The ZEP alternative with personnel work rather than project controlling alone
ZEP bills projects. MetronHR also covers what every business needs anyway: a personnel file, onboarding, shift and duty planning, absences and overtime, with no add-on module.
All information about ZEP comes from the official provider pages. As at:2. September 2026.
Features in detail
| Feature | MetronHR | ZEP |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic-light account (warning levels with an automatic alert) | 1 | |
| Working-time models (part-time, flexitime, trust-based working time) | ~2 | |
| Shift and duty planning / roster | 3 | 4 |
| Allowances / hour packages | 5 | |
| Digital Employee File | 6 | |
| Onboarding and offboarding workflows | 7 | |
| Hosting operator without a US parent company | 8 | ~9 |
Sources and notes (9)
- 1. ZEP, Traffic-light account (warning levels with an automatic alert): The feature overview lists, among other things, „absences & overtime“ and automated workflows. A working-time account with warning levels and an automatic alert is not listed there (zep.de/funktionen, retrieved 14 September 2026).
- 2. ZEP, Working-time models (part-time, flexitime, trust-based working time): ZEP Clock mentions „legally compliant settings“ for working and break times. Freely configurable models for flexitime, trust-based working time or alternating weekly patterns are not listed as a separate feature.
- 3. MetronHR, Shift and duty planning / roster: An optional module, included in the Professional plan and activated per company, either as shift planning or as duty planning with a day plan. MetronHR also works entirely without both.
- 4. ZEP, Shift and duty planning / roster: ZEP plans projects and resources, not shifts. The provider does not offer duty or shift planning as a product.
- 5. ZEP, Allowances / hour packages: Project budgets, revenue and cost accounting exist. Client-bound hour packages with periodic renewal and carry-over are not documented.
- 6. ZEP, Digital Employee File: ZEP keeps employee master data for time tracking. A digital personnel file with contracts, documents and expiry reminders is not part of the offer; the document management module concerns project documents.
- 7. ZEP, Onboarding and offboarding workflows: At ZEP, "onboarding" means the free setup of your own account, not a workflow for new employees joining.
- 8. MetronHR, Hosting operator without a US parent company: The operator is Hetzner Online GmbH, a German company with no US parent. This marketing website is hosted with Vercel, Inc. (USA) in the Frankfurt region, where no employee data is processed.
- 9. ZEP, Hosting operator without a US parent company: ZEP names several German data centres and ISO 27001 certified hosting partners, but does not name those partners.
~ = available with limits, the notes are below the table. – = no verified information is available for this provider on this feature. That is not a no: we only record a negative where we can cite a source.
An overview of which features exist at all, regardless of plan. The price-performance comparison is on the pricing page, the individual features in detail under Features.
Feature comparison as at September 2026. Information about competitors comes from publicly available sources, in each case the official provider pages with the date retrieved, and can change. ZEP is a trademark of its respective owner.
MetronHR is also available as a native app for iOS and Android:
Where the data sits
Server location and operator are two different questions. A data centre in Germany does not remove the data from US law: providers with a US parent company fall under the CLOUD Act and the surveillance powers of FISA 702, regardless of where the servers stand. Microsoft's chief legal officer in France testified under oath before the French Senate's committee of inquiry on 10 June 2025 that he could not guarantee that data from European data centres would not go to US authorities (record of the Sénat). That is why both are shown side by side here, each with the source it comes from.
What is compared is what the provider documents for its own application, not the infrastructure of its marketing website. More about our own hosting is in the Trust Center.
MetronHR
- Server location of the application
- Hetzner Online GmbH, Nuremberg and Falkenstein. All servers stand exclusively in Germany.
- Operator and legal jurisdiction
- Hetzner Online GmbH, a German company with no US parent and therefore beyond the reach of the CLOUD Act and FISA 702. No US provider sits in the data path for the application.
