Comparison

A Keka alternative for the company that needs the gate, not the suite

Keka is the most polished HR suite on Indian shortlists and says so with numbers: "Chosen by 12,500+ companies", built for "mid-market and enterprise" with "50–2,000+ employees". If you are buying HR — onboarding, performance, payroll, expenses, engagement — Keka belongs on your list. This page is for the buyer whose problem is a biometric terminal at a gate, a register across branches, and a wage bill that rides on the punch. Every Keka fact below is from keka.com as published in September 2026.

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Keka is a mid-market HR and payroll suite in which attendance is one module; it does not publish prices — its pricing page shows three plans with "Give us a call" — and describes its model as "per-employee per-month pricing — scales with headcount", with GPS geofencing and selfie clock-in reserved for its mid tier. It claims real-time integration with "200+ hardware devices" including ZKTeco and eSSL, and its marketing also argues you can "get rid of biometric hardware" by using phones. AionHRMS is attendance-first and hardware-first: eSSL, ZKTeco and Realtime terminals push punches to the cloud over their own protocol with nothing installed at your site, one enrolment syncs templates to every terminal across brands and locations, and the same punches compute shift-wise salary. Pricing is published — free up to 10 employees, then ₹25,000 a year up to 100 employees and ₹50,000 a year up to 500, exclusive of GST, invoiced only after the devices are live. Keka is the better buy when you are a 200-person company that wants the whole HR stack from one vendor; AionHRMS is the better buy when the terminals, the multi-site register and punch-to-salary depth are the purchase, at any headcount.

Published price

₹25,000 a year to 100 staff, versus "Give us a call" and per-employee-per-month

Any headcount

a 15-person clinic to a 500-person plant, versus a stated 50–2,000+ focus

Terminal-first

device pushes to the cloud; templates synced across brands and sites

Paid after go-live

no implementation charge; the integration risk is ours

What Keka is, fairly

Keka (keka.com) positions itself as "Modern HR & Payroll Software for Growing Enterprises", claims 12,500+ companies and 2.5 million employees on the platform, and on its own facts page says it is "purpose-built for mid-market and enterprise companies" of 50 to 2,000+ employees. Its attendance module is broad and its device story is a genuine strength.

  • Eight capture modes by its own count: biometric, remote clock-in, geo tracking, continuous tracking, IP restriction, facial recognition, selfie and timesheet — most of which AionHRMS does not offer
  • Claims "real-time integration with all attendance device types" through a "universal driver framework" supporting "200+ hardware devices", and to "gracefully recover all your past offline logs" after a device disconnects — credited; that is a serious attendance module
  • Statutory payroll that files: PF with ECR-ready reports, ESI, professional tax across states, TDS and quarterly returns, Form 16 — published on its payroll page
  • GDPR compliance stated; mobile apps for iOS and Android; shift boards with automatic rotation
  • If you are 200 people and want performance reviews, onboarding, expenses and payroll filing in the same login, Keka is a strong choice and this page will not pretend otherwise

Pricing: published versus on request

Keka's pricing page (September 2026) lists Foundation, Strength and Growth plans with a free-trial button and "Not sure which plan is right for you? Give us a call." — no base price, no minimum, no billing term. Its own facts page describes the model as "per-employee per-month pricing — scales with headcount." AionHRMS publishes its price: free up to 10 employees, then ₹25,000 a year up to 100 employees and ₹50,000 a year up to 500, exclusive of GST, invoiced only after the devices are live.

  • A per-employee-per-month model means every hire, every seasonal batch, every contractor moves the bill; a headcount band means only crossing 100 or 500 does
  • Geofencing, continuous location punching and selfie clock-in sit in Keka's Strength tier, not the entry plan — budget for the tier that has what you need
  • AionHRMS has no per-user add-ons and no implementation fee, and is invoiced only after your devices are live and syncing
  • We cannot show a like-for-like rupee comparison because Keka's figures are not published; get their written quote for your headcount and put it next to ours
  • Where Keka's price is fair: it covers an entire HR suite, so a company buying the suite should compare it with other suites, not with an attendance product

Hardware: two opposite bets

Keka's facial-recognition page says it "eliminates the need for a facial recognition biometric device by turning your smartphone into a personal biometric device" and that it "helps you get rid of biometric hardware and expenditure around it." AionHRMS makes the opposite bet on purpose: for a workplace with a door, a terminal on the wall is faster, needs no employee phone, and gives you the door itself.

  • eSSL, ZKTeco and Realtime terminals — fingerprint, face, RFID, PIN — push to our server over their own protocol; nothing installed at your site, no static IP, no middleware
  • A worker without a smartphone, a phone in a locker, a dead battery — none of these stop a punch at a terminal; a 7 a.m. shift change at a plant gate is what purpose-built face terminals are for
  • Templates stored centrally and re-pushed across devices and brands: enrol once, and a replaced terminal inherits everyone
  • Lock or unlock a person on every terminal from the dashboard; denied attempts logged; remote door release — access control and attendance in one register
  • Keka's device integration methods are documented behind a customer login, so we do not characterise them here — ask Keka what runs at your site and whether the device pushes or is polled; then ask us the same

After the punch: suite breadth versus punch depth

Keka files your statutory returns; AionHRMS does not and says so on every page. What AionHRMS does with the punch is narrower and deeper — the specific arithmetic of an Indian shift floor, computed and itemised, so the number that reaches whoever files is right the first time.

