Best Keka Alternatives in India (2026): Compared on Price, Payroll and PF/ESI

Keka is one of the best-known HRMS products in India, and for many companies it's a good choice. But "the most popular" and "the right one for you" aren't the same thing. If you're reading this, something about Keka probably doesn't fit: the price at your headcount, features you're paying for but not using, or setup effort that's out of proportion to a 40-person team.

This guide covers why companies look for a Keka alternative, the main types of alternatives, how they compare on the things that actually matter in Indian HR (payroll, PF, ESI, TDS and attendance), what each option would cost at common headcounts, and how to switch without breaking a payroll month.

Updated 30 September 2026. Vendor features and prices change often — confirm the current details on each vendor's own website before you decide.

The short answer

• Keka is a broad HR suite: payroll, attendance, leave, performance reviews, OKRs, hiring, engagement and more. It's a strong fit if you'll actually use that scope.
• Look for an alternative if you mainly need payroll, attendance, leave and statutory compliance, and don't want to pay for talent-management modules.
• For compliance depth (PF, ESI, Professional Tax and state-by-state rules handled for you), look at compliance-focused tools such as greytHR or factoHR.
• For one simple per-employee price with payroll, attendance, PF/ESI and TDS included, look at an all-in-one tool such as PeopleVio.
• For a very small team on a tight budget, compare the free tiers some vendors offer at small headcounts.
• Whatever you shortlist, run one real payroll month on your own data before you sign.

Why companies look for a Keka alternative

Nobody switches HR software for fun. Moving payroll is risky and takes effort, so the reasons are usually concrete.

1. Paying for scope you don't use

Keka's value is its breadth. Performance cycles, OKRs, 360° feedback, applicant tracking and engagement surveys are genuinely useful for a company that runs them. For a 30-person manufacturer, a clinic chain or a services firm whose HR team is one person, they often go unused. You pay for them anyway if they're part of the plan you need for payroll.

2. Price steps as you grow

Plan- and band-based pricing works well when your headcount sits comfortably inside a band. It can feel expensive right after you cross into the next one. Growing companies often prefer pricing where the bill moves smoothly with the number of active employees.

3. Setup effort for a small team

A broad, configurable suite takes time to set up properly: policies, workflows, approval chains, modules. A large HR team can absorb that. A founder or office manager running HR on the side usually wants to be running payroll within days.

4. Wanting one number

Some buyers simply want a single published per-employee price, with everything included and nothing sold as an add-on. That makes budgeting and approvals easier, especially for owner-managed businesses.

5. Specific gaps for their industry

Field teams may want geofenced attendance from a phone. Factories may need biometric machines to push punches directly into payroll. Companies with many low-wage workers care more about ESI contribution periods than OKRs. The "best" tool depends on which of these you live with every month.

None of this makes Keka a bad product. It means the fit is wrong for some companies — and those companies should compare properly rather than stay out of habit.

The four types of Keka alternatives

Most alternatives fall into one of four groups. Knowing which group you need narrows the shortlist quickly.

Type	What it's good at	Examples to consider	Best for
Compliance-focused HR and payroll	Indian statutory depth: PF, ESI, PT, LWF, state rules	greytHR, factoHR	Companies where compliance is the top worry
Broad HR suites	HR plus performance, OKRs, hiring	Keka, Darwinbox	Mid-size and larger companies with a real HR team
Ecosystem products	Integration with other apps from the same vendor	Zoho People + Zoho Payroll	Companies already running on Zoho
Simple all-in-one HR + payroll	Payroll, attendance, leave and PF/ESI in one price	PeopleVio	SMEs of roughly 10–500 employees who want it to just work

Free tiers are available from some vendors (Kredily, greytHR and others have offered them at small headcounts). They can be a good starting point for very small teams, but check exactly what's included — payroll and compliance are sometimes limited on free plans.

How the alternatives compare on what matters

Feature lists run to hundreds of lines. For most Indian SMEs, the decision comes down to about ten things.

