Is MedAligna free for nurses like NurseGrid?

Yes. Staff never pay: not for the app, not for the credential wallet, ever. The facility pays a per-location subscription.

Will my nurses have to give up the app they like?

They get a staff app with the same jobs: shifts, who they're on with, swaps, open shifts, time off, plus a credential wallet that belongs to them. What changes is that swaps are rule-checked before they are offered, so nobody accepts one that gets refused later.

Does NurseGrid do ratios or credential blocking?

It is a shift calendar and swap tool rather than a compliance platform, so those are not part of what it does. If they are what you are accountable for, that is the gap MedAligna fills.

Can a manager build the unit's schedule in NurseGrid?

It is designed around the nurse's own view of her shifts rather than the manager's view of the unit. Building the roster, checking coverage against census, projecting labour cost, blocking on credentials and producing compliance reporting are a different job, and that job is what MedAligna does.

What is a credential wallet, and why does it matter to a nurse?

It is a store of licences and certifications that belongs to the nurse rather than the employer. She uploads her RN licence once, renews it once, and every employer she works for sees the current version, rather than her emailing a photograph of it to a new manager at eleven at night. In MedAligna the employer can read it but cannot edit or delete it, and that is enforced by the database rather than by policy.

Will nurses have to learn a new app?

They get the same jobs in an app they add to their home screen: shifts, who they're on with, swaps, open shifts, time off. What changes is that a swap is rule-checked before it is offered, so nobody accepts a trade that a manager then has to refuse.

Does MedAligna cost nurses anything?

No. Staff never pay: not for the app, not for the credential wallet, ever. The facility pays a per-location subscription.

How much does NurseGrid Manager cost?

NurseGrid's nurse app is free; the paid manager product, NurseGrid Manager, starts around $349 per month per its Capterra listing (as of July 2026). MedAligna is $99, $149 or $249 per location per month, with the nurse-facing app included free and the compliance engine built in.

NurseGrid is owned by HealthStream, a healthcare workforce company. The free nurse app and the paid NurseGrid Manager both sit under that ownership (as of July 2026).

Does NurseGrid Manager block scheduling on an expired credential?

Its listing describes credential-expiry notifications, which alert you that a licence is lapsing (capterra.com, g2.com, as of July 2026). That is a reminder rather than enforcement — it does not refuse the assignment. MedAligna blocks the shift when a required credential has expired, with the reason written on the cell.

What do reviewers say NurseGrid Manager does poorly?

Per reviews on G2 as of July 2026, some managers report a weaker Android experience, problems with in-app texting, and clunky profile navigation. Those are worth checking against your own team's devices during a trial. We report them as customer sentiment, not as our own claims.

Will my nurses have to give up the app they like?

They get a staff app with the same jobs — shifts, who they're on with, swaps, open shifts, time off — plus a credential wallet that belongs to them. Nurses never pay for any of it. What changes for the better is that swaps are rule-checked before they are offered, so nobody accepts a trade a manager then has to refuse.

Comparison · verified July 2026

NurseGrid alternatives, for when the manager needs one too

NurseGrid is a mobile app widely used by nurses to track their own shifts, swap with colleagues and see who they are working with. Its strength is the nurse-facing experience; managing an entire unit's roster, compliance and credentials is a different job.

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At a glance

NurseGrid earned its user base bottom-up: nurses adopted it voluntarily, which almost no workforce software manages.
It is a personal shift calendar and swap tool, not a scheduling platform. There is no credential blocking, no ratio compliance, no exclusion screening, no PBJ and no labour-cost view.
Which means a nurse manager who adopts it still needs somewhere else to run the unit, and the two never talk to each other.
MedAligna gives the nurses the same jobs (shifts, who they're on with, swaps, open shifts) plus a credential wallet they own, and gives the manager the compliance engine she is accountable for.
Free for nurses, always. The facility pays $99–$249 per location per month.

Nurses genuinely like it, and that matters

NurseGrid earned its user base from the bottom up: nurses adopted it because it made their own schedule legible, let them see who they were on with, and made swapping less painful. That is a real achievement, and it is the reason it has the reach it has.

Any tool that a nursing team adopts voluntarily has cleared a bar most enterprise software never gets near. If your nurses are already in it and happy, that is worth something.

Where a manager runs out of road

A personal shift calendar is not a scheduling platform. There is no credential expiry that blocks an assignment, no federal exclusion screening, no nurse-to-patient ratio compliance, no acuity, no HPRD, no CMS PBJ export, no on-call escalation, no labour-cost projection, and no fill waterfall that exhausts your own staff before an agency is called.

Which is not a criticism; it is a description of what the product is for. The question for a nurse manager is whether the tool she uses to run the unit needs to be the same tool her nurses use to see their shifts. In MedAligna it is: the nurses get the app they want, and the manager gets the compliance engine she is accountable for.

What it actually costs

Free for nurses, and what the manager side costs

NurseGrid's nurse app is free, which is exactly how it earned its installed base. The paid product is NurseGrid Manager, and comparing it to MedAligna means comparing what a manager actually gets for the money.

