Public.com Alternatives: Interactive Brokers, moomoo, Robinhood

Lead

Public.com has remained a focal point for retail investors seeking social, commission-free trading, but alternatives have grown materially in feature breadth and institutional-grade capability. Benzinga published a roundup of alternatives on May 6, 2026, flagging Interactive Brokers, moomoo (Futu), and Robinhood as the most referenced competitors (Benzinga, May 6, 2026). These platforms differ sharply on the axes that matter for institutional allocators evaluating execution quality, market access, and operational risk: Interactive Brokers emphasizes global market access and advanced order types, moomoo leans on analytics and custody with Futu’s capital base, and Robinhood remains the largest mass-market on-ramp following its IPO on July 29, 2021 (SEC filings). Fee comparisons are no longer binary; most U.S. equity trading is offered commission-free (0¢ per trade) for standard retail execution, but the ancillary fees, data subscriptions, and order routing economics are where material differences emerge. This article provides a data-driven review — with dates and sources — and a Fazen Markets perspective on how institutional investors should parse retail-broker features for custody, flow, and potential spillovers to market quality.

Context

Retail brokerage options have broadened since the late-2010s zero-fee shift. The structural pivot to 0¢ commissions for U.S. equities followed competitive pressure after major platforms removed per-trade commissions; that dynamic remains the baseline, but it has pushed brokers to monetize elsewhere such as margin, subscription services, and payment for order flow (PFOF). Public.com built a differentiated user experience around fractional shares and social feeds, but competitors offer tradeoffs that matter to institutional allocators assessing counterparties: deeper international execution, direct market access, and segregated custody arrangements. The Benzinga piece on May 6, 2026 enumerated practical replacements for retail users, but for institutions the selection criteria are more technical: API stability, FIX support, clearing relationships, and balance-sheet strength (Benzinga, May 6, 2026).

Company pedigrees and public milestones shape counterparty risk assumptions. Interactive Brokers traces its lineage to the late 1970s (Interactive Brokers, company history, founded 1978), a factor institutional risk teams often weigh when evaluating clearing and operational continuity. Futu’s moomoo app is the U.S.-facing product of a company that listed on Nasdaq in March 2019 (FUTU, IPO filings, March 2019), which provides a public reporting trail for solvency and capital metrics. Robinhood’s public listing on July 29, 2021 created additional transparency via quarterly and annual filings (HOOD, S-1 and subsequent 10-Q/10-K submissions). These dates matter: the firms with longer public disclosure histories provide more timely financials for credit and operational due diligence.

Retail trading volumes and customer cohort composition have evolved post-2021, shifting where revenue and risks concentrate. Order flow economics tightened after regulatory scrutiny, and margin and subscription products gained prominence. Institutional investors should view the current landscape as a function of product economics (commissions vs ancillary revenues), regulatory posture (SEC examinations and enforcement trends since 2021), and technological differentiation (latency, co-location, API SLAs). For hedging and execution purposes, platform selection is therefore not only about price but about execution consistency and the transparency of order routing practices.

Data Deep Dive

Benzinga’s May 6, 2026 compilation explicitly names Interactive Brokers, moomoo, and Robinhood as principal Public.com alternatives, providing a useful starting sample (Benzinga, May 6, 2026). Interactive Brokers offers global market access across 135 markets in 33 countries according to its public materials; that scope contrasts with mass-market players that prioritize domestic U.S. equities and select ETFs. Futu (moomoo) emphasizes U.S.-China connectivity and research tools, reflecting its capital base and strategic priorities following its March 2019 Nasdaq listing (FUTU, IPO prospectus, March 2019). Robinhood’s trajectory since its IPO on July 29, 2021 has been characterized by expanding product breadth (crypto custody, cash management, and margin tiers) documented in its regulatory disclosures (HOOD, 2021 filings).

Quantitative comparisons that typically matter to institutional users include fill rates, average quoted spreads, and effective execution cost vs primary market benchmarks. While retail marketing focuses on headline zero commissions, execution quality metrics are what move institutional dollars. Historical analyses show that the headline commission removal did not uniformly translate into lower realized execution cost for all order sizes; differences persist between brokers that internalize order flow and those that route for displayed liquidity. Because broker-level execution statistics can be granular and time-varying, institutional partners routinely request multi-month FIX tapes and transaction cost analysis (TCA) to compare against benchmarks like the NBBO and venue-specific liquidity metrics.

Operational and counterparty metrics are equally quantifiable: the age and capitalization of the parent (Interactive Brokers, founded 1978), public listing dates (Robinhood, July 29, 2021; Futu, March 2019), and regulatory event counts (e.g., enforcement actions or material fines disclosed in SEC filings). These discrete data points feed into a counterparty scorecard that institutional desk operations use to scale exposure. For many allocators, the presence of a robust clearing broker and daily reconciliations with independent custodians remain non-negotiable requirements, which is a binary checklist item distinct from retail-focused feature lists.

Sector Implications

The growth and differentiation of retail broker platforms have secondary effects across the equities ecosystem. Liquidity provisioning strategies must adapt to a market where a significant share of retail flow is routed via a handful of platforms that monetize order flow differently. Market makers and wholesalers that rely on predictable retail flow have adjusted quoting models, which affects spread dynamics for small-cap stocks where retail activity tends to concentrate. Institutional traders should therefore not treat retail-broker proliferation as neutral; instead, it is an additional variable in microstructure modelling for execution cost forecasting.

