Practo alternatives: how to choose a doctor-booking platform in India

Healthcare apps in India tend to fall into a few families. Most began in one and expanded into others.

Type	Typically focused on	Good for
Doctor-discovery and booking apps	Finding doctors, booking appointments, online consultation	Patients choosing a doctor, doctors seeking patients
Teleconsultation apps	Chat, audio or video consultations	Quick advice and follow-ups
Pharmacy and lab apps	Ordering medicines and booking tests	Medicine delivery, home sample collection
Hospital-group apps	Services of one hospital network	People already using that group
Practice-management software	Clinic operations for doctors	Appointments, records and billing
B2B marketplaces	Connecting suppliers and buyers	Medical suppliers and manufacturers
Job portals	Matching candidates to employers	Hiring and job searching

Vaidhya aims to combine several of these in one platform, organised by system of medicine. Whether that is better for you depends on whether you need more than one of them.

Whatever app you use, check these things.

1. Are doctors verified? Look for evidence that registration has been checked, and a visible badge.
2. Is the fee clear before you book? You should see the consultation fee and any extra charges upfront.
3. Can you find the kind of care you want? If you prefer Ayurveda, Homeopathy or another system, can you browse that directly, or do you have to search through a general list?
4. What are the consultation options? In-person, video, audio and home visit give flexibility.
5. Can you book hospital OPD and see your place in the queue? This matters if you often visit hospitals.
6. Is there more than doctors? Lab tests, medicines, home care, ambulance and blood banks in one app mean fewer apps to juggle.
7. How are your records handled? Can you see past appointments, store reports and book for family members?
8. What do reviews and complaints say? Look at recent ones, and especially at how problems about refunds and cancellations are handled.
9. What does it cost you? Some apps add booking or handling fees.

On Vaidhya, patients use the app free, doctors are listed under their own system of medicine and speciality, and fees for each kind of consultation are shown upfront. See Vaidhya for patients.

For doctors, the question is how a platform will bring patients and at what cost, in money and effort.

• Who sees you? Are the patients searching for your system of medicine and speciality?
• How is visibility decided? Is it based on quality, verification and relevance, or can it be bought? Paid placement is not necessarily bad, but you should know how it works.
• What do you pay? A flat annual subscription is predictable. Per-booking commissions and extra fees change with volume. Ask for the total cost over a year.
• What control do you have? Your fees, timings, consultation types and cancellation rules should be yours to set.
• What tools do you get? Calendar, reminders, video, records and clear reports.
• What about your reputation? How are reviews collected and can you respond to them?
• Can you grow with it? If you also run a clinic, hire staff or sell services, does the platform support that?

Our guide how doctors can get more patients online covers the practical steps, and Vaidhya for doctors shows how registration and pricing work.

Hospitals and clinics have more to weigh, because the platform affects operations as well as marketing.

1. Discovery. How will patients find you? By category, type, location, speciality?
2. Booking model. Can patients book OPD with a token or slot, and can you manage walk-ins in the same queue?
3. Live queue and roster. Can staff check patients in, call them in and mark them done, and manage doctors by department?
4. Multiple branches. Can each branch run separately under one account?
5. Pricing. Is it per doctor, per booking, per branch, or per department? A per-doctor model punishes growth. Vaidhya charges per branch and per department, never per doctor.
6. Verification and trust. Does the platform verify your registration and show that to patients?
7. Hiring and supply. Can you also hire staff and find suppliers there?
8. Support. Who helps when something goes wrong?

For more on running OPD with tokens, see our complete guide.

Practo is a large, long-established platform for finding doctors, booking appointments and online consultation, and it also offers software for clinics. Its scale and brand recognition are real advantages: in major cities it may show patients more doctors than a newer platform can.

Vaidhya's differences are structural:

• System of medicine first. Every listing sits under a category such as Allopathy, Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Yoga, Nutrition and Wellness or Veterinary.
• One platform for the whole ecosystem. Patients, doctors, hospitals and clinics, plus suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and job seekers.
• Hospital operations. OPD tokens, a live queue, a roster by department and multiple branches.
• Home care and emergency services in the same app.
• Per-branch and per-department hospital pricing, with public prices.

