Our research shows the 3 best stock trading platforms providing free stock trades, trading from charts, and powerful screening are TradingView, Trade Ideas, and Firstrade. The leader in AI-automated trading bots is Trade Ideas.
We have tested stock trading platforms, software, and apps for over ten years. We share the finest platforms today, from proven A.I. Auto-trading to systems using machine learning for backtesting and forecasting. We have you covered if you are a beginner looking for a trading community to learn from or an experienced trader looking for an edge in the market.
What is a Trading Platform?
A trading platform is a downloadable application or web-based service that lets you view stock charts, perform stock screening, execute backtests, and ultimately trade. You should also be able to see the latest stock news, perform in-depth stock research, and manage your portfolio.
Finally, a new breed of software powered by AI and Automation will help you find the most profitable trading opportunities.
No single trading platform perfectly performs every function; each has its own strengths, so we have selected the seven most important factors and rated all the software against each other.
7 Things to Look for in a Trading Platform
- Live Trading: Does the platform allow you to execute trades on an exchange from the charts
- Charts: Are the stock charts interactive, with many indicators & drawing tools for analysis?
- Screening: Does the platform have powerful technical scanning or fundamental screening
- Backtesting: A great trading platform allows you to backtest systems to assess future trading risk/reward
- News & Research: Do you get either real-time news or in-depth stock research reports
- Portfolio Management: Can you manage, correlate, rebalance your portfolio, and report profit and loss?
- AI Signals & Automation: Does the platform provide automated chart analysis or artificial intelligence-driven trade signals
Top 10 Trading Platforms Ratings
| Trading Platform Ratings | Live Trading | Charts | Screening | Backtesting | News & Research | AI Signals/Auto-trading | Portfolio Mgt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TradingView | ✔ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★ | ★★ | ★★★ |
| Trade Ideas | ✔ | ★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★ |
| Firstrade | ✔ | ★★★ | ★★★ | ★ | ★★★ | ★ | ★★★ |
| TC2000 | ✔ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★ | ★ | ★★ | ★★ |
| Scanz | ✔ | ★★★ | ★★★★ | ★ | ★★★★ | ★★ | ★★ |
| M1 Finance | ✔ | ★★★ | ★★ | ★ | ★ | ★★★ | ★★★★★ |
| VectorVest | ✔ | ★★★ | ★★★ | ★★ | ★ | ★★★★ | ★★ |
| Interactive Brokers | ✔ | ★★★ | ★★★ | ★ | ★★★ | ★ | ★★★ |
| Yahoo Finance | ✔ | ★★ | ★★ | ★ | ★★ | ★ | ★★ |
| RobinHood | ✔ | ★ | ★ | ★ | ★ | ★ | ★★★ |
Top 10 Best Stock Trading Platforms
1. TradingView: Winner Best Trading Platform Globally
Tradingview is the best trading platform for all international stock, Fx, and Crypto traders because it has the biggest community, free stock trading, screening, and backtesting.
| TradingView Platform Rating | ★★★★★ |
| ⚡ Features | Charts, Trading, News, Watchlists, Screening, Backtesting, Mobile App |
| 📈 Trading Platform | Live Trading From Charts |
| 💰 Free Stock Trading | ✔ |
| 🤖 Auto-Trading Bots | ✘ |
| 🎯 Best for | Stock, Fx & Crypto Traders |
| 🆓 Free Version | TradingView Free |
| 🎮 Premium Trial | Free 30-Day |
| ✂ Premium Discount | -50% Discount |
| 🌎 Markets Covered | Global |
Tradingview has over 160 stock chart types, chart indicators, and drawing/annotation tools. Even better, you can like, follow, and share your ideas with other traders across the globe; it is the ultimate learning and social trading community. Tradingview also scores very well on screening, as you can easily screen on hundreds of technical and fundamental criteria. They also have the best technical screeners for stocks, ETFs, Cryptocurrency, and Forex.
