Background: The dental professionals are required to continuously update their knowledge and skills with respect to new diagnostic and treatment modalities to provide the patients with the optimum treatment needed. To overcome the gap between best practice and actual care, professional organisations worldwide encourage Evidence–Based Practice (EBP), Objective: To assess and compare the Knowledge, Attitude and perceived barriers towards evidence based practice (EBP) among dental academicians and private practitioners in Pune city. Methodology: A cross–sectional study was conducted amongst dental– academicians (n=150) and private practitioners (n=150) in Pune city. Data was collected using self–administered, pretested, validated, close ended, structured questionnaire. Apart from the demographic profile the questionnaire consisted of eleven questions on knowledge, five on attitude and seven questions on perceived barriers. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics, Chi–square test and unpaired t–test. Results: Among the dental academicians, 56 (37.3), 91 (60.7%), 3 (2%) showed poor, fair and good knowledge respectively regarding EBP and for private practitioners, 113 (75.3%) and 37 (24.7%) showed poor and fair knowledge regarding EBP, respectively. A statistically significant difference between the mean knowledge score of dental academicians (4.94+1.58) and private practitioners (3.033+1.99) was seen, (p<0.05). The attitude of the dental academicians 112 (74.6%) and private practitioners 100 (66.3%) towards EBP was positive. Barriers to its use included lack of access to full text articles and lack of available time. Conclusion: It was found that significant proportion of professionals had inadequate knowledge of EBP but showed a positive attitude towards it, therefore, a formal training and reinforcement is required.