Open Dental Cloud: Here's What We Actually Think

We get asked about Open Dental Cloud all the time. And honestly, if you go to any of the Open Dental Facebook groups out there (side note, why are there so many of these these days?) and search "Open Dental Cloud," we'd be willing to bet you wouldn't find a single good review. In a recent post we came across, the thread was so unanimous it was almost funny. Office after office chiming in with the same thing: laggy, finicky, full of integration issues, and not worth it.

So since you keep asking, here's what we actually think.

The short answer

We don't recommend it. We also don't work with offices that use it, and that's not us being dramatic. Open Dental Cloud is so misaligned with what we believe efficient, well-run practice management looks like that we genuinely can't do our best work inside of it. Efficiency is one of our core values, and Open Dental Cloud makes it really hard to operate efficiently.

What we're hearing from offices who've tried it

The feedback is consistent across the board. Signing in takes forever. Printing is a problem. Scanning freezes. Texting software gets disrupted. And the performance itself... offices are reporting two to five second lag times per click, even with strong internet connections. One office we came across switched back to traditional Open Dental after a full year on Cloud and said it was the best decision they made.

The integration limitations are a big piece of this too. Open Dental's value is deeply tied to its third-party ecosystem. The integrations are a huge part of what makes it such a powerful platform, and Cloud significantly limits what you can connect to it. For offices who have built or want to build a smart, efficient tech stack around Open Dental, Cloud gets in the way of that almost immediately.

Why offices consider it in the first place

To be fair, the appeal makes sense. Remote access is a real need. Offices want to be able to get into their system when they're not physically in the building, whether that's for after-hours emergencies, multi-location access, or just flexibility. We get it. That's a completely legitimate thing to want.

The problem is that Open Dental Cloud isn't the right solution for it.

What to do instead

If remote access is the goal, there are much better ways to get there. Tom Terronez from Medix IT said it well in that same Facebook thread: a competent IT provider can host your Open Dental in a private cloud on AWS or Azure. You get the same remote access benefits, more integration flexibility, and none of the performance and limitation issues that come with Open Dental Cloud.

A VPN is another option worth exploring. A solid security router setup with a reliable IT partner can give you secure remote access to your traditional Open Dental installation without disrupting anything about how your system runs day to day.

Neither of these options is free, and we want to be upfront about that. If the goal is saving money, these alternatives won't get you there. But if the goal is actually getting remote access without blowing up your workflows and your integrations, they're worth the conversation with a trusted IT partner.

The bottom line

Open Dental is genuinely one of the best practice management systems out there. We've built our entire company around helping offices get the most out of it. But Open Dental Cloud is a version of the software that, based on everything we've seen and heard, isn't ready to deliver on what offices actually need from it.

Stick with traditional. Find an IT partner you trust. And if remote access is something you're actively trying to solve, that's a conversation worth having before you make any moves.