AlphaSense
Best for: Comprehensive qualitative research and accurate data
AlphaSense is a G2-rated leader in both financial research and market intelligence. It’s built for organizations looking to implement a full-scale research strategy rooted in AI technology and smart automation capabilities.
The proof of AlphaSense’s value lies in its customer base: today, it’s used by 80% of the top consultancies, 75% of the top asset management firms, 85% of the S&P 100, and 20 of the largest pharmaceutical companies.
AlphaSense provides access to more than 10,000 premium content sources, including news and trade journals, SEC filings, and company filings. In addition, users have access to two proprietary content libraries:
- Wall Street Insights® – a curated collection of equity research from top analyst teams
- Stream by AlphaSense – a library of transcripts and one-on-one calls with former executives, customers, competitors, and other industry experts.
AlphaSense is powered by smart search capabilities that ensure users can quickly find the exact insights they need for their research — and that they never miss a single important insight:
Smart Synonyms™
Smart Synonyms™ is an exclusive AlphaSense feature that recognizes intent behind every search and delivers results for both the exact search terms and related keywords.
At the same time, AlphaSense recognizes when results are not relevant to the intent of the search and automatically filters them out, removing unnecessary noise and eliminating hours wasted combing through sources that aren’t valuable for current research.
Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis uses natural language processing (NLP) technology to mine content and identify the sentiment behind the language in a given document. It’s then color-coded for users so they can easily recognize positive, neutral, and negative sentiment within a given source.
AlphaSense also gives each search term a numerical sentiment and sentiment change score, helping users understand how the market feels about a topic and how sentiment has changed over time.
Automated Monitoring
AlphaSense offers automation features that can take manual monitoring out of the equation, using real-time alerts to ensure users are first to know about the topics, companies, and industries they care about. Watchlists and dashboards provide snapshot views of multiple companies or topics of interest to a user.
With this type of automation comes confidence for users that they’re always up to date on the most recent and important news, changes, and insights they need to know about.
High-Quality User Experience
The AlphaSense platform is designed to fit seamlessly into the everyday workflows and processes of its users. That means intuitive interfaces, easy export options so that data can be manipulated, and accessibility on both PCs and mobile devices.
AlphaSense clients include respected leaders in every sector:
For an even more in-depth comparison of AlphaSense and Bloomberg, check out our AlphaSense vs. Bloomberg page.
Ready to try out all that AlphaSense has to offer? Start your free trial today.
FactSet
Best for: Unique data sets and quantitative screening
Like Bloomberg, FactSet is one of the longest-standing financial research tools on the market, serving clients since the 1970s and now holding a client base of 7000+ firms and 170K individual users. Known for its exceptional customer support and four decades of experience, FactSet is a dependable platform for financial advisors, asset owners, investment bankers, and traders.
FactSet’s hallmark features are its expansive data library, which includes 30 datasets (two dozen of them exclusive) and unique solutions to serve a wide range of financial subfields, including:
- Asset management
- Hedge funds
- Private equity and venture capital
- Corporations
- Wealth management
FactSet is also continuously improving its technology and acquiring smaller platforms, such as content providers, to keep its offering updated and high-quality. The main drawbacks of using FactSet as a Bloomberg Terminal alternative are that it’s also expensive at $12,000 per year, and its qualitative search function is not nearly as powerful or advanced as most of its rivals’.
Refinitiv Eikon
Best for: External collaboration and platform customization
Refinitiv Eikon is one of Bloomberg’s biggest competitors as far as market share, holding about 20% to Bloomberg’s nearly 33%, according to most industry sources.
The two have quite similar features, too — like Bloomberg, Refinitiv Eikon delivers proprietary news and analysis (Thomson Reuters) as well as access to collaboration tools that connect users to a network of 30K+ firms in 180+ countries around the world.
Other notable Refinitiv Eikon features include:
- Data platform APIs so users can build customized solutions
- Advanced charting tools integrated with search and other core functionality
- Microsoft Excel integration capabilities
- Automated real-time alerts
- Easily customizable open platform
While they don’t list prices on their website, Investopedia reports that prices for Eikon’s full solution fall around $22,000 per year. They do offer a more affordable version at $3600 per year, albeit with heavily pared-down features.
Koyfin
Best for: Basic quantitative research on a budget
Koyfin is a solution built for investors at every experience level — professional, individual, and student. Known for its user-friendly features and in-depth qualitative data, the Koyfin platform makes investing more accessible without sacrificing the sophistication and accuracy needed by firms managing real client portfolios.
Here’s what Koyfin offers:
- A stock screener with 5900+ features for finding the right stocks
- Detailed and accessible company snapshots, financial statements, and valuation analysis
- Customizable dashboards for holistic snapshot views of trends
- Advanced graphic to create compelling visuals and customizable graphs
- Powerful visualization tools that provide a full picture of financial markets
Although not necessarily a drawback, Koyfin is more focused on managing investments than larger market research. If a market intelligence strategy is your goal, this tool may be too limited for you.
Koyfin comes at a much more affordable price than Bloomberg and many of the other tools on our list, starting with a free option that includes limited versions of the platform’s most important features.
Beyond that is the Basic option ($15/month) which adds Market News and Snapshots to the available features, Plus ($35/month) for more unlimited features and export options, and Pro ($70/month) which adds advanced search capabilities and priority support.
