Top 10 Applicant Tracking Systems for Recruiters in 2025

The average time to hire is 41 days (LinkedIn), and talent competition is tougher than ever. Recruiters are overwhelmed with time-consuming tasks.

What if you could hire faster and focus on finding the perfect candidate? The right ATS can make it happen.

Wondering if your ATS is up to the job? Let’s explore what makes the best Applicant Tracking System (ATS) in 2025!

What Is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS for short) is software that manages the entire recruitment process. It helps speed up managing applicants and filling jobs, from posting ads to tracking offer acceptances.

It is similar to a Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) but tailored to recruiting needs and requirements.

ATS organizes information about job seekers and makes it searchable. With an ATS, recruiters can create job descriptions, schedule interviews, issue notifications, and alerts, and send automated emails to applicants, recruiters, and hiring managers.

Why Use an ATS in 2025?

Best applicant tracking software solutions are not only suitable for large companies that advertise a large number of jobs and manage a high volume of applicants. Such software is also a perfect match for small and medium-sized businesses as it speeds up the hiring process.

• Manage job posting, screening, and applicant communications
• Keep all CVs and applications in one place
• Centralize communication between hiring managers and recruiters
• Speed up finding top talent
• Ensure transparent candidate evaluation

Features of the Best ATS Software in 2025

What should you consider when choosing ATS? Think about this functionality before getting acquainted with our Application Tracking Systems list.

Central Database of Contacts

ATS, in its nature, is a centralized platform with comprehensive candidate management. It automatically saves applicants’ details and files in one database, adds extra info to their profiles, and keeps records of current and past candidates to build talent pools. Top ATS systems also have filters (like position or level) to make finding the right candidate faster and easier.

Customizable Job Pipeline  

Top Applicant Tracking Systems offer customized board views for each hiring stage. Hiring stakeholders can track the whole job pipeline, applied and rejected candidates, follow-ups, and notifications. Recruiters can monitor progress, access candidate documents, and store contact details all in one place.

Easy-to-Use Talent pools

Out of 100 applicants, one may be the right fit, but many others are still worth keeping. Recruiters can save relevant candidates for future roles. Top Applicant Tracking Software provides handy databases - Talent pools - where the candidates’ profiles are kept.

Collaborative Hiring Tools

Most popular ATS automate the communication between recruiters and hiring managers through integrated approval management. Thus, communication is not delayed for weeks since all the participants of the hiring process get automated requests and vacancy approvals via e-mail.

Automated Communication with Candidates

With a modern ATS, recruiters can schedule interviews with candidates and integrate messengers to keep all the conversations in one place. Also, the system provides notifications and reminders that help to keep hiring stakeholders informed on any changes in the job pipeline.

Analytics and Reporting

Since all the processes are automated, and the hiring results are clear, HR managers, recruitment leads, or company owners can track the performance of hiring team members. Usually, top ATS systems provide detailed analytics with such metrics as time-to-hire, sources of hires, performance by added contacts, closed jobs, etc.

Top 10 Applicant Tracking Systems for 2025

Here’s a quick comparison of the best recruitment ATS in 2025. Let’s find out which out of the top 10 ATS systems can help you fulfill your business goals!

Axterior

Axterior is a perfect online recruitment platform for growing businesses. This top ATS software is young but has already gained popularity among interested organizations. Axterior manages all the recruitment processes and assists in finding the most qualified candidates in a few clicks.

Main advantages of Axterior recruitment platform:

• Careers site
• Easy-to-use internal talent pools;
• Candidates sourcing with Axterior Chrome Extension;
• Calendar integration;
• Practical performance reporting;
• Interview scheduling functionality;
• Data protection and compliance;
• Customized sending of follow-ups and reminders.

Freshteam

Freshteam is professional HR software. With Freshteam, people can attract, hire, and onboard new hires, offboard existing employees, and manage employee information and time off - all in one place.

You can gather all the necessary information and create employee profiles (which flesh out into a directory), manage access permissions to employee information and documents, etc.

Kenjo

Kenjo is an all-in-one human resource solution that enables HR departments to centralize all employee management, recruitment, and employee performance operations in one platform.

For complete automation, users can set up automated workflows to automate the assignment and notification of day-to-day processes.

