Payroll Engine vs PayrollEx
Payroll Engine
payrollengine.org
PayrollEx
payrollex.ioSide by side
| Figure | Payroll Engine | PayrollEx |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 5 |
| Spec score · Global Payroll Software | 8.5 (#7) | 6.9 (#25) |
| Forecasts | Forecasts support isolated what-if scenarios that do not affect legally valid payruns. | Forecast licenses support unlimited scenario-planning payruns at 30% of the Full license and transaction rate. |
| Integrations | The REST API supports tenant and employee management, payrun jobs, result queries, report output, and backend event webhooks. | The site describes pre-built adapters, MCP-based AI-agent access, and an open REST API as integration channels. |
| Product | Payroll Engine is an open-source framework for embedding payroll processing into larger software platforms. | PayrollEx provides commercial multi-country payroll compliance infrastructure built on the open-source Payroll Engine platform. |
| Support | Questions and feature requests go to GitHub Discussions, bugs to GitHub Issues, and the maker asks users to allow a few business days for responses. | Regulation licenses include priority support, fast-tracking payrun-critical incidents, and an annual two-hour remote consultation. |
Plans
PayrollEx
- AdaptersPriced on request
- AI Context ProPriced on request
- ForecastPriced on request
- FullPriced on request
- MCP Server ProPriced on request
In their own words
Payroll Engine
Payroll Engine is an open-source framework for embedding payroll processing into larger software platforms. Released under the MIT License, it provides a backend that processes payroll data through a REST API and configurable regulation layers; country regulations are commercial. It supports time-stamped payroll data, recurring and non-recurring payruns, and reports for payslips, legal filings, or data exchange. Its API covers tenant and employee management, payrun jobs, result queries, report output, and backend event webhooks. A browser application manages tenants, employees, regulations, case data, payruns, reports, tasks, and developer logs. The .NET Client SDK includes typed REST clients, test runners, local script tools, and JSON schemas for regulation validation. A built-in test framework supports case validation, payrun assertions, and regression testing. The backend is designed for local or Docker Compose deployment, and a database must be provided separately. API key and OAuth authentication are supported but disabled by default; audit trails are also disabled by default unless configured. The maker says the backend is a service and should not be used on the public Internet.