How we make this list: we compare pricing pages, product documentation and public user reviews. Ratings come from G2, Capterra or Trustpilot, with the date we checked them.
Key takeaways
- Epic is the default for large hospitals and health systems, holding about 44 percent of US inpatient installations in 2026 data.
- Oracle Health is second in hospitals but under pressure, with KLAS reporting weak satisfaction; MEDITECH is the community hospital value pick.
- athenahealth and eClinicalWorks lead the independent practice market with cloud systems practices can actually afford.
- PointClickCare and Netsmart own the post-acute and behavioural health corners the EHR giants serve badly.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|
 Epic | Large hospitals and integrated health systems | See website | No |
 Oracle Health | Hospital systems standardised on Cerner | See website | No |
 MEDITECH | Community hospitals watching total cost | See website | No |
 athenahealth | Independent and mid sized practices | See website | No |
 eClinicalWorks | High-volume ambulatory practices | See website | No |
 NextGen Healthcare | Specialty and mid sized practices | See website | No |
 PointClickCare | Skilled nursing and senior care | See website | No |
 Netsmart | Behavioural health and human services | See website | No |
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The best healthcare software companies in 2026
#1Epic
Best for: Large hospitals and integrated health systems4.2/5 on
G2 (940 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit epic.com
Starting priceSee website
Free planNo
Epic is the centre of gravity in US healthcare software. Most big academic centres and a growing share of all hospital beds run on it, and its record follows patients between organisations better than any rival's, which is now a clinical feature rather than an IT one. KLAS's 2026 reporting has it adding hospitals while its nearest rival loses them.
None of that makes it the right purchase for most organisations reading a list like this. Epic is a multi-year, board-level commitment with implementation costs that can exceed the licence. It is on this list first because the question asks for the best companies, and by adoption, satisfaction among large systems and momentum, Epic is the company the rest of the market measures itself against.
What we like- Largest US hospital footprint: about 43.9 percent of inpatient installations and a majority of hospital beds in 2026 data, one integrated record across hospital, clinics, billing and the MyChart patient app, the strongest interoperability story through Care Everywhere record sharing, top overall suite scores in KLAS 2026 acute care reporting
Watch out for- Implementation costs run into the tens of millions for large systems and take years, pricing is entirely negotiated and opaque, widely described by clinicians as powerful but click-heavy, far beyond the budget and needs of independent practices
#2Oracle Health
Best for: Hospital systems standardised on Cerner3.5/5 on
G2 (239 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit oracle.com
Starting priceSee website
Free planNo
Oracle bought Cerner in 2022 and renamed it Oracle Health, promising a ground-up rebuild on Oracle Cloud with AI throughout. The installed base is still the second largest in hospitals, and its federal contracts make it a fixture of US healthcare for decades regardless of commercial momentum.
The honest position in late 2026 is a company in transition with a satisfaction problem. KLAS data shows net hospital losses and the weakest suite scores in its class, and a large share of customers described as leaving or vulnerable. Existing Cerner shops should weigh the rebuild promises against that record; new buyers should ask for reference sites of their own size and ring them.
What we like- Second-largest hospital footprint at about 18.9 percent of inpatient installations, deep presence in federal healthcare, including the VA and Department of Defense systems, Oracle's cloud infrastructure and AI investment behind the rebuild of the platform, strong revenue cycle and population health tooling
Watch out for- KLAS 2026 reporting scores its Millennium EHR lowest among ranked acute care products and flags many customers as at risk of leaving, the platform rebuild means roadmap uncertainty for current customers, lost hospitals for three straight years in KLAS tracking, sales and support experience has been inconsistent since the Cerner acquisition
#3MEDITECH
Best for: Community hospitals watching total cost3.1/5 on
G2 (116 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit meditech.com
Starting priceSee website
Free planNo
MEDITECH is the value answer in hospital software. Community and regional hospitals, the ones without a nine-figure IT budget, run on it in large numbers, and its Expanse platform has modernised the product while holding on to its customers: KLAS reports the strongest legacy retention in the market, which is the quietest and most reliable satisfaction signal in this industry.
The trade is ecosystem. Fewer consultants, fewer third-party apps, less depth at the very top end of acuity. For a community hospital deciding between a system its staff can run and a flagship it cannot afford to implement, MEDITECH is frequently the correct, unglamorous answer.