The TradingView backtesting engine is powered by pine script, enabling you to easily develop your own indicators and backtested systems to report on your trading strategy’s risk reward.
The TradingView backtesting engine is powered by pine script, enabling you to easily develop your own indicators and backtested systems to report on your trading strategy’s risk/reward.
With TradingView in the USA, you get great broker integration and free trading with TradeStation for stocks. In Europe, you have integration FXCM and Saxo Group for currency and stock trading. You can place trades directly from charts, taking care of profit & loss reporting and analysis. The only thing it does not cover is stock options trading.
Regarding portfolio management, you can see your trades and the profit and losses. To do this, you must either paper trade with TradingView or select one of their integrated brokers for your region. There is no way to import your existing portfolio into a detailed watch list manually.
TradingView does have a reasonable news service, with integrated delayed news from MT Newswire, Reuters, and Yahoo. However, if you need real-time news, you should evaluate MetaStock or Benzinga Pro.
[partners]
2. Trade Ideas: Winner Best AI Signals & Auto-Trading Platform
Trade Ideas is the best AI power trading platform using 3 AI bots to signal high-probability trades and enable auto-trading. Trade Ideas demonstrate a proven track record of trading profitability.
| Trade Ideas Platform Rating | ★★★★★ |
| ⚡ Features | Charts, Trading, Watchlists, Screening, Backtesting |
| 📈 Trading Platform | Live Trading From Charts, Auto-Trading, AI Bots, and Trade Commission Free with eTrade integration |
| 💰 Free Stock Trading | ✔ – Etrade |
| 🤖 Auto-Trading Bots | ✔ |
| 🎯 Best for | Stock Day Traders |
| 🎮 Trial | Live Trading Room Free, Free Weekly AI Trade |
| ✂ Premium Discount | -15% With Code “Liberated” |
| 🌎 Markets Covered | USA |
Trade Ideas is a web & desktop-based software platform for finding day trading opportunities. Historically specializing in real-time scanning for trade opportunities, Trade Ideas now incorporates cutting-edge AI algorithms that backtest every stock in the USA & Canada for high-probability trading opportunities.
The true genius of Trade Ideas is that it uses Artificial Intelligence algorithms to continually monitor and backtest all 8,000+ stocks on the US & Canadian exchanges.
The AI program is called Holly, and she runs over 70 different strategies on every stock to supply you with high-probability trades every single day. Those trades are typically day trades lasting between a few minutes and a few hours. See the detailed Trade-Ideas AI performance analysis here.
Perhaps the best thing about Trade Ideas is they have an integration for their auto-trading Bots with ETrade enabling commission-free trading.
Believe me, you have never seen anything like the Trade Ideas Holly A.I.
The reason why Trade Ideas features on our winner’s list is because of the platform’s unique benefits:
- Live Trading Room – Get full access to the live trading room for Free.
- AI Virtual Trading Analyst Holly – 4 different constantly evolving AI algorithms
- Chart-Based A.I. Trade Assistance & Entry and Exit Signals
- Risk Assessment – Detailed information on the backtested performance of the recommended trade.
- Build and Backtest any Trade Idea – Extremely powerful point & click backtesting system.
- Autotrade w/ Brokerage Plus and AI – Advanced auto-trading commission free with eTrade.
As a partner of Trade Ideas, I requested a discount for all our readers. Use the discount code “Liberated” to get 15% off your first purchase, worth $340 when going for the premium service.
3. Firstrade: Winner Best Free Stock Broker & Trading Platform
Firstrade is a great trading platform for commission free $0 trading, no hidden charges, and the largest number of commission-free ETFs with excellent stock and options tools.
| Firstrade Platform Rating | ★★★★★ |
| ⚡ Features | Charts, Trading, News, Watchlists, Screening |
| 📈 Trading Platform | Live Trading From Charts |
| 💰 Free Stock Trading | ✔ |
| 🤖 Auto-Trading Bots | ✘ |
| 🎯 Best for | Stock Day Traders |
| 🎮 Try Now | Try Firstrade |
Firstrade is great for traders & investors seeking FREE ZERO Commissions trading on Stocks & Options, plus the industry’s best 2,200+ Commission-Free ETFs. Full MorningStar access and 5-star customer satisfaction, plus a full suite of IRA accounts, mean Firstrade is a great choice for brokerage services.
