We have a confession to make: We're long-term investors, not traders. Therefore, we tend to spend more of our time holding stocks rather than trading them, and we don't have a particularly strong opinion about trading platforms.
As with operating systems or soft drinks, we tend to think that the debates about which broker has the best platform mostly comes down to personal preference and opinion. If the bells and whistles of a trading platform are important to you, we'd suggest trying out a broker's demo account to see how it fits you. Because, ultimately, different trading or investing styles require different features.
Vanguard has a simple, user-friendly platform that is well suited to most long-term investors. Ally Invest has an award-winning trading platform that could be a better fit for active traders who want to buy individual stocks or make more complex investments.
One of the best parts of having a brokerage account is getting supplemental research to help you make good investment decisions. Vanguard customers have access to a wide range of research, market news, insights, and commentary so you can see Vanguard's latest guidance on where the markets might be heading and how to adapt your portfolio.
Ally Invest offers extensive research, analysis, charts, and other tools like the TipRanks Smart Score to help investors make decisions and find stocks that might have the best chance of outperforming the market. Depending on your personal needs, you could find either brokerage provides ample research to fit your investment style.
Better online stock broker: Vanguard or Ally Invest?
Truly, you could make the case for either brokerage being the "better" broker, because it's all dependent on your personal portfolio. Ally Invest has a robust trading platform, lower published commissions for options, and offers thousands of no-transaction-fee mutual funds. Vanguard has higher commissions on options and on any mutual funds that don't trade on an NTF basis, and offers a vast list of no-transaction-fee mutual funds. Ultimately, it's about how a broker's services fit within the puzzle of your personal portfolio.