Mirth is now commercial.Here are your options.
NextGen discontinued open-source Mirth Connect in March 2025, and v4.5.2 is the last free release. There are three paths forward, and OpenShare fits on each.
What happened with Mirth Connect.
In March 2025, NextGen Healthcare discontinued the open-source release of Mirth Connect, the healthcare integration engine used by thousands of organizations worldwide for nearly two decades.
Version 4.5.2 is the last open-source release. Starting with version 4.6, Mirth Connect requires a commercial license with recurring fees.
The community responded quickly. The community-driven Open Integration Engine (OIE) emerged. It is binary-compatible with Mirth Connect and continues the open-source path.
This page covers the three decision paths available today and how OpenShare fits on each.
Mirth Connect released as open-source healthcare integration engine
Quality Systems Inc. (later NextGen Healthcare) acquires Mirth Corporation
Open-source discontinued at v4.5.2. Commercial-only from v4.6.
OIE community fork launched
OIE 4.6.0 released: Java 17 minimum, 24 CVEs remediated
Three paths forward.
Each path has different tradeoffs. OpenShare is an experience layer that runs on top of whichever engine you choose.
License Mirth Connect commercially (v4.6+)
NextGen Healthcare offers Mirth Connect v4.6+ under a commercial license. Organizations that require vendor-backed support, a single-vendor relationship, or have contractual reasons to stay with the original product can pursue this path.
- Requires vendor support / SLA
- Existing NextGen relationship
- Contract or compliance constraints
- Recurring license fees
- Proprietary license terms
- Vendor lock-in increases over time
Fork to Open Integration Engine (OIE)
OIE is the primary community-driven fork of Mirth Connect. It is binary-compatible, OIE reads Mirth Connect’s database schema directly, so existing channels, extensions, API integrations, and configuration carry over without export/import. Licensed under MPL 2.0. Saga IT are active contributors. Available on DockerHub and Kubernetes.
- Binary-compatible, same DB schema
- Same channels, extensions, API
- Active security patching
- Community-driven, no vendor lock-in
- MPL 2.0 open-source license
- DockerHub / Kubernetes support
- Saga IT active contributors
- Point OIE at your existing Mirth DB or export/import channels
- Same Java runtime and database
- No channel rewrites required
- Minimal downtime window
Switch to a different integration engine
Some organizations use Mirth Connect’s commercial discontinuation as the opportunity to evaluate enterprise alternatives. This is a larger undertaking, channels must be rebuilt in the new engine’s tooling, and there is no binary-compatible migration path.
- Rhapsody (Lyniate), KLAS top-rated enterprise
- Corepoint (Lyniate), interface engine
- Cloverleaf (Infor), enterprise platform
- Iguana (iNTERFACEWARE), visual programming
- No binary-compatible migration path
- Channel rebuild required
- New tooling and training overhead
- Higher migration cost and timeline
What Mirth Connect costs now.
The license fee is the number most teams are looking for. Here is the honest version, path by path.
An annual commercial license from NextGen Healthcare or an authorized reseller, with vendor support included. NextGen does not publish the price, and it scales with your deployment.
MPL 2.0, no license fee, ever. The same channels, extensions, API, and database as Mirth Connect 4.5.2, with active security releases: OIE 4.6.0 shipped in July 2026.
Console, Gateway, Monitoring, Drivers, and DICOM viewing are free forever, on any Mirth-compatible engine. Only the network is paid: Contact Directory and Exchange membership is $500 per server per month, with 2.5 GB of transfer included and $0.25 per GB after.
Staying on 4.5.2 costs nothing in fees and everything in patches: it has had no security updates since March 2025.
Where the Mirth community went.
The forum that answered Mirth questions for two decades split in two when 4.6 went commercial. These are the places that are active now.
- Open Integration Engine
The open-source successor. Releases, issues, and governance live on GitHub under a non-profit steering committee; the project site carries the news and the documentation.
- Mirth Connect, commercial
NextGen moved discussion of 4.6 and later releases to GitHub Discussions on its connect repository.
- The original forum
forums.mirthproject.io stays online as an archive. Twenty years of threads still answer most 4.5.2 questions, and the answers apply to OIE unchanged.
- BridgeLink
Innovar Healthcare’s fork, also from 4.5.2, developed in the open on GitHub. The OpenShare Gateway is fork-agnostic and runs on it too.
Frequently asked questions.
No. NextGen Healthcare discontinued the open-source release of Mirth Connect in March 2025. Version 4.5.2 is the last open-source release. Starting with version 4.6, Mirth Connect requires a commercial license with recurring fees. The Open Integration Engine (OIE) community fork continues the open-source path and is free.
The Open Integration Engine (OIE) is a community-driven, open-source fork of Mirth Connect, licensed under MPL 2.0. It is binary-compatible, same channels, same extensions, same API, same database schema. OIE reads Mirth Connect’s database schema directly, so migration can be as simple as pointing OIE at your existing database. Saga IT are active contributors. Available on DockerHub and Kubernetes.
You are not required to migrate. Open-source Mirth Connect 4.5.2 will continue to run indefinitely on your servers. However, it will not receive security patches, bug fixes, or community updates, a growing risk in regulated healthcare environments. Your options are: license Mirth commercially (v4.6+), fork to OIE to maintain an open-source path, or switch to a different engine. OpenShare runs on top of any of these choices.
OpenShare Console, Gateway, Exchange, and Drivers all work with Mirth Connect (commercial and open-source 4.5.2) and OIE. OpenShare is the experience layer on top of whichever Mirth Connect-compatible engine you run. The plugin install is the same regardless of fork.
NextGen does not publish Mirth Connect pricing. From version 4.6 it is sold as an annual commercial license through NextGen and authorized resellers, with vendor support included, so ask for a quote sized to your servers. The Open Integration Engine costs nothing to license (MPL 2.0), and OpenShare’s Console, Gateway, Monitoring, Drivers, and DICOM viewing are free forever. Only the OpenShare network (Contact Directory and Exchange) is paid, at $500 per server per month.
It split. NextGen moved discussion of commercial Mirth Connect to GitHub Discussions and keeps the original forum at forums.mirthproject.io online as an archive. The open-source community continues at the Open Integration Engine, its documentation site, and the OpenIntegrationEngine GitHub organization, where releases such as OIE 4.6.0 (July 2026) are published.
See the Mirth Migration Guide for the migration process, including database migration, channel export and import, and installing OpenShare on your engine.
Ready to move to OIE?
Create a free account and connect your engine, or read the migration guide first.