Among the best HR systems, applicant tracking platforms like Kenjo, enable recruiters to use the solution to advertise job openings across multiple portals, capture profiles from social networks, and create talent pools.

Manatal

Manatal offers a complete ATS solution to make recruiting easier. With Manatal, users can optimize their hiring processes using pipelines, AI-driven recommendations, job portal integration, and many other recruitment tools.

An all-in-one applicant tracking system is designed for efficiency, the platform’s simplicity and ease of use are worth noting, as suitable for one of the best applicant tracking software.

AcquireTM

AcquireTM is a cloud-based ATS solution that serves as a hiring platform for small or mid-sized businesses. This ATS provides an easy-to-use solution that gives HR administrators, recruiters, and hiring managers the tools they need to take control of hiring processes.

Personio

This is an HR management system with comprehensive functions such as personnel data management, vacation planning, time recording, and reporting. The tool offers a user-friendly interface, automated processes, and a central database.

Teamtailor

The ATS software offers a comprehensive overview of all applications, automated communication with applicants, and easy integration into your existing systems. With this leader among the best applicant tracking systems, you’ll be able to manage your applicants efficiently and automatically with an attractive user interface.

Workable

The software offers a user-friendly interface and extensive recruitment and management features. Automated workflows help you save time and make better decisions. Custom hiring levels allow you to tailor the process to your needs. This tool stands out clearly from the competition among the best applicant tracking systems for recruiters.

Greenhouse

The software facilitates the entire hiring process by automating tasks such as interview scheduling and reminders. Candidates are tracked in a central system and the data can be easily analyzed to improve the process.

iSmartRecruit

The ATS system offers a user-friendly interface and extensive features to optimize the entire application process. Create personalized email templates and track the status of applicants in real time.

If you are still hesitating about what among top ATS software to choose from, we recommend assigning a responsible recruiter who will use free trials of several platforms. This will provide reliable feedback from your team members, and you’ll make sure the choice from the list of ATS systems is right for you.

How to Choose the Best ATS for Your Needs

• Determine the required features for the growth of your business

Before choosing an ATS, think about the current state of affairs in your recruitment team. Analyze the bottlenecks of your hiring process, ask for the feedback of your team directly involved in hiring, monitor the latest KPIs, etc. This will help you to determine which features you lack and what can be automated.

• Pay attention to usability

Many top ATS companies state that their software is an easy-to-use and customized solution. But that is rarely the case. Take the time to evaluate several software solutions. Keep in mind you should choose the best ATS for recruiters in your team. Create an ATS wish list and identify what's missing from your solution.

• Ensure that pricing fits your budget

Before choosing your winner among the best ATS systems, consider the purpose you want the system to serve. Would you benefit from a solution in a high price range? Find out what the pricing is based on—the number of user licenses, job openings, and other applicant tracking details—because these factors will ultimately affect your purchasing decision.

• Check whether an ATS provides a free trial

Take advantage of the free trials that best ATS for startups provide. Usually, platforms provide a trial for 10 or 14 days. Use them to your advantage to learn all the functionality in detail, to understand whether the ATS will suit you and the whole team, and what the platform's strengths and weaknesses are.

• Ask the opinion of your team

Involve all the stakeholders in the decision-making about the best ATS software for the company. They better understand the hiring requirements and will know what to pay attention to. Also, don’t focus only on the current tasks but try to forecast future challenges where an ATS can help.

• Take into consideration privacy and information security

Make sure your ATS complies with data protection and privacy laws. Start by reviewing its Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Data Processing Agreement, including policies on data handling, third-party transfers, and breach notifications.

As a Data Controller, understand the ATS's security features, like authentication methods, encryption, automatic backups, and integrations with databases or cloud services, to maintain strong information security practices.

• Explore the Help Center of an ATS

Last but not least, a clear Help Center is a must-have. The first weeks of using ATS may be pretty challenging since all team members have to understand the specifics of the system and learn the main principles of working with it. You can easily overcome this challenge if the ATS contains detailed instructions and tips for the main functions. Best ats recruitment software definitely has this option!  So pay attention to this when choosing your perfect-match ATS.

Conclusion

We hope this list of applicant tracking systems will help you dive into ATS peculiarities, and you’ll be able to boost your hiring and business growth!

If you want to see ATS in action immediately, try Axterior for free!