If you only need to find a doctor in a major city today, an established platform may serve you well. If you want care across systems of medicine, or you run a hospital, clinic or healthcare business, Vaidhya may fit better. Many people use more than one app, and that is fine.

Lybrate

Known for online consultations by text, audio and video and for health questions. A good fit if you mainly want quick advice from a doctor. See Vaidhya vs Lybrate.

Tata 1mg

Best known as an online pharmacy, with lab tests and doctor consultations. A good fit for ordering medicines at scale. See Vaidhya vs Tata 1mg.

Apollo 24|7

The digital health app of the Apollo group, with consultations, pharmacy and diagnostics centred on its own network. A good fit if you already use Apollo services. See Vaidhya vs Apollo 24|7.

IndiaMART and Naukri

General marketplaces for business buying and for jobs. Broad reach, though not healthcare-specific. See Vaidhya vs IndiaMART and Vaidhya vs Naukri.

We keep these pages dated and fair, and note where each platform is stronger. Check each company's own website for current details.

Write down the three things that matter most to you, then score each option against them. For example:

If your top need is...	Look first at...
The widest choice of doctors in a big city	The largest doctor-discovery platform
Quick online advice	A teleconsultation-focused app
Ordering medicines and tests	A pharmacy and lab app
Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Unani or Siddha as first-class choices	A platform organised by system of medicine
Running hospital OPD with tokens and branches	A platform with hospital queue tools and per-branch pricing
Home care, emergency help and B2B or jobs in one app	A broader platform such as Vaidhya

Try it before you commit. Most apps are free for patients, and many let providers set up a profile before paying. Judge by how easily you can do what you came to do, and by how the platform treats you when you have a question or a complaint.

If you are a doctor, hospital or business about to pay for a listing, it helps to ask the platform directly. Good platforms answer clearly.

• What exactly do I pay, and when? Are there any other charges, now or later?
• How are listings ordered in search results? Can they be influenced by payment?
• How do you verify providers, and how long does it take?
• Do I own my reviews and my patient data? Can I export them if I leave?
• What happens if I cancel? Is there a refund policy, and what are the notice terms?
• How many patients are searching for my speciality in my area, to your knowledge?
• Who do I contact when something goes wrong, and how fast do you respond?
• Can you show me a live profile similar to mine?

Write the answers down. If a platform is vague about price, ranking or cancellation, that tells you something. Comparing two or three platforms with the same list of questions makes the right choice much clearer.

If you are a patient trying a platform for the first time, run through this before you pay.

1. Check that the doctor's category and speciality match what you need.
2. Look for a verified badge and the doctor's registration details.
3. Read the fee and what it covers: consultation only, or tests and medicines too.
4. Check the doctor's days and timings against yours, and the distance if it is in person.
5. Choose the right type: in-person, video, audio or home visit.
6. Look at the cancellation and refund rules.
7. Keep a screenshot or note of the booking details.
8. Arrive or log in a few minutes early, with your reports and a list of your medicines.

After the visit, leave an honest rating. It helps the next patient, and it keeps the platform honest.

You do not need to make a permanent decision on day one. Patients can simply download an app and browse, and see whether it shows the care they want. Providers can usually create a profile, explore the tools, and check how their listing looks before relying on it.

Give any platform a fair trial of a month or two. Notice how quickly it responds, how easy it is to manage bookings, whether enquiries are relevant, and whether the promises made at the start hold up. Keep notes. If it works, stay. If not, you have lost little, and you know exactly what you want from the next one.

• Doctors listed with no sign of verification.
• Unclear fees, or extra charges that appear only at checkout.
• Rankings that cannot be explained.
• Hard-to-find cancellation and refund rules.
• Pressure to pay for visibility before you see any value.
• No clear way to contact support.
• Exaggerated claims, such as guaranteed results.

Choose platforms that are transparent about how they work, what they charge, and how they verify. To see how we set out the whole picture, read why Vaidhya.