Open Dental

Open Dental is the best value in dental practice management if you can look after a server. It is the only major system that publishes its full fee schedule, it has more third-party integrations than any other product in our database, and its users rate its support well above the level Dentrix users give theirs.

The trade-off is responsibility. By default the database lives on your hardware, and the features many cloud systems bundle, such as two-way texting and online scheduling, are add-ons. Practices that want the vendor to take care of everything should compare the total with an all-in-one cloud system.

What Open Dental is

Open Dental is practice management software for dental offices of any size, installed on a server in the practice with a MySQL or MariaDB database. It covers scheduling, charting and perio charting, treatment planning, insurance and claims, ledger, imaging, reporting and custom queries.

The name causes confusion. It is not free, and it is not open source in the usual sense: the vendor says source code is sometimes shared with certain large customers under a non-disclosure agreement. “Open” is better read as open data and open integration. You own and host the database, you can write your own queries against it, and there is a documented API.

Pricing: everything is published

We read the vendor's fee schedule on September 30, 2026.

The first contract runs 12 months, then month to month. Prepaying earns a 5–15% discount, groups of four or more offices get volume pricing, and there is a 90-day money-back guarantee.

Over three years, support alone for one location comes to $5,964. Add the conversion, the eServices bundle and eRx for two prescribers and the total is about $17,500, before the server. That is still below most all-in-one cloud systems, but much closer than the headline price suggests. The full comparison is in our dental software cost guide.

Where Open Dental is strong

• Integrations. More than 60 products in our database list Open Dental as a supported system, the most of any practice management system. The vendor itself lists hundreds of bridges and more than 20 clearinghouses.
• API and data access. The API has four published tiers: read-only access is free, and write access costs $15 to $35 per location per month. Few competitors publish API terms at all.
• Reporting. Because you can run custom queries on your own database, almost any report is possible. The vendor will write queries for $110 an hour.
• Customization. Forms, sheets, appointment views and security permissions can all be tailored.
• Leaving is easy. Your data is already on your server in a standard database, so there is no export fee or lock-in.

Where it falls short

• You are the host. The vendor recommends a dedicated server, and backups are your job. A failed backup or an unpatched server is your HIPAA problem, not the vendor's.
• Add-ons accumulate. Reminders, the patient portal and the payment portal are free while on support, but confirmations, two-way texting, online scheduling, the mobile app and eRx each cost extra.
• Interface. Reviewers describe it as plain and old-fashioned, though quick to learn.
• Cloud is an extra, not the default. Open Dental Cloud starts at $250 a month for seven concurrent sessions in addition to support, and some reviewers report stability problems with the hosted version.
• No live support without a subscription. Offices that drop support pay per incident.

Setup and migration

Open Dental converts data from Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Eaglesoft, PracticeWorks, SoftDent, MOGO, ABELDent and others. A standard conversion is about $1,450 per database and includes a free test conversion, so you can check your own data before committing. Scanned documents (about $850) and X-rays (about $900) are converted separately.

You will need a Windows environment for the program, a server for the database and someone to set up backups. If you do not have an IT provider, budget for one. See how to switch dental software for a full checklist.

Open Dental alternatives to compare

• Dentrix, if you prefer a Henry Schein ecosystem and bundled services: Dentrix vs Open Dental.
• Eaglesoft, for Patterson customers: Eaglesoft vs Open Dental.
• A cloud-native system if you do not want a server at all: see the cloud PMS ranking.

Bottom line

Open Dental ranks at the top of server-based systems on our Data Index, with high marks for integrations, pricing clarity and user rating. It rewards practices that are willing to manage their own infrastructure with the lowest predictable cost and the most freedom. If that sounds like work you do not want, a cloud system will cost more and ask less of you.

What users say about Open Dental

Summarized by us from 89 public reviews on Capterra (overall 4.6 out of 5; ease of use 4.6, customer service 4.6) and the G2 rating of 4.3 from 47 reviews, read on September 30, 2026. Themes are paraphrased, not quoted.