What to check	Why it matters	What "good" looks like
Payroll driven by attendance	Loss of pay and proration are where most payroll errors start	Attendance, leave and unpaid days flow into salary with no export
Mid-month joining and exit	Wrong proration is the most common payslip complaint	Salary, PF and ESI prorate automatically
PF (EPF, EPS, EDLI, VPF)	Wrong wage ceiling or EPS share means ECR errors and penalties	Ceiling applied by date (₹25,000 from 17 September 2026), ECR generated and validated
ESI	Contribution-period rules catch people out	Eligibility fixed for the contribution period; monthly return generated
TDS and Form 16	Employees notice every rupee of TDS	Old and new regime, declarations with approval, Form 16
Professional Tax	State-specific slabs	Calculated per state if you have staff in PT states
Attendance method	Must match how your people actually work	Geofenced mobile check-in, biometric integration or both
Approvals on mobile	Managers won't log into a desktop to approve leave	Works well on a phone
Price at your headcount	The headline rate is rarely the full bill	Total monthly cost in writing, at today's headcount and at 1.5×
Data export	You need a way out	Employees, payroll and attendance export to CSV/Excel

Use this table as your scorecard in every demo. The vendor with the longest feature list isn't necessarily the one that wins on these ten.

PeopleVio as a Keka alternative

PeopleVio is deliberately narrower than Keka. It's built for operational HR and payroll for Indian companies of roughly 10 to 500 employees, at one published price per active employee.

What's included:

• Payroll with loss of pay, mid-month joining and exit proration, custom earnings and deductions, and PDF payslips emailed to employees.
• PF with the EPFO module — EPF, EPS, EDLI and VPF, the wage ceiling applied by effective date, ECR 2.0 and arrear ECR files, UAN validation, challan and TRRN tracking, and reminders before the 15th.
• ESI with the ESIC module — contribution periods, the disability ceiling, the daily-wage exemption, the monthly contribution return as the portal's .xls, and challan tracking.
• TDS — old and new regime, employee declarations with admin approval, PF counted under 80C, and Form 16.
• Attendance — geofenced GPS check-in from the browser, ZKTeco/eSSL biometric machines pushing punches directly, regularisation requests and an hours report.
• Leave, comp off, holidays, expenses (paid through payroll), assets and offer letters candidates accept online.

What it doesn't do (better to know now than after a demo):

• No performance reviews, OKRs or applicant tracking.
• No Professional Tax or Labour Welfare Fund calculation.
• No overtime pay rules or shift rostering — there's an hours report, and overtime is added to payroll as a component.
• A responsive web app that works on phones, but no installable mobile app yet.
• You still upload the ECR and ESIC files and pay challans on the government portals yourself (no vendor can do this through a public API).

If performance management, recruitment or a native app are must-haves, stay with Keka or pick another broad suite. If payroll, attendance and PF/ESI are what you need, PeopleVio is built for exactly that.

What PeopleVio costs at common headcounts

PeopleVio charges per active employee per month, with every module included. The rate for your headcount band applies to all employees.

Active employees	Rate (monthly billing)	Monthly cost	Rate (yearly billing)	Monthly cost, billed yearly
10	₹59	₹590	₹49	₹490
25	₹59	₹1,475	₹49	₹1,225
50	₹49	₹2,450	₹41	₹2,050
100	₹49	₹4,900	₹41	₹4,100
300	₹39	₹11,700	₹33	₹9,900
500	₹29	₹14,500	₹25	₹12,500

Prices exclude GST. The same table for Keka depends on the plan you need — ask Keka for the total at your headcount and compare like for like. The pricing page has the current rates.

A worked comparison: a 60-person company

Consider a 60-person distribution company: a head office of 15, a warehouse of 30 on a biometric machine, and 15 field sales staff. About half the team earns under ₹21,000 a month, so ESI applies to them. Everyone is in PF. HR is one person who also handles admin.

