Dentrix, Curve Dental, and Open Dental together cover the majority of Canadian dental practice management decisions. Here's how to choose in 2025 — with PHIPA compliance factored in.
Dentrix
Dentrix (Henry Schein) is the most widely installed dental practice management system in Canada. It's on-premise software, which means patient data stays on your local server — a straightforward path to PHIPA data residency compliance. The trade-off: on-premise requires local IT support, hardware maintenance, and backup management.
Dentrix's feature set is comprehensive — scheduling, charting, billing, insurance claims, patient communication. Its add-on ecosystem (Dentrix Ascend for cloud features, Weave for communication, Dexis for imaging) extends it significantly. Typical cost: $500–800 CAD per month in software and support.
Curve Dental
Curve Dental is cloud-native with Canadian data centres that satisfy PHIPA data residency requirements. The cloud delivery means no server hardware, no local IT, and full access from any device — attractive for multi-location practices and dentists who work across sites.
Curve's UI is the most modern of the three. Pricing is per-provider subscription, typically $400–600 USD per provider per month. For single-dentist practices, Curve is increasingly competitive on total cost of ownership when server and IT costs are factored out.
Open Dental
Open Dental is open-source with a support subscription model (approximately $169 USD/month for the full support plan). It runs on-premise and is highly customizable — the most flexible of the three. The trade-off: customization requires technical capability, either in-house or through a dental IT partner. For practices with a strong IT relationship, Open Dental delivers the most flexibility at the lowest software cost.
Recommendation
- Single location, prefer simplicity: Dentrix or Curve Dental
- Multi-location or highly mobile: Curve Dental
- Tech-savvy practice with IT support: Open Dental
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