Best Dental Software · head-to-head
Open Dental vs tab32
A sourced, side-by-side comparison for dental software. Open Dental has the lower entry price. Every figure links to the vendor's own page and the date we captured it.
At a glance
- Price: Open Dental $0/mo vs tab32 $125/mo — Open Dental is cheaper to start.
- Free tier: Open Dental Yes; tab32 No.
- HIPAA: Open Dental Yes; tab32 Yes.
Side by side
| Open Dental | tab32 | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $0/mo (Developing Countries / Dental Schools (Free)) | $125/mo (Alpine Start-Up (Year 1)) |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| HIPAA (BAA) | Yes | Yes |
| SOC 2 | — | Yes |
| GDPR | — | — |
| Best for | cost-conscious single-location practices | startups and new practices |
Sources — Open Dental: opendental.com (verified 2026-06-15). tab32: tab32.com (verified 2026-06-15).
Key features
Open Dental: Open-source codebase with community-driven development; Self-hosted model giving practices full data control; 100+ imaging bridge integrations; Free for dental schools and developing-country practices
tab32: Cloud-native on Google Cloud Platform — no local servers; Usage-based claims billing (pay per claim); SOC 2 attested and HIPAA-compliant; 14-day free trial with full platform access and data migration option