  • Duty times per employee; single or double shift with a separate salary per shift; punches bucketed to the right shift automatically, night shifts on the right date
  • Grace period, late-count threshold, penalty as flat fine or fraction of a shift — your rules, nothing deducted below threshold
  • Paid leave capped at the month's working days; advances recorded and settled; monthly payroll report; per-employee attendance calendar
  • Not included, plainly: PF, ESI, TDS filing; leave request and approval workflows; geofenced mobile marking (in development); recruitment and performance modules — all of which Keka has
  • A clean split many companies run: AionHRMS at the gates feeding attendance through its partner API into whatever files

Security: read what each side actually publishes

Keka's security page (September 2026) states that Keka "leverages Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS cloud infrastructure" and that its products are "hosted with cloud infrastructure providers with SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications" — the providers' certifications — and that it "conducts regular external audits and certification" without naming one. GDPR compliance is stated. We could not find an India data-residency statement on the site.

  • AionHRMS states outright: attendance data on infrastructure in India
  • Biometric templates stored as mathematical features; never displayed, exported or available through the API; deleted with the employee
  • AIONDATA is ISO 9001:2015 certified (quality management — not an information-security standard, and we do not present it as one), CMMI Level 3 appraised, and SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and HIPAA ready — readiness, not an issued attestation
  • Role-scoped human access; scoped API keys stored as SHA-256 hashes with rate limits and request logs
  • Both postures above are checkable on the respective sites; ask both vendors the same written questions

Keka versus AionHRMS, line by line

Keka rows are from keka.com as published in September 2026. Where Keka publishes nothing we say so rather than guess.

AionHRMSKeka (published, Sept 2026)
What it isAttendance-first: terminals, cloud register, shift-wise payroll.Mid-market HR and payroll suite; attendance is a module.
Stated fitAny headcount with a gate; 15 to 5,000 staff."50–2,000+ employees", "mid-market and enterprise".
PricingPublished: ₹25,000/yr ≤100, ₹50,000/yr ≤500; unlimited terminals and sites.Not published — "Give us a call"; "per-employee per-month".
When you payAfter the devices are live; no implementation fee.Not published.
Biometric deviceseSSL, ZKTeco, Realtime — device pushes to the cloud."200+ hardware devices" incl. ZKTeco, eSSL; method documented behind login.
Phone-based captureGeofencing in development; not shipped.Geofencing, selfie, continuous tracking (Strength tier); face on phone.
Statutory payrollSalary computed; filing not included.PF, ESI, PT, TDS, Form 16 — included.
Security postureIndia residency stated; ISO 9001:2015; SOC 2/GDPR/HIPAA ready.Providers' SOC 2 Type II / ISO 27001 cited; GDPR; residency not stated.
Right choice whenThe terminals and the wage bill are the purchase.You are buying the whole HR stack for a 200-person company.

Frequently asked questions

Is AionHRMS a good alternative to Keka?
For biometric attendance, multi-site registers and punch-to-salary payroll, yes — with a published flat annual price and no headcount minimum. For a full HR suite with statutory filing, performance management, expenses and phone-based geofenced attendance, Keka has what AionHRMS does not. Decide which of those is the thing you are actually buying.
How much does Keka cost compared with AionHRMS?
Keka does not publish prices; its pricing page says "Give us a call" and its model is per employee per month. AionHRMS publishes ₹25,000 a year for up to 100 employees and ₹50,000 for up to 500, unlimited terminals and sites, invoiced only after the devices are live. Get Keka's written quote for your headcount and compare the two numbers directly.
Is Keka too big for a small company?
Keka's own facts page describes a 50 to 2,000+ employee focus and a mid-market and enterprise purpose. A 20-person office can still buy it, but the suite is designed for larger teams. AionHRMS has no minimum and the same ₹25,000 band covers 15 people or 100.
Does Keka support eSSL and ZKTeco biometric machines?
Keka says yes — its site names ZKTeco and eSSL and claims real-time integration with 200+ devices. The integration guide is behind a customer login, so ask Keka what runs at your site. AionHRMS runs the same brands over the terminal's own push protocol with nothing installed at your site.
Can we run AionHRMS for attendance and Keka for HR?
Yes. AionHRMS exposes attendance by person or organisation over date ranges through its partner API, and the monthly payroll report is exportable; Keka publishes an attendance-log ingestion API. Ask both vendors for the formats in writing before signing either contract.

Related

Attendance done as the whole product, with a price you can read

Send your terminal models and headcount; we confirm compatibility and quote in writing before anything changes.

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