Which Dental Practice Software Is Most Used in the US, Canada and Australia?

Sources read on October 19, 2026. Every count below is the vendor's own unless the text says otherwise.

No independent, current survey ranks dental practice management software by market share in the United States, Canada or Australia. What exists is a mix of vendor counts, web-detected company data and surveys that are a decade or more old.

That gap matters when a practice picks software, or asks whether an AI receptionist will work with the system it already runs. This article lays out what can be stated with a source and a date, country by country, and what cannot.

What is the most used dental practice software in the United States?

Dentrix has the largest published base: its maker counts more than 48,000 practices on Dentrix platforms. No current survey ranks US vendors.

Henry Schein One stated the figure in a December 18, 2025 press release: more than 48,000 practices rely on Dentrix dental technology platforms. The number covers the server product, the cloud product Dentrix Ascend and Dentrix Enterprise together, and the release gives no country split. In an August 20, 2025 release the same company said it serves more than 48,000 practices in the United States across all its products. The company publishes no count that is both Dentrix-only and US-only. On its February 24, 2026 earnings call the company put Dentrix Ascend alone at more than 11,000 subscribers, up more than 20 percent in a year. Henry Schein's annual report for the 2025 fiscal year counts about 95,000 active practices worldwide across all of its software brands, which include axiUm, Dentally and Dentrix Ascend.

No other US vendor publishes a comparable number. Planet DDS says 14,500 practices use its products, but that spans Denticon and its other lines. CareStack's own page says 3,000 or more practices. Curve's home page shows 6,000+ practice locations and 100,000+ active users in the US and Canada. Patterson's Eaglesoft page says nearly 30,000 users rely on it, a count of people, not practices. Open Dental publishes no count. We found none on the Carestream Dental website.

The surveys with percentages are old. A DentistryIQ reader survey of 297 dentists, published January 1, 2004, put Dentrix at 29 percent, with Eaglesoft and SoftDent at 13 percent each. A 2013 study in the Journal of the American Dental Association, among dentists in a practice-based research network who used computers, found Dentrix in 40.3 percent of solo and 44 percent of group practices, and Eaglesoft in 25.4 and 22.4 percent. Both describe markets a decade or more old and should not be read as today's share.

Web-detected data points the same way without proving it. Enlyft, a sales-data firm, scans public websites and job posts for signs of which software a business uses. On October 19, 2026, Enlyft listed 3,355 companies it had detected using Dentrix, 910 for Eaglesoft, 802 for Open Dental and 659 for Denticon. Those are companies it could find online, not practices, and the figures change from one snapshot to the next.

What is the most used dental practice software in Canada?

No Canadian survey ranks practice software by vendor. Dentrix sells in Canada alongside several Canadian-built systems, in unmeasured shares.

The Canadian-built group includes ClearDent, ABELDent, Tracker, Paradigm, Maxident and Power Practice, plus Dentitek and Progident in Quebec. ClearDent's home page says over 35,000 Canadian dental professionals trust it, which counts people, not practices. ABELDent's home page shows 5,000+ dental practices, with no country split. Paradigm's maker, Logic Tech, says it is trusted by 1,000+ clinics. Dentitek's site says its software was chosen by more than 1,000 dental clinics in Quebec. On October 19, 2026 we found no practice count on the Power Practice or Progident websites, Tracker's site did not load, and Maxident's listed domain was for sale. No source measures how the Canadian market divides between these systems and the US vendors.

The one outside signal is geography. On October 19, 2026, Enlyft placed 73 percent of the ABELDent customers it detected in Canada, and 72 percent of ClearDent customers. Those are company counts in the low hundreds, useful only to show where each product sells, not how many practices run it or what share of Canada it holds.

Past Canadian dental technology surveys asked how many dentists used their software for charting and clinical records, not which vendor they used. We found no association survey of vendor share in Canada.

What is the most used dental practice software in Australia?

Centaur Software, maker of Dental4Windows, calls itself Australia's number one dental software provider. No method is published.

Centaur's home page says its products are trusted by more than 4,000 practices in Australia, New Zealand and worldwide. That count covers the company's whole range, not Dental4Windows alone, and gives no Australia-only figure. A July 2012 article in Australasian Dental Practice quotes Centaur saying a 2008 Australian Dental Association member survey showed Dental4Windows as the most popular system. No percentage was given and we could not locate the survey itself.

Two other Australian vendors publish counts. Praktika's FAQ page says more than 2,000 practices and over 25,000 users, with no split between Australia and New Zealand. Core Practice's home page shows 6K+ practitioners and 17K+ users, with no practice count. Software of Excellence, maker of EXACT and now part of Henry Schein One, says only that thousands of practices across Australia use it.

Which counts can actually be cited?

Thirteen vendor figures carry a source and a date. Each counts something different, so they never add up to a vendor ranking.

Why is there no reliable ranking?

Vendors count different things, brands bundle products, web data counts companies, and the only surveys are old. Four gaps, one result.

1. Different units. One vendor counts practices, another counts locations, a third counts subscribers or users. A practice with three locations and twelve users appears three different ways.
2. Bundled brands. Henry Schein One's 48,000 covers three Dentrix products. Planet DDS's 14,500 covers more than Denticon. A number for one product is rarely published on its own.
3. Web-detected company data. Services like Enlyft guess which software a business uses from its public website and job posts. Practices with a thin web presence vanish, and the totals change from month to month.
4. Old surveys. The last surveys with vendor percentages date from 2003 to 2013. The only association survey we found referenced is the 2008 Australian one, and only secondhand. We found no current association survey of vendor share in any of the three countries.

What should a practice do with this?

Treat popularity as a weak signal. Judge software on your own workflows and cost, and ask any connected tool to name your exact edition.

If you are choosing software, a widely used system means a deep pool of trained staff and trainers, and little else. Our selection guide walks through workflow fit, total cost and switching risk without ranking vendors.

If you are checking whether an AI receptionist works with the software you already run, the edition matters more than the brand. Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend and Dentrix Enterprise are three different products, and a vendor that connects to one may not connect to the others. Our Dentrix page shows which AI receptionists name each edition, and our practice software directory lists the 63 dental systems Aida can connect to. We confirm and test the connection with your practice during setup.

Most used dental software: frequently asked questions

Short answers to the questions practices ask most often, each limited to what a dated, named source can actually support.