Commissions: Firstrade vs. TDA vs. E-Trade vs. Schwab vs. Fidelity
| Commissions & Fees | Firstrade | TD Ameritrade | E*Trade | Charles Schwab | Fidelity |
| Online Stock Orders | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $4.95 |
| Online Option Orders | $0 | $0 + $0.65/Contract | $0 + $0.65/Contract | $0 + $0.65/Contract | $0 + $0.65/Contract |
| Online Mutual Fund Trades | $0 | $49.99 | $49.99 | $49.95 | $49.95 |
| Broker-assisted Stock | $19.95 | $25 | $25 | $25 | $19.95 |
| & Options Trades | (+$0.50/contract) | (+$0.65/contract) | (+$0.65/contract) | (+$0.65/contract) | (+$0.65/contract) |
| Minimum Initial Deposit | $0 | $0 | $500 | $0 | $0 |
Table 1: Firstrade Commissions vs. Competitors
Firstrade Trading Platforms
Firstrade has rebuilt its trading platform from scratch, and the improvement is dramatic. Gone are clunky java programs, replaced by a fast HTML 5.0 platform. This platform is future-proofed and highly scalable. The user experience is clean, intuitive, and easy to learn.
Also, what we like is its price – Free. The trading platform has several components. The web-based platform is available for all clients. If you have an account balance over $10,000, you will have complimentary access to download the Firstrade Navigator software; this compelling trading experience runs locally on your PC or Mac.
The Firstrade App for Android & IOS has two cool features:
- Swipe left to Buy or sell from the Positions page or watchlist quickly.
- Face ID and fingerprint recognition feature ensures that you’re the only one who can access your account.
No product set would be complete without the ability to scan and screen for stocks based on fundamental data. Firstrade’s attempt at this is pretty good. It does not match the offerings from TradingView or TC2000, but it is adequate for most investors.
A new event calendar is also available, neatly broken into tabs for Earnings Announcements, Dividends, Rating Changes, Economic Indicators, IPOs & Splits.
4. TC2000: Brokerage Integrated Platform
TC2000 is a leading technical analysis and stock market screening platform with integrated stock trading from charts with TC2000 brokerage.
| TC2000 Platform Rating | ★★★★ |
| ⚡ Features | Charts, Trading, Watchlists, Screening |
| 📈 Trading Platform | Live Trading From Charts |
| 💰 Free Stock Trading | ✘ $4.95 per trade |
| 🤖 Auto-Trading Bots | ✘ |
| 🎯 Best for | Day Traders |
| 🎮 Try Now | Try TC2000 Brokerage |
A good selection of stock charts, indicators, and fundamental scanning makes it a very mature service. Voted Best Software by Stock & Commodities magazine for 25 years straight, it is a great option for US investors.
Make no mistake, if you want fundamentals stock screeners in real-time layered with technical screens all integrated into live watch lists connected to your charts, TC2000 is a power player. I selected TC2000 as my tool of choice back in the year 1999 because it offered back then simply the best implementation of fundamental scanning, filtering, and sorting on the market. Twenty years later, they are still a leader in this section.
TC2000 offers a huge selection of fundamentals & technicals to choose from, 192 to be exact, but even better than that, what makes it truly unique is the fact you can, with a few clicks, create your own indicators based on the fundamentals.
You can then overlay the indicators directly on the charts, opening up a new world of technical and fundamental analysis.
TC2000 also offers a nice implementation of options trading and integration; you can scan and filter many options strategies and then execute and follow them directly from the charts.
Worden Brothers, who created TC2000, have also launched the TC2000 Brokerage, which was also a review winner in our Best USA Stock Brokers Review; it has some incredible benefits, meaning:
- You can trade directly from the charts.
