COMPARE / HR & PEOPLE

Keep it — add ProHQ

ProHQ vs Keka

India-built, experience-focused HRMS with strong native payroll. ProHQ is a process engine: it runs your whole operation as one process — offline, in the field, in your team's language — and we build and run it with you.

Become a beta partner → See the side-by-side ↓

ORIGIN: India · 2014
PRICING MODEL: Tiered subscription priced per block of users (per ~100 employees) rather than pure per-seat; a free trial but no permanent free tier; mid-market pricing that bundles payroll.
BEST FOR: Indian SMEs and mid-market companies (~50–500 employees) wanting payroll, attendance, performance and recruitment in one tool.

CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE

What Keka is genuinely good at.

Deep India payroll

Native PF, ESI, TDS (Form 16/24Q), Professional Tax and LWF, kept continuously updated for regulation changes.

Strong performance module

OKRs, 360 feedback and 9-box grids that compete with dedicated performance platforms.

High user love

Among the highest G2 ratings of Indian HR platforms, with onboarding and time-tracking most praised.

SIDE BY SIDE

Six things that decide it.

CAPABILITY

ProHQ

Keka

Built around your process

A state-machine workflow that mirrors how you actually work — not generic boards, lists or tickets you bend to fit.

✓

Offline-first, built for the field

Record work where it happens — site, road, shop floor — with no signal. It syncs when the network returns.

✓

One process, everything attached

Tables, documents, files, approvals and chat hang off the exact stage they belong to — not separate apps that never quite talk.

✓

A team that runs it with you

We sit with your people, map the process and keep it running. Not a download-and-configure-it-yourself licence.

✓

Your team's language

Feels like Excel and WhatsApp, in the language the field already speaks. No training period.

✓

AI only where it pays

Drafting, summarising and repetitive paperwork automated on the process — included, not a per-seat upsell.

✓

✓ Built in ~ Partial / add-on / configure-it-yourself ✕ Not available

WHERE IT STOPS

The gap ProHQ fills.

Keka is loved for getting Indian payroll and attendance right, but it is a fixed-module HR product with a customization ceiling, not a process engine that mirrors the whole operation. It is not offline-first, which matters for distributed field teams whose attendance and tasks live on flaky connections. HR stays a silo beside operations.

HR silo, not the operation

All-in-one for HR, but it models the HR function — not the whole business operation around it.
Customization ceiling

Analysts flag that fixed modules force HR to bend policy to the software rather than the reverse.
Not offline-first

GPS/geofenced attendance is online-dependent, with reported logout/battery issues; no local-first architecture for the field.
Weak AI today

Analysts note a widening AI gap; its auto-write feature is light and inconsistently maintained.

THE INDIA REALITY

India-built in Hyderabad and arguably the India-native payroll/compliance specialist — PF/ESI/TDS/PT/LWF plus state rules, priced in rupees. Its payroll depth is a genuine strength ProHQ does not match.

KEEP IT — ADD PROHQ

Keep it, or run ProHQ alongside.

Keep Keka as your payroll and compliance engine — that depth is real and ProHQ does not replace it — and run the operation on ProHQ alongside it. Onboarding, approvals, field assignments and finance flow through one process while Keka handles the statutory side.

INTEGRATION

Bring your Keka data with you

Keka has a documented public REST API (employees, attendance, payroll, leave, performance) with OAuth and a sandbox; ProHQ syncs employee records and approval/assignment outcomes so payroll stays authoritative.

Need to keep Keka in the loop? We build that connector by hand during onboarding — which is why the beta is just twenty seats.

REACHING PARITY

Matching Keka, on the process engine

Where Keka leads today, here's what we're building — so it works offline and in the field too:

Attendance and geo-tagged check-in as a process tool
Leave requests routed through stage approvals
OKR/goal tracking attached to people and stages

THE VERDICT

Best India payroll-plus-HR in its class — but a fixed HR silo, not your operation.

We'll tell you honestly whether ProHQ is the right move from Keka for how you work. That conversation is free.

Talk to the founders → ← All comparisons