PAYCHEX vs PAYLOCITY - Is it case of a tale of 2 cities?

Despite being in a similar service sector, Paychex - PAYX and Paylocity Holding Corp - PCTY have significant differences beyond what the following comparison indicates:

 In a reversal of role of sorts, PAYX is displaying characteristics of a growth and momentum stock, while PCTY is struggling to match its performance from the last year. It's just up 15.5% on a YTD basis, which beats the NASDAQ hands down, but severely lag the 43% YTD gain of PAYX, which beats both NASDAQ and S&P 500 returns by a mile. 

The performance of PAYX has surprised many in the Wall Street and analyst community with its ability to keep going to the upside despite competition from ADP, which is the payroll services behemoth in US. PAYX has benefitted from more outsourcing of payroll from mid-size companies with this looking to be a continuing trend in the near future. PAYX was considered a staid and old school payroll processing name until it was not. The current price in the $130's has already blown past most analyst estimates and PT's. It will be interesting to see how much is still left in PAYX.

PCTY has the advantage of its product differentiation and SAAS edge, like its peer in the similar service vertical Paycom - PAYC, which has done worse than PCTY on a yearly as well as YTD basis. Both these have suffered from investor rotation out of or retreat from growth stocks. 

Despite the setbacks from the last quarter volatility of growth stocks, PCTY looks to have promising runway of growth ahead. I hold both PAYX and PCTY in my differently styled portfolios and with some luck, I may stand to gain from both flourishing in their own ways.