Clearing concentration is another systemic point: large brokers that act as introducing brokers but clear via a limited set of clearing counterparties concentrate settlement risk. Platforms with longer operational histories (Interactive Brokers, founded 1978) typically self-clear or maintain long-standing clearing relationships, which reduces certain operational risks relative to newer entrants. Public policy and regulatory focus on PFOF and best execution have made this topic more salient; consequences include potential changes to routing disclosures, which would materially alter revenue pools for some brokers and could feed through into product pricing or capital allocation.

Product innovation is pressuring incumbents: moomoo’s emphasis on analytics and fractional investing, and Robinhood’s expansion into crypto and payments, create competitive cross-subsidies that can be valuable to retail cohorts but pose different risk-return trade-offs for institutions. For professional investors, these developments imply more choice for retail client acquisition strategies but also more complexity in liquidity provenance and fee reconciliation when executing across venues serving mixed retail and institutional flow.

Risk Assessment

Counterparty and operational risk remain central when considering Public.com alternatives for institutional use. Company age and public reporting cadence (examples: Interactive Brokers founded 1978; Robinhood IPO July 29, 2021; Futu IPO March 2019) are inputs to any due-diligence model that rates creditworthiness and operational stability. Newer entrants may offer attractive UX and pricing, but limited public disclosure and shorter track records complicate stress-testing for tail events. Institutions should therefore require audited financials, reconciliations, and escrow/segregated custody evidence as part of onboarding.

Regulatory risk is non-trivial. Since 2021, the SEC has increased scrutiny of retail execution practices and disclosure around order routing and PFOF. Potential policy shifts could compress certain revenue lines or force structural changes to pricing models, forcing rapid re-pricing of trading services. Allocators should model scenarios where revenue compression forces changes to margin rates, data fees, or counterparty credit support terms.

Technology and resiliency risks are often underappreciated in retail comparisons but are determinative for institutional activity. API stability, historical outage frequency, and latency distributions should be part of any institutional assessment. Smaller platforms occasionally optimize for UI/UX over programmatic stability, and that trade-off is material for high-frequency execution or large-block trading where fallback routing and contingency plans are prerequisites.

Fazen Markets Perspective

Fazen Markets views the current proliferation of retail broker alternatives as both a liquidity opportunity and a complexity tax for institutional allocators. Contrary to the prevailing retail-centric narrative that equates feature breadth with platform superiority, institutional primacy still rests on execution reliability, transparent routing, and a demonstrable history of operational resilience. While public narratives (Benzinga, May 6, 2026) highlight consumer-facing features, the marginal utility to institutions of social feeds or gamified fractional tools is limited unless accompanied by professional-grade custody and clearing services.

A contrarian insight: market participants should watch the non-linear effects of regulatory tightening on PFOF and data monetization. If regulators materially curtail PFOF or require enhanced disclosures, the economics that underpin many retail platforms’ zero-commission offers could shift rapidly, benefiting incumbents with diversified revenue and well-capitalized clearing operations. That possibility elevates the relative importance of counterparties with long-form public financials (e.g., firms with Nasdaq/NYSE reporting histories) versus venture-backed, privately held app-first competitors.

Institutional allocators therefore should bifurcate their procurement process: use retail-first platforms for customer acquisition or omnichannel retail strategies, but reserve execution-sensitive mandates for brokers that can demonstrate FIX-grade APIs, clearing robustness, and multi-market depth. For further coverage of market microstructure and broker counterparty risk, see our related pieces on execution quality and venue selection on the Fazen hub topic and institutional custody frameworks topic.

Outlook

Near-term, the competitive battleground will pivot from headline zero commissions to backend economics: margin lending, subscription data, and prime services will determine sustainable profitability. Platforms that can diversify revenue while maintaining transparent disclosures to clients are better positioned to survive regulatory shocks. Over a 12–36 month horizon, expect increased consolidation or partnerships as smaller platforms either ally with established clearing brokers or exit niche retail segments.

From a market-structure perspective, any regulatory moves limiting PFOF will reconfigure the landscape for the 0¢ model; that would likely increase explicit fees or raise barriers to entry for new retail platforms that lack scale. Institutional desks should model both outcomes — continuation of status quo and significant regulatory tightening — because either scenario alters counterparty credit exposure and the economics of placing retail-sourced orders.

Finally, competition will continue to drive product innovation in data analytics and fractionalization. The winner for institutional usage will not necessarily be the platform with the best retail UX, but the one that packages retail flow with transparent clearing, reproducible execution metrics, and contractual commitments on API performance. This is a measurable checklist and should be treated as such by procurement teams.

Bottom Line

Public.com alternatives offer diverse tradeoffs: choose by execution quality, clearing robustness, and disclosure — not just UI features. Institutions should prioritize rigorous TCA and counterparty due diligence before re-routing material flows.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

FAQ

Q: How should institutions compare execution quality across these platforms?

A: Institutions should request multi-month FIX tapes, run transaction cost analysis (TCA) against NBBO benchmarks, and evaluate fill rates and slippage across multiple liquidity regimes. Historical uptime and API latency distributions are also essential metrics not typically presented in retail marketing materials.

Q: Will regulatory changes to payment-for-order-flow materially change broker economics?

A: Yes — if regulators curtail PFOF or require additional disclosures, the 0¢ commission model may become unsustainable for some operators. That could result in higher direct fees, increased subscription pricing, or consolidation that benefits better-capitalized incumbents. Historical precedent from prior enforcement cycles suggests revenue pools reallocate rather than disappear, affecting how brokers monetize retail flow.

Q: Are older incumbents always safer counterparties?

A: Not automatically, but firms with longer public reporting histories (and, therefore, more transparent balance sheets) provide more data for rigorous credit and operational assessments. Operational resiliency and documented clearing arrangements are often more determinative than age alone.