§ The result
3 points separate Stepstone and Darwinbox.
Stepstone (Screening) edges Darwinbox (ATS-integrated) by 3 points under rubric v1.0, 49 to 46. Stepstone leads 4 of the 7 criteria, including Bias Audit Transparency, while Darwinbox leads 2, including Article 11 Technical Documentation, and 1 is level. One criterion, Bias Audit Transparency, is both the widest raw gap (Darwinbox 28, Stepstone 50) and the heaviest weighted swing, and at 18% weight it makes up 83% of the weighted advantage Stepstone holds across the 4 criteria it leads.
Vendor profile
Darwinbox
Darwinbox is an enterprise HCM suite whose recruitment module uses Darwinbox Sense AI (now sold inside its Cortex agent platform) to parse resumes, stack-rank and recommend candidates with stated fit reasoning, run screening and shortlisting agents, and give candidates an assistant for job matching, interview details and FAQs.
Vendor profile
Stepstone
Stepstone is a German job marketplace whose Stepstone Recruit employer platform includes an AI Screening Agent, which rates each application against requirements taken from the job ad, and a Talent Finder, which recommends candidates from a CV database of more than 4 million profiles.
§ The record
Darwinbox is filed under ATS-integrated AI, Stepstone under Screening AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Sourcing.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act and Illinois HB 3773.
| Record | Darwinbox | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Mid |
| Headquarters | IN | DE |
| Founded | 2015 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 64% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Darwinbox 28 · Stepstone 50
4.0 weighted points to Stepstone
20% weight · 80% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Darwinbox 60 · Stepstone 55
1.0 weighted points to Darwinbox
15% weight · 87% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Darwinbox 58 · Stepstone 55
0.4 weighted points to Darwinbox
12% weight · 93% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Darwinbox 55 · Stepstone 58
0.4 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 99% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Darwinbox 35 · Stepstone 38
0.4 weighted points to Stepstone
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Darwinbox 57 · Stepstone 58
0.1 weighted points to Stepstone
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 6 figures above sum to -3.3 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 6.2 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -3 beside that -3.3.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Darwinbox minus Stepstone.
| Category | Weight | Darwinbox | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 60 | 55 | +5 | +1.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 28 | 50 | -22 | -4.0 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 30 | - | - |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 58 | 55 | +3 | +0.4 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 55 | 58 | -3 | -0.4 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 35 | 38 | -3 | -0.4 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 57 | 58 | -1 | -0.1 |
| Total | 100% | 46 (F) | 49 (F) | -3 | -3.3 |
§ Evidence
Cited sources and documented absences, criterion by criterion.
An absence is a finding, not a blank: the reviewer looked for a named artefact and recorded that it is not located. Where a source sits is a fact about hosting only.
| Criterion | Weight | Darwinbox | Stepstone | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 3 | 1 | — | 3 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 24 | 7 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 29 | 4 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Darwinbox has 31 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 24 with a source URL, 7 documented absences; Stepstone has 33 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 29 with a source URL, 4 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Stepstone sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 64 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 31 for Darwinbox, across 1 distinct source domain, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Darwinbox last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Stepstone last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
HireAIScore scores are editorial research, not legal advice, and no vendor pays for placement, scoring or removal — see the methodology, conflicts policy and terms.
§ Where next