Veterinary Practice Management Software · reliability comparison
IDEXX Cornerstone vs Shepherd: which is more reliable? (2026)
Shepherd is more reliable than IDEXX Cornerstone, scoring 68.6 vs 58.6 out of 100. Over the last 90 days IDEXX Cornerstone reported 4 incidents and Shepherd reported 5, with effective uptime of 99.41% and 99.46% respectively. Shepherd resolves incidents faster on average (4h 53m).
Data updated Nov 1, 2026 · How we score
| Metric | IDEXX Cornerstone | Shepherd |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability score | 58.6 | 68.6 |
| Rank (veterinary practice management systems) | #11 | #9 |
| Uptime (90 days) | 99.41% | 99.46% |
| Incidents (90 days) | 4 | 5 |
| Partial / major outages | 2 | 1 |
| Avg time to resolve | 19h 43m | 4h 53m |
| Outages we detected | 0 | 0 |
| Transparency score | 100/100 | 100/100 |
Where IDEXX Cornerstone and Shepherd differ
- Shepherd reported 25% more incidents than IDEXX Cornerstone over the last 90 days (5 vs 4).
- IDEXX Cornerstone had 2 partial or major outages, compared with 1 for Shepherd.
- Shepherd fixes problems faster: 4h 53m on average, against 19h 43m for IDEXX Cornerstone (4.0× quicker).
- IDEXX Cornerstone's longest outage on record lasted 3d (Jun 23, 2026); Shepherd's lasted 22h 26m (Sep 14, 2026).
90-day uptime
IDEXX Cornerstone
Shepherd
- No incidents
- Degraded
- Partial outage
- Major outage
- No data
Recent IDEXX Cornerstone incidents
- Partial outageOct 20, 2026 · resolved in 1h 7m
20 October 2026 - CareCredit Integrated Payments may be unavailable
Affected: Online Payments
- Degraded performanceAug 27, 2026 · resolved in 33d 2h
Cornerstone - SmartOrder - MWI
Affected: SmartOrder - Online Inventory Ordering
- Partial outageAug 17, 2026 · resolved in 1h 24m
Some Cornerstone practices are unable to login to Vello
Affected: Cornerstone Vello
- Degraded performanceAug 13, 2026 · resolved in 4h 19m
MyCornerstone - Upgrade scheduling and user permission management
Affected: MyCornerstone
- Major outageJun 23, 2026 · resolved in 98d 8h
SmartOrder — IDEXX online ordering and order matchingofficial update ↗
Affected: SmartOrder - Online Inventory Ordering
- Major outageJan 5, 2026 · resolved in 267d 1h
SmartOrder – Patterson Ordering Unavailableofficial update ↗
Affected: SmartOrder - Online Inventory Ordering
Recent Shepherd incidents
- Degraded performanceOct 30, 2026 · resolved in <1m
- Degraded performanceSep 14, 2026 · resolved in <1m
- Partial outageSep 14, 2026 · resolved in 22h 26m
Shepherd Application Service Disruptionofficial update ↗
Affected: Shepherd Application, Shepherd Pay, SMS (Texting Services), AI Services (TranscribeAI, SummarizeAI, DiagnoseAI), OpenAPI (Clinic Connect and Integrations), Shepherd Support Chat (Intercom)
- Degraded performanceSep 10, 2026 · resolved in 1h 10m
OpenAPI – Intermittent Request Failures
Affected: OpenAPI (Clinic Connect and Integrations)
- Degraded performanceAug 26, 2026 · resolved in 50m
Shepherd Application Degraded Performance
Affected: Shepherd Application, Shepherd Pay, SMS (Texting Services), AI Services (TranscribeAI, SummarizeAI, DiagnoseAI), OpenAPI (Clinic Connect and Integrations)
Other veterinary practice management systems to consider
- PetDesk · #1 · 100% uptime
- Otto · #2 · 100% uptime
- IDEXX Neo · #3 · 99.94% uptime
- Vetstoria · #4 · 99.96% uptime
See the full most reliable veterinary practice management software ranking →