Ashby and Lever are both fighting for the same market: growth-stage startups and mid-market companies that need a modern ATS with analytics, automation, and integrations. Both are significantly better than legacy enterprise ATS platforms, but they're different enough that choosing between them actually matters.

Lever is the established player—been around since 2012, larger customer base, more mature product. Ashby is the newer challenger—launched in 2019, built for data-driven recruiting teams, growing fast. Both have passionate users who swear by their chosen platform and claim the other one is overrated.

Let's figure out which camp you should join.

The Core Philosophy Difference

Lever: Recruiter-friendly, candidate experience focused. Lever was built around making recruiting workflows intuitive and candidate experiences excellent. The interface is clean and easy to learn, onboarding is straightforward, and the system guides you through processes. It's designed for recruiters who want powerful tools without technical complexity.

Ashby: Analytics-obsessed, built for data-driven teams. Ashby was built by former Dropbox and Google engineers who were frustrated by how hard it was to get useful data from recruiting tools. Every feature is designed around generating insights, tracking metrics, and optimizing processes. It's for teams that want to measure everything and make decisions based on data.

This philosophical difference cascades through every feature and design choice. Your preference here should drive your decision.

Where Lever Wins

Ease of use is genuinely better. Lever's interface is cleaner and more intuitive than Ashby's. Non-technical hiring managers and infrequent users find Lever easier to navigate. Onboarding new team members takes less time, and there's less "where do I find this?" confusion.

One user on G2 noted: "We switched from Greenhouse to Lever and hiring managers actually started using the ATS instead of constantly asking recruiters to do things for them. The interface is just that much clearer."

Candidate experience features are more robust. Lever has invested heavily in candidate-facing features: customizable career pages, candidate self-scheduling, mobile-optimized applications, automated status updates, and interview confirmation/reminder workflows.

If employer branding and candidate experience are top priorities, Lever has more built-in tools. Ashby has these features too, but they're less developed.

Integrations are more extensive. Lever has been around longer and has more third-party integrations: background check providers, assessment tools, video interview platforms, onboarding systems, HRIS platforms. The Lever marketplace is mature.

Ashby's integration ecosystem is growing but smaller. If you need to connect lots of specialized tools, Lever is safer.

CRM and nurturing features. Lever's CRM functionality for managing passive candidate relationships and long-term pipelines is stronger than Ashby's. If you maintain large talent pools and do proactive sourcing, Lever's CRM tools are more developed.

Enterprise features and compliance. Lever has more mature enterprise functionality: advanced permissions, compliance workflows, EEO reporting, multi-entity support. For companies with complex org structures or strict compliance requirements, Lever is the safer choice.

Where Ashby Wins

Analytics and reporting are in a different league. This is Ashby's superpower and it's not close. Ashby's analytics are built into every screen, with customizable dashboards, SQL-level querying, cohort analysis, funnel tracking, and attribution reporting that actually works.

According to Ashby users on G2, you can answer questions like:

• Which sourcing channels produce candidates who get to final round at highest rates?
• How does time-to-hire vary by hiring manager, and what causes the differences?
• What's the ROI of our employee referral program by department?
• Which interview questions correlate with successful hires?

Lever has reporting, but it's basic compared to Ashby. If your recruiting team makes decisions based on data, Ashby is worth the learning curve.

Scheduling automation is significantly better. Ashby's interview scheduling features are more sophisticated than Lever's. Automated candidate self-scheduling, AI-optimized interviewer selection, automatic rescheduling when conflicts arise, and seamless calendar integration that actually works.

Multiple users report Ashby's scheduling saves 5-10 hours per recruiter per week compared to previous tools. One recruiting leader told G2: "Scheduling used to be 30% of our coordinators' time. With Ashby it's under 5%. We redirected that capacity to candidate experience improvements."

Modern architecture and performance. Ashby is built on modern infrastructure and it shows. The platform is fast, rarely has downtime, and handles complex workflows smoothly. Lever occasionally feels sluggish, especially for large organizations.

API and extensibility. Ashby has better API documentation and more flexibility for custom integrations. For companies with engineering resources who want to build custom tools or workflows, Ashby is more developer-friendly.

Pricing is more transparent and typically cheaper. Ashby publishes pricing tiers on their website, which Lever doesn't. Based on customer reports, Ashby is usually 20-30% cheaper than Lever for similar configurations. For cost-conscious startups, this matters.

Better for technical recruiting. Ashby's GitHub integration, coding assessment workflows, and technical interview features are stronger. If you're hiring lots of engineers, Ashby was built by engineers for hiring engineers. It shows in the details.

