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Epi Info was a free, open-source software suite built by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for public health data collection, outbreak investigation, and epidemiological statistics. CDC officially discontinued development and technical support for it on September 30, 2025, with the final release (version 7.2.5) dated September 1, 2025. Existing desktop installations keep running on supported Windows systems, but the software receives no further updates, bug fixes, or security patches. For a public health researcher, epidemiologist, or research administrator who inherited studies, surveys, or datasets built on Epi Info, this page covers what the tool did, why CDC ended it, and what to use going forward.
What Epi Info actually did
Epi Info’s history ran from 1985 to 2025 — an unusually long run for public health software. It began as an MS-DOS batch-file program distributed on floppy disks (Epi Info 1, created by Jeff Dean at CDC), moved to a Windows/Microsoft Access-based version (Epi Info 2000), went through the Epi Info 3 series (2003–2012, which added nutritional anthropometric functions used in field surveys), and was rewritten as an open-source C# application starting with Epi Info 7 (2008 onward). It was released under the Apache License 2.0, with source hosted on GitHub after CDC moved off CodePlex in 2017. Versions existed for Windows, Android, and iOS, plus web and cloud variants.
The suite was organized into a small set of modules that map onto the actual workflow of an outbreak investigation or field survey:
- Form Designer — built electronic questionnaires with skip patterns and validation (‘check code’) logic, without requiring a database background.
- Enter — the data-entry interface tied to a designed form.
- Classic Analysis / Dashboard — ran statistical routines (t-tests, ANOVA, chi-square, logistic regression, survival analysis, complex survey analysis) and built visual dashboards from the collected data.
- StatCalc — quick epidemiological calculations (sample size, 2×2 tables, risk and odds ratios) that didn’t require loading a full dataset.
- Map — GIS mapping of case locations from shapefiles or map servers.
That combination — free, offline-capable, purpose-built for outbreak response, and simple enough to teach in a single workshop — made Epi Info a default choice at health departments, ministries of health, and field epidemiology training programs worldwide, particularly where licensing budgets for SPSS, SAS, or Stata weren’t available.
Why CDC discontinued it, and what still works
CDC’s own retirement notice states plainly that Epi Info has been discontinued since September 2025. The desktop application continues to function on supported versions of Windows — installing it doesn’t suddenly stop working — but CDC is no longer developing new features, fixing bugs, or patching security issues, and there is no official channel for support. A community-maintained fork, the Epi Info Community Edition on GitHub, has picked up ongoing maintenance outside of CDC, which is the closest thing to a direct continuation if your workflow is genuinely built around Epi Info’s specific form and analysis format.
For anyone planning past the next field season, the practical risk isn’t that Epi Info stops running tomorrow — it’s the slow accumulation of unpatched dependencies (particularly the .NET runtime it requires) and the disappearance of institutional know-how as CDC-run trainings wind down. Treat it the way you’d treat any unsupported research software: safe to finish an active project on, not safe to start a new multi-year surveillance system on.
What to use instead
There isn’t a single one-to-one replacement, because Epi Info bundled two different jobs — structured data collection and epidemiological statistics — that most current tools split apart:
- For data collection and survey forms: REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) is the closest institutional analogue for clinical and biomedical research — free to academic institutions, HIPAA-aware, and already the dominant platform in that space; see CASRAI’s REDCap API and export guide and the Qualtrics vs. REDCap comparison for how it stacks up against the enterprise alternative. For field epidemiology specifically (offline-first data collection on mobile devices, form logic close to what Epi Info’s Form Designer offered), CommCare and KoboToolbox are the tools most public health teams that formerly used Epi Info have migrated to, though neither is a CASRAI-verified fit for every use case — evaluate against your own regulatory and offline requirements.
- For statistical analysis: OpenEpi is a free, web-based suite that covers much of what Epi Info’s StatCalc did — sample size calculators, 2×2 tables, risk and odds ratios — without an install. For the fuller analysis Epi Info’s Classic Analysis module ran (logistic regression, survival analysis, complex survey design), R is the direct, free successor; see CASRAI’s logistic regression in R guide for exactly the kind of odds-ratio and diagnostic workflow Epi Info’s Analysis module used to handle. SPSS, Stata, and SAS remain the licensed alternatives where an institution already has seats.
- For survey/data-collection at Census-scale field operations: the U.S. Census Bureau’s CSPro (also free) is the tool Epi Info’s own documentation pointed to as a comparable option for large structured surveys.
Migrating an existing Epi Info project
If you’re closing out a study built on Epi Info rather than starting a new one, the priority is preserving reproducibility, not switching tools mid-study:
- Export your data out of Epi Info’s native format (.rec/project files) into a durable, tool-agnostic format — CSV plus a documented codebook — while the software you used to build the form is still readily runnable. Don’t wait until the .NET dependency chain breaks on a future OS update.
- Keep the original Form Designer questionnaire (the .qpf/.px file) alongside the exported data, not just the output. A dataset without its collection instrument is much harder to audit or reproduce later; this is the same principle behind a proper data management plan and the FAIR data principles — the metadata describing how data was collected matters as much as the data itself.
- If the study will be cited or reused, document the software version (Epi Info 7.2.x) and discontinuation status explicitly in your methods section or data dictionary, the same way you’d note any other discontinued instrument or assay.
Frequently asked questions
Is Epi Info still used?
Existing installations still run, and some health departments and training programs continue to use it for active projects, but CDC ended official development and support on September 30, 2025. New surveillance systems and multi-year projects should not be built on it going forward.
Is Epi Info free?
Yes — it was released under the Apache License 2.0 as free, open-source software, and remains free to download and run. Its free status doesn’t change with the discontinuation; only ongoing development and official support have stopped.
What was the last version of Epi Info?
Epi Info 7.2.5, released September 1, 2025, was CDC’s final official release before development was discontinued.
Can I still get support for Epi Info?
Not from CDC directly. The community-maintained Epi Info Community Edition on GitHub is the main ongoing source of fixes and discussion outside CDC’s own channels.
