How OIE compares
A side-by-side look at Open Integration Engine, BridgeLink, and Mirth Connect.
| Feature | OIE | BridgeLink | Mirth (open source) | Mirth (commercial) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| License | MPL 2.0 | MPL 2.0; some parts Business Source (restricted) | MPL 2.0 | Proprietary |
| Free, no paid tiers | Yes | Tiered licensing | Yes | Paid |
| Plugins, free and open | All free, MPL 2.0 | Vary by license tier | Core only | Paid extensions |
| Open source web administrator | Yes | Restricted | No | No |
| Your custom plugins, recognized at runtime1 | Yes | Vendor must build it in | Yes | Vendor-controlled |
| Community-governed, vendor-neutral | Yes | Single vendor | Single vendor | Single vendor |
| Open-source foundation | Applied | No | No | No |
| Commercial support2 | Independent vendors | Vendor-led | Community + vendors | Vendor-led |
| Actively developed | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Mirth-compatible | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
- OIE installs a plugin as a standard extension, and both the desktop (Swing) Administrator and the web administrator detect and serve its interface automatically at runtime, from the same install. BridgeLink Web Admin plugins, by contrast, "compile into the application at build time" with "no runtime install," per Innovar's own plugin developer guide.
- Independent vendors also support BridgeLink and Mirth Connect. The distinction is that OIE has no controlling vendor; its support ecosystem is vendor-neutral.
Comparison based on publicly available information and each project's own published licenses, as of August 2026.
Where OIE is different
OIE builds on the open source foundation that Mirth Connect established, and takes that openness further. Every OIE plugin is free and MPL 2.0 licensed, with nothing held back for a paid tier. Capabilities that cost extra elsewhere are open in OIE: the TLS Manager handles certificate management comparable to NextGen's paid SSL Manager extension, and Role Based Access Control provides user permissions comparable to NextGen's paid User Authorization extension. Both are free and community-maintained.
BridgeLink open-sources its engine under MPL 2.0, but ships its web administrator under the Business Source License, which by its own terms is "not an Open Source license" and may not be used with any integration engine other than BridgeLink. OIE has a web-based administrator as well, and like every OIE plugin it is fully open under MPL 2.0, reusable without restrictions.
OIE also has the most active open development and community of the group. The work happens in public on GitHub, and an active Discord is where many experienced Mirth practitioners now help each other day to day.
Built to stay independent
OIE is governed by its community, not by any single vendor. To protect that independence for the long term, the project joined the Eclipse Foundation, a vendor-neutral home for open source software. The name and marks are now held by the Foundation, so no one company can take OIE private, change its license, or put it behind a paywall.