- Processors outside Germany
- None for the application. Payment is handled by Stripe Payments Europe (Ireland). This marketing website is hosted with Vercel, Inc. (USA, Frankfurt region), and analytics run through PostHog Cloud EU and the reverse proxy cdn.metronhr.de with a Cloudflare edge. No employee data is processed there.
- Source
- MetronHR privacy policyAs at 08/2026
ZEP
- Server location of the application
- Several data centres in Germany. ZEP backs the data up automatically every day in several German data centres and describes a disaster recovery concept with redundant, encrypted backups.
- Operator and legal jurisdiction
- Not named. ZEP states that both ZEP GmbH and its cloud hosting partners are certified to ISO/IEC 27001. The provider is ZEP GmbH in Weil der Stadt, with no US parent.
- Processors outside Germany
- None named for the application. For the website and marketing ZEP embeds HubSpot, Google, Microsoft, Meta, YouTube, Clearbit and Proven Expert, among others.
- Source
- ZEP data securityabgerufen 02.09.2026
All information comes from the providers' publicly available privacy policies and security pages, and the date retrieved is on every card. Providers can change their infrastructure and their processors at any time. The adequacy decision on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework still applies, but is under legal challenge.
What MetronHR does better
A personnel file and onboarding instead of a project view alone
ZEP looks at projects: who worked on what and for how long, what it cost, what gets invoiced. The personnel side stays outside. Contracts, salary letters, social security, documents with expiry dates and the joining process for new colleagues run alongside. MetronHR keeps both in the same system, a personnel file with self-service and onboarding workflows next to project time.
Holiday and overtime are not an add-on module
At ZEP „absences & overtime“ is added in the price calculator. For a tool whose core is project controlling that is consistent, but for a business it is basic equipment: holiday requests, approval, remaining holiday, sick notes, an overtime account and time off in lieu are needed by everyone. At MetronHR that is included in the Team plan at 5 euros, with a public holiday calendar for all 16 federal states and an automatic check against the Working Time Act.
Plan who works when, not just on what
ZEP plans projects and resources. Anyone who has to staff a business, early shift, late shift, weekends, cover for sickness, finds no tool for it. MetronHR plans shifts with templates and patterns and the day in 15-minute steps with activities, staffing rules and qualification requirements, and compares planned against recorded times.
Two plans instead of three lines and twelve modules
ZEP has three product lines from 2 to 18 euros, plus up to twelve add-on modules and more than a dozen interfaces, each bookable individually. That is flexible and hard to estimate. MetronHR has two plans: 5 and 10 euros per person per month, each with everything the plan contains, with no module selection.
Price comparison
ZEP tiers into three product lines and bills add-on modules and interfaces on top. Here is what adds up for the same scope.
| Service | MetronHR | ZEP |
|---|---|---|
| Working time recording, reporting, app | Team 5 euros | ZEP Clock from 2 euros |
| + absences and overtime | included in Team | Add-on module, bookable in the price calculator |
| + project time, project controlling, client master data | Professional 10 euros | ZEP Compact from 7 euros |
| + personnel file, onboarding workflows, shift and duty planning | included in Professional | not available |
| Travel expenses, invoicing, revenue and cost accounting | not available | ZEP Professional from 18 euros |
| Setup and term | Self-service, cancellable monthly | free basic onboarding, monthly adjustment of users and scope |
Working time recording, reporting, app
- MetronHR
- Team 5 euros
- ZEP
- ZEP Clock from 2 euros
+ absences and overtime
- MetronHR
- included in Team
- ZEP
- Add-on module, bookable in the price calculator
+ project time, project controlling, client master data
- MetronHR
- Professional 10 euros
- ZEP
- ZEP Compact from 7 euros
+ personnel file, onboarding workflows, shift and duty planning
- MetronHR
- included in Professional
- ZEP
- not available
Travel expenses, invoicing, revenue and cost accounting
- MetronHR
- not available
- ZEP
- ZEP Professional from 18 euros
Setup and term
- MetronHR
- Self-service, cancellable monthly
- ZEP
- free basic onboarding, monthly adjustment of users and scope
Prices per zep.de/preise, retrieved on 2 September 2026, per user per month. ZEP grants non-profits up to 50 per cent discount, start-ups up to 50 per cent for up to two years, and student consultancies free use. From 100 users (Clock), 50 (Compact) or 25 (Professional) an individual quote applies. Both providers offer a 14-day trial.
