Aligners or braces: an honest comparison
Fixed braces are still the better answer for some cases. How to tell which side of the line you are on.
Anyone selling aligners has an incentive to tell you aligners are always the answer. They are not. Here is where each one is genuinely better.
What aligners do well
Aligners are excellent at crowding, spacing and mild to moderate bite correction. They are removable, which means you eat normally and clean your teeth properly — a real clinical advantage, not just a convenience. There are no brackets to catch the inside of your mouth and no emergency visits for a broken wire.
The trade-off is compliance. Aligners work for the hours they are in your mouth. Twenty-two hours a day is the prescription, and treatment that runs long almost always runs long for this reason.
What braces do better
Fixed braces apply continuous force and do not depend on you remembering anything. For large vertical movements, significant rotations of round teeth, or cases where teeth need to be moved bodily through bone, brackets and wire still have more control.
If your case needs extractions to create space, braces are usually the more predictable route.
Cases where aligners are the wrong tool
- Jaws that are skeletally misaligned rather than just crowded teeth
- Cases requiring significant extraction
- Teeth that need to move a long way vertically
- Patients who genuinely will not wear them the prescribed hours
How to find out which you are
A clinician needs to see your teeth. Photographs narrow it down; a scan settles it. Any practice that tells you aligners will fix your case before seeing either is selling, not diagnosing.
Wondering if this applies to you?
Book a free consultation and we’ll take a look.