NurseGrid (nurse app)

Free

Free to nurses, with a large installed base. Owned by HealthStream.

NurseGrid Manager

from ~$349/mo

Manager's starting price per Capterra (as of July 2026). Higher tiers vary.

MedAligna

$99–249/mo

Per location, published, with the nurse app included free and the compliance engine built in.

NurseGrid Manager does the manager-adjacent jobs well: schedule sharing, open-shift alerts, swap approvals, and credential-expiry notifications. What it is not is a compliance platform. There is no nurse-to-patient ratio held against a census, no acuity, no HPRD, no federal exclusion screening, no CMS PBJ file, and a credential-expiry notification is an email, not a schedule that refuses the assignment.

So the arithmetic is not really price against price. It is whether the tool the nurses love and the tool the manager is accountable for should be the same tool. In MedAligna they are: the nurses get a staff app with the jobs they already like — shifts, who they're on with, swaps, open shifts — plus a credential wallet they own, and the manager gets the enforcement she answers for. Nurses never pay for any of it; the facility pays one published per-location subscription.

NurseGrid Manager starting price from capterra.com/p/254829/NurseGrid; ownership by HealthStream and Manager feature list from the same listing and g2.com/products/nursegrid-manager; all as of July 2026.

Which one is right for you

These products are aimed at two different people who happen to work on the same unit.

Stay with NurseGrid if…

You are a nurse, not a manager, and you want your own shifts on your phone.
Your unit's roster is built somewhere else and works fine.
Nobody is asking you for ratio compliance, credential blocking or PBJ.

Look at MedAligna if…

You are the person accountable for the roster, the ratios and the licences.
You want the nurses to keep an app they like, and the manager to stop running a spreadsheet.
You want swaps rule-checked before they are offered, not un-picked afterwards.
You want nurses to own their credentials rather than re-uploading them at every job.

MedAligna vs NurseGrid, row by row

Binary, verifiable facts only. No adjectives; an opinion is not a comparison.

Capability	MedAligna	NurseGrid
Nurse-facing mobile app	Yes	Yes
See your own shifts and who you're on with	Yes	Yes
Shift swaps	Yes	Yes
Rule-checked swaps (credentials, rest, overtime)	Yes	No
Blocks a shift when a licence has expired	Yes	No
Federal exclusion (OIG) screening	Yes	No
Nurse-to-patient ratios with acuity	Yes	No
CMS Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) export	Yes	No
Credential wallet owned by the nurse	Yes	Partial
Manager scheduling, coverage and labour cost	Yes	No
Fill waterfall before suggesting an agency	Yes	No

NurseGrid is a trademark of its owner. MedAligna is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NurseGrid. Comparison compiled from publicly available documentation and pricing pages, verified July 2026. If anything here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it.

The honest bit

You should probably stay on NurseGrid if…

It is a good app doing a specific job.

You are a nurse, not a manager, and you just want your own shifts on your phone.
Your unit's roster is built somewhere else and works fine.
Nobody is asking you for ratio compliance, PBJ, or credential blocking.

We would rather you stayed and told someone we were straight with you than switched and regretted it. This category is small, and reputations travel.

How to choose nurse scheduling software, manager side

If you are the person accountable for the roster, the ratios and the licences, these are the criteria that separate a shared calendar from a platform.

01Does an expired licence block the shift, or just send an alert?

A credential-expiry notification is a reminder; it still schedules the nurse whose licence lapsed on Tuesday. Enforcement is a schedule that refuses the assignment.

Where MedAligna lands: MedAligna checks each required credential against the end of the shift and refuses the assignment, and screens against the federal OIG exclusion list on every roster.

02Are swaps rule-checked before they happen?

A swap approved by hand can quietly break rest, overtime or credential rules, and you find out afterward when it is expensive to unpick.

Where MedAligna lands: MedAligna rule-checks a swap before it is offered to a counterparty, so nothing reaches you that would have to be refused.

03Does it hold ratios against a census, with acuity?

Nurse-to-patient ratios are the compliance surface a surveyor asks about. A personal calendar has no census and no ratio to hold.

Where MedAligna lands: MedAligna holds ratios with acuity and generates the CMS PBJ file for skilled-nursing facilities from hours already captured.

04Who owns the credentials?

Employer-owned credential records make a nurse re-upload her licence at every job. A nurse-owned wallet follows her.

Where MedAligna lands: In MedAligna the credential wallet belongs to the nurse; the employer can read it but cannot edit or delete it, enforced by the database rather than by policy.

05Will the nurses actually keep using it?

The reason to look at NurseGrid at all is that nurses adopted it voluntarily. Whatever you choose has to clear that same bar or the manager is back to a spreadsheet.

Where MedAligna lands: MedAligna's staff app gives nurses the same jobs they like in a home-screen app. NurseGrid's voluntary adoption is a genuine strength, and any honest comparison credits it.

