Short answer
What Purview actually sells
Purview Inc runs two related products. Purview Image is a cloud-hosted PACS: DICOM studies are uploaded by drag-and-drop, upload link, direct modality connection or PACS-to-PACS transfer, then viewed in a browser, reported on, and shared out. Purview ViVA is narrower: it is the cloud layer that lets a site's existing Horos desktops, the free Mac DICOM viewer, send and receive studies from a Purview-hosted archive over standard DICOM, so a Horos-based Mac workflow gets a hosted backend without replacing the viewer on every desk. Both are cloud-only; Purview's own site does not describe a self-hosted deployment option.
Pricing is published, which is unusual for this category, but it is shaped as a monthly study meter rather than a flat number: Basic covers up to 75 studies a month, Pro up to 200, Enterprise up to 500, each bundled with 500 GB to 1 TB of storage, and volume above 500 studies a month moves to a custom quote. On top of the plan, a one-time setup fee "begins at $999" depending on complexity, a second location adds its own flat fee, studies over 1 GB can carry an extra charge, and legacy data migration is priced per client. Unlimited users are included in every tier, and professional services such as SSO, custom integrations, security reviews, on-site training and GovCloud access are quoted separately.
| Purview Image / ViVA | MiniPACS plus Vendo | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Cloud PACS billed by monthly study tier, plus a Horos cloud bridge | Self-hosted PACS with browser viewer, reporting and referral portal |
| Where studies live | Purview's cloud, no self-hosted option described | The clinic's own server, on-premises or in its own hosting |
| Pricing shape | Published tiers by study volume: 75, 200, 500 studies a month, custom above | $300/mo flat per location ($640/mo with Vendo), billed yearly, no per-study fees, no study ceiling |
| Extra costs | $999+ one-time setup, per-location fee, per-large-study overage | None: no setup fee, no per-study fee, no per-location surcharge |
| Viewer | Browser viewer described on Purview's own site as FDA-certified | Browser viewer, opens a study in about 0.6 seconds (measured, cold-open) |
| Horos bridge | Purview ViVA connects existing Horos Mac desktops to the cloud archive | Not applicable; MiniPACS is a full PACS, not a Horos add-on |
| De-identification | Marketed for research export | Not offered; access control and audit logging only, an honest gap today |
| Referral intake | Not part of the product | Vendo: online orders, real slot booking, status tracking |
Purview meters cloud storage by monthly study tier; MiniPACS keeps the archive in the clinic's own hands, on premises or in its own cloud account, at one flat published price, with no study ceiling.
Where MiniPACS pulls ahead, with the specifics
Because Purview is cloud-only, the comparison is really archive ownership plus feature depth per dollar, not a viewer-versus-viewer contest. A few concrete differences:
One honest caveat on speed: the live worklist toast is not instant image-to-toast. New studies typically post to the worklist within about a minute of the last image landing, Orthanc's own 60-second stability window plus a couple of seconds of delivery, pushed live over WebSocket rather than by polling. The browser viewer itself cold-opens a selected study in about 0.6 seconds, measured; that is the number worth quoting for viewer speed, not worklist arrival.
What Purview does well, honestly
Purview has real, named healthcare clients on its own site, including Children's Hospital Colorado, Vanderbilt Health, NHS Leeds and the University of Oxford, plus more than a dozen others, which is a longer public client list than most challengers in this category can show. Its own site states the viewer is FDA-certified and the platform is HIPAA compliant, it supports SAML 2.0 single sign-on for larger IT environments, and it markets a de-identification path for research data, a feature MiniPACS genuinely does not have. The Purview ViVA bridge is also a real answer to a specific problem: a site with money already spent standardizing on Horos on Mac desktops does not have to rip that out to get a hosted archive behind it.
What is missing from the public record is independent third-party review data. A search across G2 and Capterra turns up no visible Purview Image or Purview ViVA review profile on either site, so an evaluator has only Purview's own claims and its named client list to go on, not an independent star rating or a documented complaint history the way most named PACS vendors in this category have.
Who should choose Purview vs MiniPACS
What to check before switching
- Model your real study volume against the tiers. Count a busy month, not an average one, and see which Purview tier it actually lands in before comparing that number to a flat price.
- Add the setup fee and any per-location fee to the sticker price. A $999-plus setup fee and a second-location surcharge change the honest annual number.
- Decide if the archive needs to leave the building at all. If keeping studies on hardware the clinic controls matters, that is the self-hosted versus cloud question, not a feature checklist question.
- Ask about de-identification specifically if research export is a real need. This is the one place Purview has a feature MiniPACS does not.
- Test the export path on a real study. Any archive worth trusting should hand back standard DICOM cleanly, whether it lives in a vendor's cloud or on the clinic's own disk.
This is the one place Purview has a feature MiniPACS does not.
Switching in is a DICOM move, not a rebuild: studies come in and leave as standard DICOM, and the bulk importer pulls an existing archive over in the background, keeping per-study state so a stopped run resumes where it left off. See PACS migration for the vendor-independent walkthrough.
Purview's cloud bridge for Horos sits next to the broader question of what a Mac desktop viewer can and cannot do on its own; see the Horos alternative comparison for that angle. For the hosting tradeoff on its own terms, see cloud PACS vs onsite. For pricing and the live demos, see the landing.
How this comparison is made
This comparison starts with category fit, not a claim that every feature is identical. "Small practice" means an independent imaging center, mobile imaging operator, ASC, dental or veterinary imaging site, or small multi-site group that needs a practical archive and referral workflow without a hospital enterprise imaging program. We compare Purview and MiniPACS plus Vendo on deployment model, archive ownership, pricing shape, viewer access, backups, referral workflow and the limits each product category handles better.
FAQ
What is Purview?
Purview, from Purview Inc, sells cloud PACS products under the Purview Image and Purview ViVA names, plus commercial support for Horos, the free Mac DICOM viewer. Purview Image is a browser-based cloud archive, viewer and reporting tool priced by a monthly study tier. Purview ViVA is the cloud layer that lets a clinic's existing Horos desktops send and receive studies from a hosted archive.
Is MiniPACS a Purview alternative?
Yes, for a clinic that wants the archive itself, not just the viewing layer, kept somewhere it controls, whether that is hardware it owns or a cloud server it or its IT partner runs. MiniPACS is self-hosted, priced flat per location with no monthly study ceiling, and includes the same category of browser viewing, reporting and sharing that Purview Image sells by tier.
What is the best Purview alternative for a small imaging center?
For a center that wants a published flat price and an archive on its own server instead of a monthly study tier and a setup fee, MiniPACS is a strong Purview alternative. For a hospital or research program that specifically needs Purview's cloud bridge for an existing fleet of Horos desktops, Purview keeps the edge.
How does Purview pricing compare to MiniPACS?
Purview Image publishes tiers: Basic up to 75 studies a month, Pro up to 200, Enterprise up to 500, and a custom quote above that, each with 500 GB to 1 TB of storage, plus a one-time setup fee starting at $999 and an added flat fee per extra location. MiniPACS publishes one number: $300 a month per location, or $640 a month with the Vendo referral portal, billed yearly, no per-study fee, no setup fee, no study ceiling.
Does MiniPACS do de-identification like Purview?
No, and this is worth saying plainly. Purview Image markets de-identification for research use. MiniPACS does not ship an anonymization or de-identification feature; its privacy tooling is access control and audit logging of the live clinical archive, not study scrubbing for research export. A program that needs de-identified research datasets should treat that as a real gap today.