Symphony
Best for: Secure data sharing
Symphony is a different kind of solution than the rest on our list, built not for direct research but rather collaboration between financial services teams, clients, and organizations.
Still, its impressive communication features make it an indirect competitor for Bloomberg — a powerful tool for organizations that need to work securely online with clients, partners, and other industry counterparts.
Symphony’s features include:
- Direct chat
- Digital workspaces (“Rooms”)
- Live video conferencing
- Screen sharing
- Global user directory
- Tagging capabilities
Most importantly, every Symphony message is encrypted as soon as it’s sent, meaning users can communicate with confidence and never be constrained by geographic distance or security concerns.
Pricing is unavailable on Symphony’s website, but they do offer separate sales services for small firms vs. large institutions, suggesting that separate pricing options exist for both.
YCharts
Best for: Creating compelling visuals
YCharts is an investment research platform originally built to make investing accessible for firm and individual investors alike. Its core features are its data visualization capabilities that make insights more compelling for analysts, investors, and other stakeholders, as well as its fund screener that allows you to filter mutual funds and ETFs by specific metrics.
The YCharts solution is comprised of three main tools:
- Model Portfolios – Users can build and analyze portfolios using metrics visualizations, custom strategy comparison reports, and benchmark modeling. Pre-built customizable templates are also available and can fit with any model you create.
- Stock Screeners – Features 4000+ financial metrics users can filter to find stocks based on custom criteria and build custom analysis formulas
- Fundamental Charts – Charting tools that enable easy sharing of data visualizations, including the ability to embed them as images in other content (like blogs or emails)
YCharts offers a free 7-day trial and three pricing levels: Enterprise (for firms and advising teams), Professional (for individual investors and portfolio managers), and Standard (for students and beginner investors). Client-specific pricing for each level is available upon request from YCharts.
S&P Capital IQ
Best for: Sector-specific insight
S&P Capital IQ is built for large firms, professional corporate and financial researchers, and high-level business leaders. Like Bloomberg, S&P’s solution offers comprehensive financial research and market intelligence capabilities, with over 135 billion data points, including company profiles, financial data, and independent analyst reports.
Capital IQ also offers tools, such as the web portal and mobile apps, that cover all complex investment structures and offer analysts up-to-date insights, performance comparisons, and fund strategies.
One of S&P’s strengths is that it combines fundamental data with sector-specific metrics and analysis for Financial Institutions, Insurance, Energy, Real Estate, Metals & Mining, and Technology, Media, and Telecoms. Other important features include:
- Easy integration with Microsoft Office (for pulling data to build models and charts)
- Maps visualization tool for a high-level view of global markets
- Custom dashboards for monitoring specific companies, industries, and topics
- Access to real-time data, financial modeling, and quantitative analysis through web-based and Excel-based applications
Pricing options are not available publicly for S&P Capital IQ but are available by request.
Pitchbook
Best for: Venture capital
Pitchbook is a research and intelligent platform built for venture capital, private equity, and M&A investors. It provides financial data on public and private companies, deals made across public and private equity markets, investor track records, and specific funds.
Pitchbook’s features not only provide data insights but powerful deal sourcing, business development, and networking capabilities for active investors and firms in the space. For firms or investors specializing in VC, PE, or M&A, Pitchbook presents a more valuable alternative to Bloomberg in that it fits uniquely to their needs.
That said, Pitchbook is the most expensive solution on our list at $25,000 per year for three users, plus $7000 for every additional user (per TrustRadius).
Morningstar Premium
Best for: Expert portfolio analysis
Morningstar Premium covers a wide range of financial solutions, but those most relevant to audiences similar to Bloomberg’s are Morningstar Direct (built for professional investors and firms) and Morningstar Investor (built for individual investors).
Both solutions provide premium quality data and exclusive insights directly from Morningstar experts. On the Direct solution, those insights come in the form of stock and portfolio research and ratings, while the Investor solution offers analysis that helps users make smart investment decisions.
Other notable features of the Morningstar platforms include:
Morningstar Direct:
- Analytics lab for investment analysis
- Pre-built Morningstar datasets
- Custom investment scorecards and risk scenario analysis
- Sustainability-focused ratings
Morningstar Investor:
- Simplified stock ratings
- Stock screeners and pre-filtered investment lists
- Morningstar® Portfolio X-Ray® for portfolio analysis
Morningstar Investor is $250 for an annual subscription. Morningstar Direct pricing is available by direct request only.
The Motley Fool
Best for: Investors and teams who want to learn while they invest
The Motley Fool’s investment research tool offers an exceptional range of features to meet the needs of both beginner and professional investors. Their mission — “to make the world smarter, happier, and richer” — is met by the many resources they provide in addition to their actual platform solution, including multiple podcasts, a blog, and discussion board.
The solution itself is comprehensive, with features built to inform investors while providing guidance around the right picks. Users get access to varying levels of expert advice depending on the subscription level they choose.
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor — their proprietary stock picking service and most popular tool — comes in at $199/year. For more comprehensive bundled services, users can choose The Epic Bundle (recommended for larger portfolios) which includes more frequent recommendations and closer advising services.
The main drawback of The Motley Fool as compared to Bloomberg is that it’s not built for doing independent research or larger market intelligence. But if you’re looking for ready-made expert insight or the ability to get granular about stock selection and analysis, this tool is a solid choice.