If the manager needs a platform

01
Start with the roster, not the app
Import your staff and build one week in MedAligna. The nurse-facing app comes free with it; your team installs it to their home screen and keeps the workflow they already like.
02
Bring credentials into the wallet
Each nurse uploads her own licence once. It stays hers, and follows her if she leaves, which is the part no employer-owned system can offer.
03
Turn on the rules you are accountable for
Ratios, credential blocking, exclusion screening, rest and overtime. These are the reasons a manager needs a platform rather than a calendar.

When the charge nurse needs more than a calendar

SNF facing a PBJ deadline

Nurses track their shifts in a free app, but the facility owes CMS a quarterly staffing file the app cannot produce.

PBJ generated from captured hours, with HPRD and ratios held against census on every roster.

Unit with lapsing licences

Credential-expiry alerts arrive, but nothing stops an expired nurse from being scheduled.

The assignment is refused with the reason on the cell, and OIG exclusion screening runs on every shift.

Manager drowning in swaps

Swap requests are approved by hand, and some quietly breach rest or overtime rules.

Swaps are rule-checked before they are offered, so only trades that pass ever reach the manager.

NurseGrid questions, answered

Is MedAligna free for nurses like NurseGrid?: Yes. Staff never pay: not for the app, not for the credential wallet, ever. The facility pays a per-location subscription.
Will my nurses have to give up the app they like?: They get a staff app with the same jobs: shifts, who they're on with, swaps, open shifts, time off, plus a credential wallet that belongs to them. What changes is that swaps are rule-checked before they are offered, so nobody accepts one that gets refused later.
Does NurseGrid do ratios or credential blocking?: It is a shift calendar and swap tool rather than a compliance platform, so those are not part of what it does. If they are what you are accountable for, that is the gap MedAligna fills.
Can a manager build the unit's schedule in NurseGrid?: It is designed around the nurse's own view of her shifts rather than the manager's view of the unit. Building the roster, checking coverage against census, projecting labour cost, blocking on credentials and producing compliance reporting are a different job, and that job is what MedAligna does.
What is a credential wallet, and why does it matter to a nurse?: It is a store of licences and certifications that belongs to the nurse rather than the employer. She uploads her RN licence once, renews it once, and every employer she works for sees the current version, rather than her emailing a photograph of it to a new manager at eleven at night. In MedAligna the employer can read it but cannot edit or delete it, and that is enforced by the database rather than by policy.
Will nurses have to learn a new app?: They get the same jobs in an app they add to their home screen: shifts, who they're on with, swaps, open shifts, time off. What changes is that a swap is rule-checked before it is offered, so nobody accepts a trade that a manager then has to refuse.
Does MedAligna cost nurses anything?: No. Staff never pay: not for the app, not for the credential wallet, ever. The facility pays a per-location subscription.
How much does NurseGrid Manager cost?: NurseGrid's nurse app is free; the paid manager product, NurseGrid Manager, starts around $349 per month per its Capterra listing (as of July 2026). MedAligna is $99, $149 or $249 per location per month, with the nurse-facing app included free and the compliance engine built in.
Who owns NurseGrid?: NurseGrid is owned by HealthStream, a healthcare workforce company. The free nurse app and the paid NurseGrid Manager both sit under that ownership (as of July 2026).
Does NurseGrid Manager block scheduling on an expired credential?: Its listing describes credential-expiry notifications, which alert you that a licence is lapsing (capterra.com, g2.com, as of July 2026). That is a reminder rather than enforcement — it does not refuse the assignment. MedAligna blocks the shift when a required credential has expired, with the reason written on the cell.
What do reviewers say NurseGrid Manager does poorly?: Per reviews on G2 as of July 2026, some managers report a weaker Android experience, problems with in-app texting, and clunky profile navigation. Those are worth checking against your own team's devices during a trial. We report them as customer sentiment, not as our own claims.
Will my nurses have to give up the app they like?: They get a staff app with the same jobs — shifts, who they're on with, swaps, open shifts, time off — plus a credential wallet that belongs to them. Nurses never pay for any of it. What changes for the better is that swaps are rule-checked before they are offered, so nobody accepts a trade a manager then has to refuse.

Nurse-scheduling terms, defined

The words a nurse manager gets handed with a compliance requirement she did not ask for.

NurseGrid Manager: The paid, manager-facing product alongside NurseGrid's free nurse app. It covers schedule sharing, open-shift alerts, swap approvals and credential-expiry notifications; ratio compliance, exclusion screening and PBJ are outside its scope.
HealthStream: The healthcare workforce company that owns NurseGrid. Knowing the owner helps set expectations about roadmap and support model.
Credential-expiry notification vs blocking: A notification emails you that a licence is about to lapse. Blocking refuses to schedule the nurse once it has. Only the second is enforcement, and it is the difference that matters on the day the licence expires.
Nurse-to-patient ratio: A required maximum number of patients per nurse, often varying by unit and acuity. Holding it needs a census and an acuity model, which a personal shift calendar does not have.
HPRD: Hours per resident day: a staffing measure long-term care facilities are held to. It is computed from hours actually worked, which is why it belongs to the scheduler that captured them.