What we like- Third-largest hospital vendor at about 10.7 percent of inpatient installations, and the largest hospital EHR vendor in Canada, Expanse platform wins Best in KLAS recognition in small acute care, total cost of ownership well below Epic for comparable hospitals, strongest legacy customer retention in KLAS reporting, with most customers migrating to Expanse rather than leaving
Watch out for- Smaller third-party app and integration ecosystem than Epic, less presence in large academic centres, ambulatory depth trails the big two, AI feature pace depends on partners such as Google rather than in-house scale
Starting priceSee website
Free planNo
athenahealth built the model independent practices actually wanted: log in from anywhere, let the vendor run the software and much of the billing, and pay in proportion to what the practice collects. For a multi-specialty group without an IT department, that trade still makes sense, and its ambulatory share reflects it.
Do the percentage maths at your growth rate, not your current size. A fee that is painless at $1 million of collections is a serious line item at $5 million, and migrating an EHR later is painful enough that the decision deserves the projection. Within its market (practices, not hospitals), athenahealth remains the benchmark cloud offer.
What we like- Cloud-based athenaOne combines EHR, practice management and billing with no servers to run, pricing has historically been a percentage of collections, aligning cost with practice revenue, strong claims and revenue cycle services that take billing work off small practices, about 6.9 percent of the US ambulatory market, with fast updates including ambient documentation AI
Watch out for- Percentage-of-collections pricing gets expensive as a practice grows, less customisable than server-based rivals for unusual specialties, not a hospital system
- Inpatient depth is not its market, practices report varying support quality as the company has changed owners
Starting priceSee website
Free planNo
eClinicalWorks is the scale player in ambulatory care: tens of thousands of practices, a wide feature surface and pricing that undercuts athenahealth for groups willing to run more of the operation themselves. Community health centres and high-volume clinics form a large part of its base.
The complaints are consistent enough to plan around: budget for training, test the workflows your clinicians will live in, and get module pricing in writing. Practices that do that diligence often find eClinicalWorks the best value in its class; practices that buy on the demo alone are the ones writing the angry reviews.
What we like- Second-largest ambulatory vendor at about 11.9 percent of the US market, broad feature set across EHR, practice management, telehealth and patient engagement at aggressive prices, strong presence in community health centres and large multi-site groups, heavy recent investment in AI documentation and automation through its healow ecosystem
Watch out for- Interface and workflow depth get mixed reviews from clinicians, support quality is a recurring complaint in user reviews, pricing and module structure can be hard to pin down before a contract, not a contender for hospital inpatient work
#6NextGen Healthcare
Best for: Specialty and mid sized practices3.7/5 on
G2 (175 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit nextgen.com
Starting priceSee website
Free planNo
NextGen's argument is specialisation. A generic EHR makes an ophthalmology or orthopedics practice bend its workflows to the software; NextGen built specialty-specific content so the bending is smaller. For mid sized specialty groups, that fit is worth more than a longer feature list elsewhere.
It sits below athenahealth and eClinicalWorks on share, and under private ownership its packaging has shifted, so confirm current module names and prices in the contract rather than from older reviews. Within specialty ambulatory care, it remains one of the credible shortlist names.
What we like- Deep specialty content for areas such as ophthalmology, orthopedics and behavioural health, combined EHR, practice management and revenue cycle services for mid sized groups, strong interoperability and patient engagement tooling, long track record with specialty practices that the horizontal vendors serve generically
Watch out for- Smaller market share than the ambulatory leaders, private-equity ownership has meant product and pricing changes to track, hospital inpatient is outside its scope, some specialty depth requires paid modules and configuration
Starting priceSee website
Free planNo
Post-acute care is where the EHR giants are weakest and PointClickCare is strongest. Skilled nursing facilities document differently, bill differently and staff differently, and this platform was built for that world rather than adapted to it. It holds the leading share in US skilled nursing.
For hospital buyers, the interest is transitional: discharge targets run PointClickCare, and its network is how records and referrals move into post-acute care. For nursing facility operators, it is the default shortlist name, with the usual enterprise advice: negotiate training and interface costs into the first contract.
