OpenBB & Investment Research

For serious investment research without a Bloomberg Terminal subscription, OpenBB is the OSS answer in 2026. Plus the broader Python + R ecosystem (pandas-datareader, yfinance, QuantStats), free SEC EDGAR access, and the screener / charting universe. All free OSS or free-tier hosted. For portfolio tracking see Ghostfolio & Portfolio Trackers; for crypto see Rotki & Crypto Tracking; for Bogleheads / FI education see Bogleheads & FI Education; for FIRE projections see FIRE Projections; for the broader OSS personal-finance index see Self-Hosted Personal Apps.

The headline

• ★ ★ OpenBB — free OSS (AGPLv3); Bloomberg-Terminal-shape investment research platform; CLI + Python SDK + hosted Terminal Pro (free + paid). Equities, fundamentals, alternatives, crypto, fixed income, options.
  • https://github.com/OpenBB-finance/OpenBB
  • https://openbb.co/
  • SDK: pip install openbb

What OpenBB does

• ★ Equities — fundamentals, financials, ratios, holders, insider transactions.
• ★ Fixed income — yield curves, spreads.
• ★ Macro — FRED data, central-bank rates, inflation.
• ★ Crypto — prices, on-chain, exchanges.
• ★ News + sentiment — multiple data providers wired in.
• Alternative data — government contracts, ESG, satellite-via-providers.
• AI Agent (Terminal Pro) — natural-language queries on top of the data.

OpenBB data providers (★ pick what's free)

• ★ Yahoo Finance, FRED, SEC EDGAR, CoinGecko, FMP free tier — free.
• Polygon, Alpha Vantage, Tiingo — free tiers; paid above.
• Benzinga, Intrinio, Quandl/Nasdaq — paid.
• Fred, BLS, Eurostat, World Bank — free macro.

The OpenBB charm: pluggable providers; choose the free ones, swap in paid as needed.

Python ecosystem (★)

• ★ yfinance — free OSS; Yahoo Finance scraper; the entry-level price-data library.
• ★ pandas-datareader — free OSS; FRED / World Bank / IEX / Tiingo wrapper.
• ★ QuantStats — free OSS; portfolio analytics + reports; Sharpe, Sortino, drawdowns.
• bt — free OSS; backtesting framework.
• Backtrader — free OSS; bigger backtester.
• vectorbt / vectorbt-pro — free OSS + paid; vectorized backtesting.
• zipline-reloaded — free OSS; revived Quantopian-era backtester.
• pyfolio-reloaded — free OSS; portfolio + risk analytics.

R ecosystem

• quantmod, TTR, PerformanceAnalytics, xts, zoo, tidyquant — free OSS R; the long-running quantitative-finance R suite.

SEC + filings (★ free)

• ★ ★ SEC EDGAR — free; full-text search of every filing since 1994; raw 10-K / 10-Q / 8-K / DEF 14A / 13F / 13D access. The single best free fundamental-research tool.
• ★ edgartools (Python) — free OSS; clean Python wrapper around EDGAR.
• ★ secedgar (Python) — free OSS; alternative.
• SEC EDGAR Full-Text Search — free; recently improved.
• WhaleWisdom — free + paid; tracks 13F filings.

Charting + screening

• ★ TradingView — free + paid; charts + community ideas; the canonical screener / chart for retail.
• Finviz — free + paid; screener-first.
• stockcharts.com — paid + free trial; technical-analysis-flavored.
• Koyfin — free + paid; the "Bloomberg-lite" web product.
• simplywall.st — free + paid; visual fundamentals.
• Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, StockAnalysis.com — free; basic.

Macro + economics (free)

• ★ FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) — free; the canonical US macro data API.
• ★ BLS, BEA, Census, Treasury Direct, BIS, IMF, World Bank — free official sources.
• Trading Economics — free + paid; consolidated.

Bogleheads-style passive research

For most retail investors, OpenBB is overkill — Bogleheads-style passive investing requires:

• Vanguard / Schwab / Fidelity fund pages.
• Morningstar (free tier) for expense ratios + Morningstar style box.
• Bogleheads wiki (Bogleheads & FI Education).

Use OpenBB only if you actually research individual securities or build models. Otherwise the time spent is the cost.

Self-host + Jupyter

• ★ JupyterLab — free OSS; the standard Python notebook env.
• OpenBB SDK in a Jupyter notebook — the canonical retail-quant workflow.
• Self-host Jupyter — see Self-Hosted AI / LLM for GPU-flavored hosts; CPU is fine for finance work.

License / pricing

• OpenBB SDK + CLI: free OSS (AGPLv3).
• OpenBB Terminal Pro (hosted): free tier + paid Pro.
• yfinance, pandas-datareader, QuantStats, bt, Backtrader, zipline-reloaded, edgartools, R quantmod ecosystem: free OSS.
• SEC EDGAR, FRED, BLS / BEA / Treasury / World Bank / IMF: free.
• TradingView, Finviz, Koyfin, simplywall.st: free + paid.

Pick this if…

• Want a serious OSS research stack: OpenBB SDK + Jupyter + free providers.
• Just want fundamentals on tickers: OpenBB CLI or Yahoo Finance / StockAnalysis.com.
• Want filings: SEC EDGAR + edgartools.
• Building backtests: vectorbt or zipline-reloaded.
• Bogleheads-style passive index investor: you don't need this page; see Bogleheads & FI Education.
• R user: quantmod + tidyquant.
• Macro-curious: FRED + Trading Economics.