- You can scan fundamentals and customer technical conditions and initiate a trade in seconds.
- You get a first-class experience on mobile.
Good profit and loss tracking reporting round off the package as a well-implemented solution.
| Try TC2000 Brokerage | Read the Full TC2000 Review |
5. Interactive Brokers: Excellent Global Broker
The Interactive Brokers (IB) trading platform is huge. IB is ideal for active investors and day traders seeking low trading costs, direct market access for fast execution, and best-in-class margin costs.
| IB Platform Rating | ★★★★ |
| ⚡ Features | Trading, Watchlists, News, Portfolio Management |
| 📈 Trading Platform | Full Global Brokerage |
| 💰 Free Stock Trading | ✔ – USA |
| 🤖 Auto-Trading Bots | ✘ |
| 🎯 Best for | International Investors |
| 🎮 Try Now | Try IB |
Interactive Brokers (IB) is the grandfather of online discount brokers. Not only are they a long-established company, but it is also big. It has a complete set of services, enabling you to trade practically anything on any market. Stocks, Options, ETFs, Mutual Funds, Bonds, Foreign Exchange, and even futures and commodities.
Interactive Brokers has a genuinely excellent trading platform based on Trader Workstation (TWS). It is free to download and use as a client, and it is the single place to trade any and every one of the vehicles on offer from IB.
Not only that, there are a considerable number of advanced add-on tools that plug into TWS, such as:
- ChartTrader – for trading directly from charts.
- Continuous Futures – for commodity futures scanning and analysis.
- DepthTrader – for in-depth analysis of market liquidity
- OptionTrader – more in-depth Options Analysis with specific Options strategies
- ProbabilityLab – to test the Probability Distribution of a particular trade
6. Scanz: Real-time News Scanning & Trading Platform
The Scanz trading platform specializes in scanning for L2 liquidity and real-time news. Scanz occupies a unique space in the trading platform market, including broad broker integration for trading from charts.
| Scanz Platform Rating | ★★★★ |
| ⚡ Features | Charts, Trading, Watchlists, Screening, Real-time News |
| 📈 Trading Platform | Live Trading From Charts |
| 💰 Free Stock Trading | ✔ |
| 🤖 Auto-Trading Bots | ✘ |
| 🎯 Best for | Day Traders |
| 🎮 Try Now | Try Scanz |
Scanz specializes in providing real-time data and news fast directly to your screen. Data speeds are excellent, and it has excellent US data coverage, including extensive Over-The-Counter markets (OTC: BB, OTCQX, OTCQB, OTCPINK, GREY)
The Scanz Team has a fantastic set of integrations with brokers to enable chart trading, which includes RealTick, Sterling Trader, LightSpeed, and, most importantly, TD Ameritrade and Interactive Brokers, two of the powerhouses of the brokerage world. So, the chances are that your broker of choice is already covered.
Scanz has the “Chart Montage” functionality, enabling an ultrapowerful way of trading off the charts. This single window contains a wealth of critical trading information, including real-time streaming news, and level 2 data, including time and sales.
The deal news section in Scanz is very good. I like the simple implementation; you can get the low down on contracts and deals between companies. This can give you an edge if you can quantify the deal’s impact on the company’s bottom line. Scanz also strongly focuses on news services but is let down by having no social integration.
| Visit Scanz | Read the Full Scanz Review |
7. M1 Finance: High-Performing Robo Advisor
M1 Finance is a Robo Advisor who can build your portfolio and execute the trades for free. M1 Is a complete trading platform for automated investing.
| M1 Finance Platform Rating | ★★★★ |
| ⚡ Features | Charts, Trading, Watchlists, Screening, Real-time News |
| 📈 Trading Platform | Automated Trading Robo Advisor |
| 💰 Free Stock Trading | ✔ |
| 🤖 Auto-Trading Bots | ✔ |
| 🎯 Best for | Investors |
| 🎮 Try Now | Try M1 Now |
If you do not have the time to perform stock research, screen, analyze and place your trades, then you should use a Robo-Advisor. M1 is simply the best Robo Advisor we have tested.