What we like- The dominant EHR in US skilled nursing and a leader across senior living, built for long-term care workflows, MDS assessments and the staffing patterns of nursing facilities, strong pharmacy, billing and care coordination links for post-acute networks, expanding into the wider senior care data network hospitals discharge into
Watch out for- Post-acute only
- Useless to a hospital or physician practice, pricing is enterprise negotiated, implementation and training are significant for small facilities, its value rises with network participation, so isolated facilities get less from it
#8
Netsmart
Best for: Behavioural health and human services
Visit ntst.com
Starting priceSee website
Free planNo
Netsmart closes the list because healthcare software has a long tail of care that the hospital vendors serve badly, and behavioural health is the biggest part of it. Documentation, billing and reporting for mental health, substance use and human services providers follow rules the general EHRs were not built around, and Netsmart was.
If your organisation is a community mental health centre, an addiction treatment provider or a human services agency, this is your Epic: the platform your peers run, your state reporting expects and your funders' requirements map to. Everyone else should look up the list.
What we like- The specialist leader for behavioural health, addiction treatment and human services records, myEvolv and related platforms built for case management, group documentation and state reporting, handles the billing and compliance patterns (grants, bundled rates, state programmes) general EHRs manage badly, growing footprint in post-acute and community care through acquisition
Watch out for- Behavioural health focus makes it the wrong tool for medical-surgical care, product family has grown by acquisition, so platform consistency varies, enterprise pricing with nothing published, smaller general brand recognition outside its sector
How we chose
Companies were included if they sell healthcare software at scale in the US today, with the electronic health record and its surrounding platform as the core. Ranking leans on published market share (Definitive Healthcare install data, April 2026), KLAS satisfaction and retention reporting, and the segment each company genuinely serves. Prices are shown as See website throughout because enterprise healthcare software is negotiated and no vendor here publishes a rate card; that is the honest figure.
How to read this market as a buyer
Match the company to the setting first. Hospitals buy from the top of this list, practices from the middle, post-acute and behavioural health from the end. Crossing those lines (a hospital suite squeezed into a clinic, a practice system stretched over a hospital) is how organisations end up in multi-year regret.
Second, price the decade, not the licence. Implementation, interfaces, training, and the staff to run the system outweigh the software fee over ten years, and switching EHRs is the most disruptive project a care organisation undertakes. Retention data, such as MEDITECH's, is therefore a buying signal, not trivia.
Third, test with your own clinicians in your own workflows, and ring reference sites of your size that the vendor did not choose. Satisfaction scores like KLAS's exist because demo impressions in this market are unreliable.
Frequently asked questions
What is the largest healthcare software company?
By installed base, Epic. Definitive Healthcare's April 2026 data gives Epic about 43.9 percent of US inpatient hospital installations and the leading share of ambulatory care as well. Oracle Health is second in hospitals at about 18.9 percent, and MEDITECH third at about 10.7 percent.
How much does healthcare software cost?
For enterprise systems, there is no published price. Hospital EHR deals are negotiated and implementations at large systems run into the tens of millions. Practice systems are cheaper and sometimes priced as a percentage of collections, as athenahealth has historically done. Any exact per-user figure quoted without a proposal should be treated as invented.
Which company is best for a small medical practice?
athenahealth and eClinicalWorks are the usual shortlist: both are cloud based, widely used in ambulatory care and priced for practices rather than hospitals. Specialty practices should add NextGen for its specialty content. The right pick depends on your billing model, specialty and tolerance for running the system yourself.
Is Oracle Health the same as Cerner?
Yes, in product terms. Oracle acquired Cerner in 2022 and rebranded the business as Oracle Health; the Millennium platform most hospitals run is the Cerner system, now being rebuilt on Oracle's cloud. The name on the contract changed; the installed software is a continuation of Cerner.
Why do post-acute and behavioural health need different vendors?
Because the work is different: nursing facilities run MDS assessments and long-stay billing, and behavioural health runs group documentation, grant funding and state programme reporting. PointClickCare and Netsmart were built for those workflows, which is why they lead segments the hospital EHRs barely touch.
Sources we checked (0)
Is your product missing or out of date?
We review this list regularly. Vendors can request a listing, send updated pricing or ask about featured placement.
Shihab Mia · Founder, Rankite
Shihab has 5+ years in B2B and SaaS SEO. He writes Rankite's software buying guides from pricing pages, documentation and public user reviews. More about Shihab.