AI “tools are trained using implicit or explicit feedback from daily user interactions” and that it aims to use customers’ data to improve its in-house models, while keeping that data inside the company. With a self-hosted Vekt and a local model, nobody outside your organisation sees the CVs or your recruiters’ decisions, and there is no vendor model learning from them.

Retention. Both tools delete candidates automatically after a retention period. In Vekt the admin sets RETENTION_DAYS and a daily job at 02:00 UTC deletes candidates and their CV files once it has passed.

Cost. The software is free under the MIT licence, with no per-seat, per-employee or per-credit pricing. You pay for a server, the hours to run it, and the AI provider’s usage if you don’t use a local model. With Workable you pay a subscription, plus credits for the Agent, and the vendor runs everything.

Your new jobs. Updates, backups of the two volumes, HTTPS and keeping secrets in .env are on you; our Docker Compose tutorial walks through them. Self-hosting also doesn’t make your hiring lawful by itself: your privacy notice, lawful basis and answers to candidate requests remain your organisation’s work.

Feature comparison

Built only from the Workable pages listed above and the Vekt repository, checked 6 November 2026.

Workable Vekt
Hosting Vendor cloud (Google and AWS) Your server, Docker Compose
Licence and source Proprietary MIT, source on GitHub
Pricing Public plans: $299, $599, $719 a month (size selector; see page) Free software; you pay hosting and any AI provider
HR features Onboarding, time off, directory, payroll prep None
Job posting Careers page builder, 200+ job boards Own careers page with readable job URLs
Screening questions on apply Not mentioned on the pages we opened Single- and multiple-choice, per job
AI CV screening Workable Agent, “protected characteristics are excluded by design” Yes, with direct identifiers removed first
Choice of AI model Not offered on the pages we opened; Agent can be disabled OpenAI, OpenRouter or a local model via Ollama
Low AI score “Obvious no’s filtered automatically”; humans can override Marked needs review; auto-reject only as an opt-in
AI pricing Credits (3,000 included, packs from $600) Your provider’s usage, or your own hardware
Sourcing and CRM Yes, 400M+ profiles No
Interview scheduling Candidate self-scheduling, calendar sync No
Interview kits and scorecards Yes No
Video interviews, assessments, texting Yes (add-ons on Standard) No
Reporting Pre-built and custom reports Applications per job, job page views
Integrations 270+ partners and integrations, API REST API, no ready-made integrations
SSO and mobile app Yes No
Automatic data deletion Retention periods with automatic deletion Daily purge after RETENTION_DAYS
Certifications ISO 27001, ISO 27017, SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3 None

“Not mentioned on the pages we opened” means exactly that: the feature may exist in Workable, but we only list what we could link to.

Who should stay on Workable

  • Small companies that want hiring and HR in one tool, with nobody to run a server.
  • Teams that rely on job-board reach, sourcing and the Agent’s outreach to fill roles.
  • Hiring processes built around video interviews, assessments, self-scheduling and scorecards.
  • Anyone who needs SSO, certifications, a mobile app and 24/7 support from day one.

For those teams, moving to any self-hosted ATS would be a step backwards today.

Who self-hosting suits

  • Teams hiring a handful of roles at a time, for whom a full recruiting-and-HR bundle is more than they use.
  • EU teams that want candidate data on infrastructure they choose, with a local model so CVs never leave it.
  • Teams that want AI to suggest a reading order while a person makes every rejection.
  • Developers who want to change the hiring logic itself. Vekt is a TypeScript codebase; see our open-source page.

Comparing open-source options rather than Workable? Our open-source ATS comparison covers nine projects, including where another one fits better. If you are also weighing Greenhouse, see our self-hosted Greenhouse alternative guide.

Try it next to Workable for a week

Workable’s 15-day trial and a local Vekt install can run side by side. The Vekt README offers a one-line setup that downloads the files, generates secrets, asks for admin credentials and starts the app and Inngest with Docker:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Behnoudmst/vekt/main/setup.sh | bash

It needs Docker with Compose v2 and openssl. The default AI_PROVIDER is mock, so no CV leaves the machine until you choose a provider. To keep scoring local, point it at Ollama in .env:

AI_PROVIDER="ollama"
OLLAMA_BASE_URL="http://localhost:11434"
OLLAMA_MODEL="llama3.2"

Post one real job in both, and write down what you miss in Vekt during the week. If the list is short, self-hosting may fit; if it includes job boards, scheduling and HR, stay. More on what the platform covers is on the Vekt home page.

FAQ

Can you self-host Workable?

No. Workable is a hosted service; its security article says it runs on Google and AWS cloud infrastructure. To run an ATS on your own servers you need a different product.

Is there an open-source alternative to Workable?

There are several open-source ATS projects, including OpenCATS, FreeATS and Vekt, and HR suites such as Horilla and OrangeHRM include recruitment. None matches Workable’s recruiting-plus-HR bundle feature for feature; our comparison shows what each covers.

How much does Workable cost?

Workable’s pricing page lists Standard at $299 a month, Premier at $599 and Enterprise at $719, with a company-size selector, and AI Agent usage billed in credits beyond the 3,000 included. Check the page for your headcount, as it doesn’t say which size the listed prices are for.

Does Vekt include HR features like Workable?

No. Vekt is an applicant tracking system: jobs, a careers page, applications with screening questions, AI-ranked review, and candidate emails. Onboarding, time off and payroll are out of scope.

Does self-hosting keep CVs away from AI providers?

Only if you run the model yourself. With AI_PROVIDER=ollama, scoring happens on your hardware. With OpenAI or OpenRouter, the CV text, with direct identifiers removed, is sent to that provider.