It is unfair to test M1 against the others in this review. M1 does not provide powerful stock charts or detailed backtesting and forecasting. Neither does it provide real-time news. It does not need to because it does two things so well that you do not need anything else.
M1 will manage your portfolio, trade your stocks, and report to you your earnings. Not only that, but it will rebalance your portfolio and perform year-end tax-loss harvesting.
M1’s investing approach is based on expertly curated portfolios. Each portfolio is called a “Pie”; each pie comprises multiple stocks with specific weightings based on what risk or exposure you seek.
There are close to 100 expert pies to choose from, with varying levels of return and past performance. You can select an expert pie or even build your own. The great thing is that when you send funds to your account, the money is automatically fully invested into your pie based on your allocation rules, and because there are no fees, this will not impact your account’s bottom line.
M1 Investing Performance
M1 provides many different expert portfolios to choose from, and depending on when you open an account and decide to invest, the returns on your investment can vary. Suffice it to say, M1 claims that, on average, their expert portfolios (pies) are within or slightly above the underlying market return. Of the 20 Robo Advisors we researched, M1 appeared to have the best returns: typically within or above the underlying index by 1-2%.
| Visit M1 Finance | Read the Full M1 Review |
8. VectorVest: Full Auto Trading Platform
The VectorVest trading platform provides many benefits to traders and investors, primarily simplifying finding stocks to trade based on their proprietary system. While it is quite expensive for the premium package, it may be worth it if you invest a significant amount of money.
| Vectorvest Platform Rating | ★★★ |
| ⚡ Features | Trading, Watchlists, Signals, Portfolio Management |
| 📈 Trading Platform | Full Auto-trading |
| 💰 Free Stock Trading | ✘ |
| 🤖 Auto-Trading Bots | ✔ |
| 🎯 Best for | International Investors |
| 🎮 Try Now | Try Vectorvest |
VectorVest software is incredibly easy to use because it promotes the Value, Safety, and Timing system. This means they have a minimal variety of stock market indicators; they provide only what is needed to trade within their VST system parameters.
VectorVest continually evaluates every stock on the exchanges they cover to provide their propriety ratings.
- RV Relative Value shows the estimated return versus a AAA Corporate Bond.
- RS Relative Safety measures the consistency of a company’s financials.
- RT Relative Timing is a technical indicator that attempts to define the short-term trend of a stock.
- VST Value-Safety Timing indicator is an aggregation of RV, RS, and RT, essentially rolled up into one number.
Ultimately, VectorVest recommends that you trade stocks with good fundamentals, moving in an uptrend. This, to me, makes sense and is the foundation of my stock investing strategy.
VectorVest does provide buy or sell ratings for every stock they cover, which is interesting. They also have a method for suggesting the Stop Loss; this is the price at which you should sell stock to limit your losses.
VectorVest claims to be the only platform to provide buy or sell signals, but this is simply not true. Other stock software offers these signals, such as Trade Ideas, MetaStock, or TradingView.
| Visit VectorVest | Read the Full VectorVest Review |
9. Yahoo Finance: Free News & Portfolio Management
Yahoo Finance is a trading platform allowing you to connect to your broker and execute trades from the Yahoo charts.
| Yahoo Finance Rating | ★★★ |
| ⚡ Features | Charts, Trading, Watchlists, News |
| 📈 Trading Platform | Broker Integration |
| 💰 Free Stock Trading | ✔ – Broker Dependent |
| 🤖 Auto-Trading Bots | ✘ |
| 🎯 Best for | Beginners |
| 🎮 Try Now | Try Yahoo Finance |
Yahoo has updated its interactive charting experience; it is a clean experience and full screen, so now it is quite good. With 114 different technical indicators, you are well covered with Yahoo Finance. The interactive charts allow you to draw trendlines, linear regressions, and even quadrant lines.