No credit card needed · cancellable monthly
FromZEP moving to MetronHR
Your data comes with you.ZEP hands them over as a file, MetronHR reads people, personal data, hours and absences out of it, and before anything is taken over you see row by row what will happen. For a team under thirty people that is a matter of one to two hours, most of it spent putting the file together.
- 1
AtZEP export
- The project time report as CSV, with its columns configurable separately from the screen view
- Employee administration as CSV or Excel via the download icon
- 2
Load the template and map the columns
The template comes as Excel and as CSV, with a second sheet that states for every column whether it is required, its format, an example and the permitted values. If your file's header row matches, the mapping falls away entirely. Otherwise the assistant proposes the mapping and marks everything that did not match word for word.
- 3
Check, then take it over
The dry run is mandatory and writes nothing. It shows for every row whether it will be created, changed, skipped or rejected, naming the column and the value behind the finding. Only the second click takes it over, in one transaction. The default is "create new ones only", and an empty cell never changes a value that has been maintained.
Export routes fromZEP according to ZEP help centre, employee administration, retrieved on06.09.2026.
Comes with you
- People, with staff number, work address and employment contract
- Remaining holiday and the overtime balance as an opening value per person
- Departments, clients, services and projects
- Time entries and absences for the current year
- Public holidays, including regions that differ
Does not come with you
- Files from the old personnel file, they are uploaded again
- The history of an hours account, MetronHR starts from the opening value
How the move works in detail, what the dry run shows and why no invitation email goes out with it is set out on the page switching time tracking.
Frequently asked questions
What you need to know about switching from ZEP to MetronHR.
ZEP quotes three lines per user per month: ZEP Clock from 2 euros, ZEP Compact from 7 euros, ZEP Professional from 18 euros. Absences and overtime, the terminal, invoicing, travel expenses and the individual interfaces are added on top. MetronHR costs 5 euros on the Team plan and 10 euros on Professional, with no modules. Anyone who only wants to record working time does better with ZEP Clock; anyone who also needs holiday, overtime, a personnel file and planning comes in below the module price with MetronHR. As at 2 September 2026.
If you want to generate quotes and invoices from the hours recorded and settle travel expenses. Project planning, revenue and cost accounting, resource planning and a ticket system are product at ZEP; MetronHR deliberately does not run the invoicing chain. Anyone who needs it pays for the Professional plan at ZEP from 18 euros per person, on top of which absences, overtime, the terminal and every interface are added. At MetronHR absences and overtime are basic equipment from 5 euros per person.
A digital personnel file with contracts, documents and expiry reminders, onboarding and offboarding workflows, shift and duty planning with staffing rules, client-bound hour packages with renewal and carry-over as well as configurable working-time models. Absences and overtime are basic equipment at MetronHR and an add-on module at ZEP.
ZEP names several data centres in Germany and states that both ZEP itself and its hosting partners are certified to ISO/IEC 27001. Which partners those are is not on the page. MetronHR runs at Hetzner Online GmbH in Nuremberg and Falkenstein, and the operator is named in the Trust Center.
Yes, for times, projects, clients and absences. ZEP offers unlimited reporting, exports for accounting and a documented interface. What cannot be carried over is quotes, invoices and travel expense receipts, because MetronHR does not run that chain. Anyone who needs it should check before switching which tool will take on those jobs.
Question not answered here? Every step is explained in the help centre.
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