eka.care and Ayu are two of the most widely discussed personal health record (PHR) apps in India in 2026, and both serve the same core need: helping Indian families store, organise, and share medical records. But they approach the problem differently, and which one is right for you depends on your specific situation. This comparison is honest about both — and explains who should use which.

Quick Overview

eka.care is a Bengaluru-based digital health platform focused primarily on connecting patients with doctors through its Smart Health Record and digital consultation features. It has strong ABHA integration and a growing network of healthcare provider partnerships.

Ayu is an AI-powered medical records app built specifically for Indian families, with a focus on digitising all records — including handwritten prescriptions — organising multi-member family profiles, and enabling instant, offline-accessible QR sharing for any clinical encounter.

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Where eka.care Is Strong

Doctor network and booking: eka.care has built substantial integrations with hospitals, clinics, and individual practitioners. If your primary need is booking appointments with specific doctors or accessing digital prescriptions from eka.care-integrated clinics, it is well-suited.

ABHA integration: eka.care was among the early PHR apps to build deep ABHA linkage, making it easy to pull in records from ABDM-enrolled hospitals automatically.

Teleconsultation features: For users who want a combined "book a doctor + store records" experience in one app, eka.care's ecosystem offers this more fully than Ayu.

Chronic disease management tools: eka.care offers blood pressure and diabetes management features with trend charts for users managing these conditions.

Where Ayu Is Stronger

Handling the reality of Indian healthcare: The majority of healthcare encounters in India still involve handwritten prescriptions from a neighbourhood GP, paper reports from small independent labs, and verbal instructions from doctors. eka.care is optimised for the formal, digitised end of Indian healthcare. Ayu is built to handle everything — including the informal, paper-based layer that represents most Indian primary care.

Handwritten prescription OCR: This is Ayu's standout feature. Upload a photo of a handwritten prescription from any doctor, and Ayu extracts the medication names, dosages, and instructions into readable, searchable text. This is not a marginal use case — it is the norm for Indian households with elderly parents.

Indian language record support: Ayu's language support for record entry and display covers the major Indian regional languages. For families in Tamil Nadu managing a parent's records, or a household in Maharashtra dealing with a doctor who writes in Marathi — Ayu handles this more naturally.

Managing multiple family members: Ayu is explicitly designed around the Indian family as the unit of health management — not just the individual. Adding a profile for your elderly mother, your child's vaccination record, and your own health history in one app — and switching between them seamlessly — is core to the Ayu experience.

Offline access: Ayu's records are accessible offline on device, which matters in low-connectivity situations (rural areas, basements of hospitals, emergency evacuations).

Universal QR sharing: Ayu's QR sharing works for any doctor at any clinic — the doctor does not need to be on the Ayu platform to view shared records. eka.care's sharing works best within its own ecosystem.

No dependency on doctor participation: To benefit fully from eka.care, your doctors need to be integrated into the eka.care network. Ayu works regardless of what system your doctor uses.

The Real-World Indian Healthcare Scenario

Consider a typical Indian family in 2026:

• A 68-year-old mother in Chennai with diabetes, hypertension, and mild kidney disease
• She sees a nephrologist at a government medical college, a diabetologist at a private clinic, and a neighbourhood GP for minor illnesses
• Her adult son is in Pune
• Her prescriptions are all handwritten; one of her labs is a standalone centre not on any app platform

For this family, eka.care's strength — its doctor network and ABHA auto-linking — is limited because none of her key doctors are on the eka.care platform and her labs are not ABDM-enrolled. The handwritten prescriptions, small-lab reports, and government hospital records are all outside eka.care's digitisation pipeline.

Ayu handles all of these. The son in Pune can open Ayu, see his mother's latest blood sugar, the nephrologist's prescription from last month, and the emergency card (blood group, allergies, all current medications) — all uploaded by his mother or a family helper, regardless of which clinic or lab issued them.

Who Should Choose eka.care?

• Users in metros whose primary doctors use eka.care-integrated platforms
• Individuals who frequently book teleconsultations and want records in the same app
• Users with ABDM-enrolled primary hospital who want automatic ABHA record linkage
• People whose healthcare is mostly in the formal, digitised sector

Who Should Choose Ayu?

• Indian families managing records for elderly parents with multiple specialists
• Families where healthcare is primarily through small clinics, neighbourhood GPs, and standalone labs
• Anyone dealing with handwritten prescriptions regularly
• Families with members in different cities or NRI families managing parents in India
• Households wanting a single app to manage health records for the whole family — parents, children, and spouse
• Anyone who needs to share records quickly at a consultation without the receiving doctor needing to be on any specific platform

Conclusion

Both eka.care and Ayu are legitimate, ABDM-certified health apps built for the Indian market. eka.care is the stronger choice if your healthcare primarily occurs within its integrated doctor and hospital network. Ayu wins clearly for the family use case — particularly for managing elderly parents' records, handling the handwritten prescription and small-lab ecosystem that represents the majority of Indian primary care, and giving adult children in other cities seamless visibility into their parents' health.

For most Indian families navigating the real complexity of healthcare across generations — not just the digitised tip of the healthcare iceberg — Ayu's design philosophy fits better.

Try Ayu for your family's medical records

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is eka.care free to use?

eka.care offers a free tier with basic record storage and ABHA linking. Advanced features including detailed chronic disease management and unlimited record storage require a paid subscription, which has been priced in the range of ₹399–₹799 per year. Pricing is subject to change — check the eka.care app for current plans.

Q: Does Ayu integrate with ABHA?

Yes. Ayu supports ABHA linking, allowing you to connect records from ABDM-enrolled hospitals to your Ayu profile. However, Ayu's primary strength is in capturing records that ABHA cannot — handwritten prescriptions, small-lab reports, physical documents, and records from non-ABDM-enrolled providers.

Q: Can I use both eka.care and Ayu simultaneously?

Yes. Some users choose to use eka.care for automatic ABHA record linkage from enrolled hospitals, and Ayu for storing everything else — handwritten prescriptions, paper reports, and family member records. The two apps are not mutually exclusive.

Q: Does eka.care have handwritten prescription support?

eka.care supports OCR for typed documents and digital records from integrated providers. Handwritten prescription digitisation is not a primary feature. Ayu's OCR is built specifically for the reality of handwritten medical text in India, including common abbreviations used by Indian doctors.

Q: Is my health data private on both apps?

Both eka.care and Ayu are required to comply with India's DPDP Act 2023 (Digital Personal Data Protection Act). Both apps are ABDM-certified, which requires compliance with the ABDM Health Data Management Policy. Review each app's privacy policy to understand what data is shared and with whom before uploading sensitive health information.

Q: Which app has better family management features?

Ayu is specifically designed around the concept of family health management — adding multiple family member profiles, switching between them easily, and organising records for parents, children, and grandparents from one account. This is a primary design feature of Ayu rather than an add-on.

Q: How does each app handle offline access?

Ayu stores records on-device for offline access. eka.care is primarily a cloud-based platform and requires an internet connection to access most features. For families in areas with patchy connectivity, or for accessing records quickly in hospital basements with poor signal, Ayu's offline access is a practical advantage.

References

1. National Health Authority. ABDM Personal Health Records Framework. https://abdm.gov.in/
2. National Library of Medicine. Digital Health Adoption Among Indian Consumers. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34887832/
3. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. DPDP Act 2023. https://www.meity.gov.in/content/digital-personal-data-protection-act