The Feature-by-Feature Breakdown

Job posting and distribution: Lever has more job board integrations out of the box. Ashby covers the major boards but less comprehensive. Advantage: Lever

Applicant tracking and workflow management: Both are excellent here, roughly tied. Ashby's workflows are more customizable, Lever's are more intuitive. Tie

Sourcing and CRM: Lever's sourcing features and talent pool management are more mature. Ashby has basic CRM functionality but it's not a strength. Advantage: Lever

Interview scheduling: Ashby's scheduling is significantly more automated and intelligent. Lever has scheduling but requires more manual work. Advantage: Ashby

Analytics and reporting: Ashby is in a different category here. Lever has standard reporting; Ashby has true business intelligence. Advantage: Ashby (significantly)

Candidate experience: Lever has invested more in candidate-facing features. Ashby is good but not as polished. Advantage: Lever

Integrations: Lever has more integrations due to being older and larger. Ashby covers essentials but smaller ecosystem. Advantage: Lever

Mobile experience: Both have mobile apps that are decent but not great. Roughly tied, neither is winning awards. Tie

Compliance and enterprise features: Lever is more mature here. Ashby works for enterprise but Lever has more built-in compliance tools. Advantage: Lever

Customer support: Both have good support, with Lever having slight edge due to larger support team. Ashby users report excellent support but sometimes slower response times. Slight advantage: Lever

Who Should Choose Ashby

Choose Ashby if you:

• Want industry-leading analytics and reporting
• Make hiring decisions based on data and metrics
• Hire lots of technical roles (engineers, data scientists, etc.)
• Have recruiters comfortable with technology
• Value scheduling automation and efficiency
• Want transparent, typically lower pricing
• Have engineering resources for custom integrations
• Operate in fast-moving startup environment where speed matters

Who Should Choose Lever

Choose Lever if you:

• Prioritize ease of use and intuitive interfaces
• Have hiring managers and team members who are less technical
• Focus heavily on candidate experience and employer branding
• Need extensive third-party integrations
• Run passive candidate nurturing programs (CRM focus)
• Have complex compliance requirements
• Want mature enterprise features
• Value established platform with larger customer base

What Users Actually Say

Ashby users on G2 consistently praise:

• "Analytics are game-changing—finally can actually understand our recruiting funnel"
• "Scheduling automation saved us tons of time"
• "Fast, modern interface that doesn't feel clunky"
• "Great for technical recruiting"

Common Ashby complaints:

• "Steeper learning curve than expected"
• "Some features feel less polished than Lever"
• "Smaller integration ecosystem"
• "CRM functionality is basic"

Lever users on G2 consistently praise:

• "Easy to learn and use, hiring managers love it"
• "Great candidate experience features"
• "Tons of integrations with other tools we use"
• "Excellent customer support"

Common Lever complaints:

• "Reporting is limited compared to newer tools"
• "Can feel slow with large candidate volumes"
• "Expensive compared to alternatives"
• "Some workflows feel dated"

The Pricing Reality

Ashby pricing starts around $400-600/month for small teams, scaling based on employees and features. Lever doesn't publish pricing but customer reports suggest $600-900/month for comparable configurations, with enterprise pricing significantly higher.

For a 100-person company, expect to pay roughly:

• Ashby: $12K-18K annually
• Lever: $15K-25K annually

Both offer discounts for multi-year contracts and startups.

The Migration Question

If you're currently using one and considering switching to the other, be realistic about migration costs: data migration, team retraining, workflow reconfiguration, integration reconnection. ATS switches take 2-3 months minimum and disrupt recruiting during transition.

Only switch if the advantages genuinely justify the disruption and cost. Being annoyed by your current ATS's limitations isn't enough—you need clear ROI.

The Bottom Line

Neither Ashby nor Lever is objectively "better"—they're optimized for different priorities.

Ashby is for data-driven recruiting teams who want analytics depth, scheduling automation, and modern architecture, and who are willing to invest time in learning a more complex platform.

Lever is for teams prioritizing ease of use, candidate experience, and extensive integrations, and who value maturity and established ecosystem over bleeding-edge features.

If you're still unsure, run trials of both and have your actual team use them for real requisitions. Pay attention to which platform your recruiters naturally prefer and which one hiring managers actually use without constant support.

The best ATS is the one your team will actually use well, not the one with the most impressive feature list. Choose accordingly.

And if anyone tells you one is definitively superior to the other, they're either selling something or haven't actually used both extensively. They're different tools for different teams. That's the whole point.