A nice new addition is Yahoo now provides real-time quotes and charts via the BATS system. Yahoo Finance is working hard to make its charting system a good alternative to other free vendors.
Yahoo finance does provide a news aggregation engine and contributes original news via the Yahoo Finance news team. If you opt for Yahoo Finance Premium, you will get a good selection of analyst research reports. These are static reports which could be useful, but again for the price tag of $49.99 per month, it might not be worth it because most mainstream brokers offer research reports for free. Firstrade offers free stock trades and research reports from both Zacks and Morningstar.
10. Robinhood: Free Stock Trading Platform At A Price
Robinhood is recommended for those wanting free stock trades who want to keep it super simple, do not need strong technical and fundamental analysis of stocks, and are uncomfortable with using a PC.
| Robinhood Platform Rating | ★★★ |
| ⚡ Features | Trading, Watchlists, News, Mobile Only |
| 📈 Trading Platform | Full Brokerage |
| 💰 Free Stock Trading | ✔ |
| 🤖 Auto-Trading Bots | ✘ |
| 🎯 Best for | Beginners |
| 🎮 Try Now | Try Robinhood |
Robinhood was the first Brokerage to offer free trades; starting in 2013, it has now raised through private venture capital over $500 million to fund the business.
With over one million registered accounts, it is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with.
Free trading refers to $0 commissions for Robinhood Financial self-directed individual cash or margin brokerage accounts that trade US-listed securities via mobile devices. As Robinhood is a mobile-first company, if you trade from your smartphone on the Major U.S. listed stocks available through Robinhood, then the trade has no cost.
Clean, simple, and intuitive, the app design and interface would make Steve Jobs happy; so simple that the company claims that no user manual is required to use it.
So, all is good so far. But if you are a serious trader or investor, Robinhood will be good for executing the trades. Still, any serious amount of technical analysis or even analysis of the fundamentals of a stock is impossible and would require other stand-alone applications, such as:
-
- Tradingview for a great online analysis experience
- TC2000 for impressive fundamental scanning and technical analysis
- Metastock for real-time news, backtesting, and technical analysis.
Of course, stock screening is also impossible on the phone, so you would want to select a great stock screener to use in conjunction with Robinhood.
Best Stock Trading Platforms Summary
TradingView is the best stock trading platform for community, trading, scanning, charting, and backtesting. Trade Ideas is the best platform for Robo Trading and AI-generated trading signals. If you want a free trading broker platform, then Firstrade is a good choice.
The financial industry is full of innovative trading platforms designed to provide investors and traders with the information they need to make informed decisions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best stock trading platform?
Based on our testing, the best trading platforms are TradingView for swing traders and medium-term investors and Trade Ideas for day traders. Both platforms provide integration with commission-free brokers, but Trade Ideas enables AI and Automated Bots for trading.
What is the best day trading platform?
Trade Ideas is the safest, most reliable, and in our opinion, the best day trading platform. Trade Ideas offer an institutional level of service and support to retail day traders.
What is the best trading platform for beginners?
Our testing shows that TradingView is the best trading platform for beginners because it has automated candlestick and chart pattern recognition, powerful screening, and commission-free broker integration. Best of all, beginners will have a community of 13 million traders to learn from.
What is the best forex trading platform for beginners?
The best Forex trading platform for beginners is TradingView because it supports all Forex markets globally and has full Forex broker integration in nearly every country. Finally, TradingView has a huge community of Forex traders exchanging ideas, which is a huge benefit for beginners.
What is the best-automated trading platform?
The most professional and highly automated trading platform we have tested is Trade Ideas. With expert support and an integrated trading room for subscribers, Trade Ideas is not only a leader for institutional investors but also for retail traders.
What is the best trading platform for options?
What is the best auto trading platform?
The best auto trading platform is Trade Ideas because it provides trading signals with the full power of institutional grade AI and also enables commission-free auto trading through its Holly AI Bot. With professional technical support, this service comes with a price, but it is worth it.
