Honest, independent reviews to help you find the right home for your money
The best all-around platform for most investors
If I had to point someone to one platform and one platform only, it would be Fidelity. It consistently earns this spot because it does everything well without doing anything poorly. There are no gimmicks, no hidden fees to watch out for, and no sense that the platform is designed to make you trade more than you should.
What sets Fidelity apart most is their lineup of zero-expense-ratio index funds (FZROX, FZILX, and others). These funds charge you literally nothing to own them. For long-term investors who understand that fees compound just like returns — in the wrong direction — this matters more than most people realize over a 20 or 30-year horizon.
The platform itself is robust without being overwhelming. New investors can use their guided tools and educational resources to get started without feeling lost, while more experienced investors have access to full research tools, screeners, and options trading when they need it. The mobile app is clean and well-designed. Customer service is available 24/7 and is genuinely helpful — a rarity in this industry.
The only knock on Fidelity is that their website can feel slightly dated compared to newer platforms like Robinhood. But I'll take a slightly less flashy interface over a platform designed to encourage overtrading any day.
A close second — excellent for active investors and retirees
Charles Schwab and Fidelity are genuinely neck and neck for the top spot — choosing between them is more about personal preference than one being objectively better. Schwab earns exceptionally high marks for their trading tools, research offerings, and the fact that they have physical branches if you ever want to sit across from a human being and talk through your finances.
Schwab's acquisition of TD Ameritrade brought thinkorswim into the fold — widely regarded as one of the best trading platforms ever built. If you're someone who wants to actively manage a portfolio, analyze charts, or trade options, thinkorswim gives you professional-grade tools without paying for them. For passive investors, Schwab's own index funds are nearly as cost-effective as Fidelity's offerings.
One area where Schwab genuinely stands out is for retirees and people nearing retirement. Their financial planning tools, advisor access, and the reassurance of walking into a physical branch make them a natural choice for that demographic. They also offer an excellent checking account with no foreign transaction fees and ATM fee reimbursement worldwide — a nice bonus.
The fractional shares offering is slightly more limited than Fidelity's (restricted to S&P 500 stocks rather than all US stocks), but it's still functional for most investors.
The gold standard for passive, long-term index fund investing
Vanguard deserves a special place in any conversation about investing because of what they represent, not just what they offer. Founded by John Bogle — the man who invented the index fund for everyday investors — Vanguard is literally owned by its fund investors. There are no outside shareholders to profit at your expense. That structure creates a genuine alignment of interests that no other platform can quite replicate.
Their funds, particularly VTSAX (Total Stock Market Index) and VTI (the ETF equivalent), are among the most widely held investments in the world for a reason. The expense ratios are among the lowest available, and the philosophy is simple: own the whole market, keep costs at rock bottom, and let time do the work. For a patient investor with a long horizon, this approach has beaten the vast majority of actively managed funds over every meaningful time period.
Where Vanguard loses points is on the platform experience. Their website is famously clunky, their app is functional but not modern, and customer service can be slow. They've been improving, but there's still a noticeable gap between Vanguard's user experience and what Fidelity or Schwab offer. If you're the type who logs in often to check your portfolio, you might find it frustrating.
My honest advice: if your goal is to set up a simple portfolio of two or three index funds and leave it alone for decades, Vanguard is excellent. If you want a platform you'll actively enjoy using, Fidelity gives you everything Vanguard offers in a better package.
Set-it-and-forget-it investing with intelligent automation
M1 Finance takes a fundamentally different approach to investing than every other platform on this list, and for a certain type of investor, it's genuinely brilliant. Rather than buying individual stocks or funds one at a time, you build a "pie" — a visual portfolio where you assign target percentages to different holdings. Every time you deposit money, M1 automatically buys fractional shares across your pie to maintain those percentages. It rebalances as you go.
This approach is powerful for a few reasons. First, it removes the psychological friction of deciding what to buy each time you invest — your strategy is set upfront and the system executes it. Second, automatic fractional share investing means even small deposits are fully deployed across your whole portfolio. Third, it's completely free on the basic tier, which is genuinely impressive for what you get.
The platform also has a growing ecosystem including a checking account (M1 Spend) and a credit card, which can integrate nicely if you want to centralize your financial life. M1 Plus ($3/month) unlocks a second trading window and a higher-yield checking rate.
Where I'd pump the brakes: M1 is not designed for active traders. There are limited trading windows (once per day on the free tier), and if you want to respond quickly to market conditions, this isn't the platform for that. It's also a younger company compared to Fidelity or Schwab, which matters to some people from a trust and stability standpoint. But for its core use case — automated, disciplined, long-term investing — it excels.
The easiest way to start — but know its limitations
Robinhood gets a lot of criticism in personal finance circles, and some of it is earned. But I want to be fair: for someone who has never invested before and wants the absolute simplest, lowest-friction way to buy their first stock or ETF, Robinhood delivers. The app is genuinely the easiest investing interface ever built. No clutter, no confusion, just clean screens that make buying and selling feel approachable.
The controversy around Robinhood centers on a few well-documented issues. The 2021 GameStop trading halt damaged trust significantly. Their business model relies heavily on payment for order flow, which means your trades are routed through market makers in a way that may not always get you the absolute best price (though the difference for small retail investors is typically negligible in practice). And the gamified design of the app has been criticized for encouraging more trading than investors need.
What's changed: Robinhood has matured considerably. They now offer a Roth IRA with a 1% match on contributions (unique in the industry), a 24-hour trading option, and Robinhood Gold which gives you a meaningful interest rate on uninvested cash. These additions make it a more legitimate long-term platform than it was a few years ago.
My honest recommendation: Robinhood is a fine place to start, buy a few shares, and get comfortable with how investing works. But if you're serious about building long-term wealth, you'll likely want to migrate to Fidelity or Schwab eventually. Think of it as training wheels — it gets you going, but it's not the destination.
A few questions worth asking before you open an account
Beginners benefit most from clean interfaces, good educational resources, and platforms that don't encourage overtrading. Fidelity and Schwab are built to grow with you. Robinhood is the easiest entry point but has limitations.
If you want to set up a few index funds and leave them alone for decades, all five platforms work. If you want to actively trade, research stocks, and use advanced tools, Schwab's thinkorswim platform is unmatched. Robinhood is not built for serious active trading.
M1 Finance is uniquely designed for automated investing. You set your target allocation once and every deposit automatically maintains it. No other platform on this list offers this in quite the same way for free.
Open a Roth IRA first if you qualify — contributions grow tax-free. All five platforms offer IRAs. Fidelity and Vanguard have the strongest retirement-focused fund lineups. Robinhood offers a 1% IRA match which is worth considering.
All five platforms offer $0 commissions on stocks and ETFs. The difference is in fund expense ratios. Fidelity's zero-cost index funds and Vanguard's ultra-low-cost funds are the best options for minimizing ongoing costs.
Only Charles Schwab has brick-and-mortar locations among this group. If you want the ability to walk in and talk to someone in person, Schwab is your only option here.