TimeTagger
A time tracker that ships twice a year and spends it on self-hosters.
Comparison · HR
Jorani vs Workable
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Jorani and Workable — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Jorani vs Workable: at a glance
What is Jorani?
A dormant leave-management app returns with an MIT relicense and a hard break from its own API
Jorani is a self-hosted leave and overtime management app built on legacy CodeIgniter PHP. After a three-year gap, v1.0.4 arrives labelled a maintenance release but is anything but conservative: it relicenses from AGPL to MIT, moves the repository to a new organization, and deletes the Basic Auth REST API, the client-side password encryption layer and MySQL 5.7 support. The database schema is untouched, so the disruption is entirely in licensing, packaging and interfaces rather than data.
What is Workable?
An applicant tracker becoming an HR system of record that AI agents can drive.
Workable now ships on two fronts at once: the HRIS layer (entity- and department-scoped admin, headcount reporting, shareable custom reports) and a Performance & Engagement suite that added native employee surveys this month. Alongside that, its MCP server grew past 30 tools, exposing candidate and employee search, the full performance-review lifecycle, member management, and document retrieval to outside AI clients. The recruiting core still gets attention, but the recent releases are mostly about records, permissions, and reporting rather than sourcing.
Jorani vs Workable: editorial side-by-side
Jorani
0.0HR
A dormant leave-management app returns with an MIT relicense and a hard break from its own API
◆ Current state
Jorani is a self-hosted leave and overtime management app built on legacy CodeIgniter PHP. After a three-year gap, v1.0.4 arrives labelled a maintenance release but is anything but conservative: it relicenses from AGPL to MIT, moves the repository to a new organization, and deletes the Basic Auth REST API, the client-side password encryption layer and MySQL 5.7 support. The database schema is untouched, so the disruption is entirely in licensing, packaging and interfaces rather than data.
◆ Where it's heading
The long arc is a small project shedding weight. Releases through 2017 filled in the workflow model — cancellation states, SSO, mandatory rejection comments, a steady stream of translations. Version 1.0.0 in 2020 rebuilt the leave-balance engine and documented an OpenAPI surface, and the two releases since have been almost entirely security and PHP-version compatibility. v1.0.4 continues by removing rather than adding, including the very API 1.0.0 had documented, and folds the old tree under a legacy/ directory — which reads as groundwork for a replacement rather than a destination.
◆ Prediction
The legacy/ layout and the withdrawn REST API point to a new API and a non-legacy codebase as the next move; the entries don't indicate on what stack, or when.
Workable
7.5HR
An applicant tracker becoming an HR system of record that AI agents can drive.
◆ Current state
Workable now ships on two fronts at once: the HRIS layer (entity- and department-scoped admin, headcount reporting, shareable custom reports) and a Performance & Engagement suite that added native employee surveys this month. Alongside that, its MCP server grew past 30 tools, exposing candidate and employee search, the full performance-review lifecycle, member management, and document retrieval to outside AI clients. The recruiting core still gets attention, but the recent releases are mostly about records, permissions, and reporting rather than sourcing.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc runs from applicant tracking toward a full employee system of record, with the June Workable Agent release and the July MCP expansion making that record machine-readable rather than just human-facing. Governance work — scoped admin rights, permission-aware report sharing, audit-ready offer data — is the tell that Workable is chasing larger, multi-entity customers. Each new HR module (surveys, headcount analytics) both widens the footprint and gives the agent and MCP layers more surface to act on.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next releases to keep filling out Performance & Engagement — survey analytics, goal or 1:1 tooling — and to wire those new modules into the MCP tool list the way reviews already are.
Alternatives to Jorani and Workable
Other HR products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Jorani or Workable.
Wagepoint
Wagepoint's news is its accountant channel, not its software
Ever Gauzy
Ever Gauzy turned its dashboard into a composable canvas, then filled it with 47 widgets in a week.
iCIMS
iCIMS publishes labor-market research on a cadence its product changelog never matches.
Zelt
UK HR and payroll software running a pure search-acquisition feed
Teamtailor
An ATS opening its pipeline to AI assistants while screening moves into every stage
See all Jorani alternatives → · See all Workable alternatives →
Recent activity from Jorani and Workable
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 4d agoWorkableAssign HR access to specific entities and departments
- 7d agoWorkableSelect all matching jobs in one click in the candidate database
- 14d agoWorkable30+ new tools in the Workable MCP server ⚡
- 15d agoWorkableRun employee surveys in Workable ⚡
- 22d agoWorkableTrack headcount changes over time
- 25d agoWorkableShare reports and explore your data in new ways
- 3mo agoJoraniSecurity and PHP8.5 support ⚡
- 3y agoJoraniSecurity and PHP8.2 compat release (No DB Patch)
- 5y agoJoraniJorani 1.0 revamps leave balances and documents a Swagger API
- 8y agoJoraniJorani 0.6.5 adds Portuguese and Arabic translations
- 8y agoJoraniJorani 0.6.4 fixes leave transitions and broken ICS feeds
- 8y agoJoraniJorani 0.6.3 adds Greek and mandatory rejection comments
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Jorani and Workable?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Workable is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 0.0), with 2 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Jorani better than Workable?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Workable is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 0.0), with 2 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other HR products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Jorani?
Top Jorani alternatives in HR are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Jorani alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/jorani for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Workable?
Top Workable alternatives in HR are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Workable alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/workable for the full list with editorial commentary on each.