What they actually need every month:

1. Attendance from the biometric machine and from the field staff's phones at customer sites.
2. Leave and regularisation approvals from four managers.
3. Payroll with loss of pay, one or two joiners and leavers, and the occasional incentive.
4. The PF ECR and ESIC return, and challans paid by the 15th.
5. TDS for about ten employees above the new-regime threshold.

What they don't need yet: performance cycles, OKRs, an applicant tracking system.

For this company, a broad suite is mostly unused scope. A compliance-focused tool or a simple all-in-one fits better. Between those two, the deciding question is Professional Tax: if they're in a PT state and want the software to calculate PT, a compliance-focused tool wins. If PT is handled by their accountant, an all-in-one at a lower price is the easier choice.

That's the kind of reasoning to apply to your own company: list what you do every month, not what you might do one day.

How to switch from Keka without breaking payroll

The safest switch takes about a month, and most of the work is data.

1. Choose the switch month. April (new financial year) is cleanest for TDS; otherwise pick a month after a quiet payroll.
2. Export from Keka: employee master (codes, departments, managers, joining dates, bank details), salary structures, leave balances, and year-to-date payroll figures for TDS.
3. Import employees in bulk into the new system, then statutory IDs — UAN, PF member IDs and ESIC IP numbers.
4. Recreate policies: leave types and quotas, holidays, weekly offs, office timings, late rules.
5. Set up attendance: office locations for geofencing and biometric devices.
6. Carry forward TDS: enter year-to-date salary and tax so the remaining months' TDS is right.
7. Run one month in parallel. Compare every payslip, the ECR and the ESIC return with the ones from Keka. Fix differences before going live.
8. Go live and keep your Keka export for records and audits.

Tell employees before the switch: they'll get new login details, and payslips will look different.

Questions to ask every vendor (including Keka)

• What is my total monthly bill at my current headcount, and at 1.5× my headcount?
• Which modules are extra — payroll, compliance, attendance devices, mobile app?
• Are there setup, migration or training fees?
• Do you charge per active employee or per employee record?
• Can I run one real payroll month on my own data before I pay?
• How do I export all my data if I leave?

Get the answers in writing. They matter more than any feature demo.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Keka alternative in India? It depends on what you need. For compliance depth, look at greytHR or factoHR. For HR and payroll in one simple per-employee price, look at PeopleVio. For companies already on Zoho, Zoho People with Zoho Payroll. Shortlist two or three and test them on your own data.

Is there a cheaper alternative to Keka? Several alternatives cost less at small and mid-size headcounts, especially if you don't need performance or hiring modules. Compare the total monthly bill at your headcount, including any add-ons, rather than the headline rate.

Does PeopleVio have performance management like Keka? No. PeopleVio doesn't include performance reviews, OKRs or recruitment. If those are must-haves, a broad suite like Keka is a better fit.

Can a Keka alternative handle PF, ESI and TDS? Most serious alternatives handle them. PeopleVio calculates PF and ESI through its EPFO and ESIC modules, generates the ECR and ESIC return files, and calculates TDS with Form 16. It doesn't calculate Professional Tax.

How long does it take to move away from Keka? Usually two to four weeks for a small or mid-size company, including a parallel payroll month. Most of the time goes into cleaning and importing data.

Is switching mid-year a problem for TDS? It's manageable if you carry forward year-to-date salary and tax into the new system. Switching in April avoids it altogether.

Does PeopleVio work with biometric machines? Yes. ZKTeco-protocol machines (ZKTeco, eSSL, Realtime and similar) can push punches to PeopleVio through their cloud server (ADMS) setting, and punch logs can also be imported.

The bottom line

Keka is a good product for companies that use its breadth. If you don't, you're paying for it. Decide what you need every month — payroll, attendance, PF, ESI, TDS, maybe PT — and shortlist tools that do exactly that well. Then run one real payroll month on your own data before you decide.

If operational HR and payroll are what you need, see PeopleVio's pricing or book a demo — we'll set up a workspace for your company, usually the same day, and tell you honestly if we're not the right fit.

Related reading: PeopleVio vs Keka · Keka vs Zoho People · Best Keka alternatives for small businesses · HRMS software price in India