StockRover vs. FinViz – Which Platform Is The Better Choice?

StockRover and FinViz are two of the more well-established stock screening tools on the market today. While the two platforms share some features in common, including advanced screener tools and portfolio management options, they offer two very different takes on investing. StockRover focuses primarily on fundamental data, while FinViz offers a blend of technical and fundamental data for analysis.

Which platform is best for you? We’ll compare StockRover vs. FinViz side-by-side to help you determine which of these services is right for you.

About StockRover And FinViz

StockRover was founded in 2008 by two software engineers, Howard Reisman and Andrew Martin. The platform aims to put fundamental research, an advanced screener, and portfolio management tools together for investors. StockRover doesn’t publish any information about how many users, free or paid, that it currently has. 

FinViz was created in 2007 as a platform for creating visualizations of financial data. The platform’s main selling point is that these visualizations make it easier to sift through screener results and other information compared to competing stock screeners. 

Notably, FinViz also offers data for futures, forex, and cryptocurrencies, although the features for screening these assets aren’t as well-developed as the stock features. StockRover offers data on thousands of ETFs in addition to stocks.

StockRover vs. FinViz: Stock Screeners

Stock screeners are at the hearts of both StockRover and FinViz. In fact, the screeners reveal much about the different approaches these two platforms take to investing.

The StockRover screener focuses heavily on fundamental data. Nearly all of the 14 built-in screens focus on fair valuation to some extent, and the majority of the more than 600 built-in parameters cover corporate financial data and fundamental metrics. Technical metrics are represented in the screener, but they make up a minority of the available filter parameters.

One of the nice things about the StockRover screener is that it’s nearly endlessly customizable. You can apply screens on top of screens, for example. Or you can use the equation builder to create your own highly complex set of filters. 

The FinViz stock screener is more evenly split between fundamental and technical parameters. There are only around 80 filters in total that can be accessed through drop-down menus and text entry boxes. The screener is relatively straightforward to use, which is a plus. That said, it is notably more limited than the StockRover screener since you can’t create fully custom filters.

StockRover vs. FinViz: Screener Results Visualization

Where FinViz gains the upper hand is in visualizing your screener results. StockRover takes the traditional approach to presenting results – a tabular display for which you can easily sort columns. The tables are somewhat dynamic in that you can quickly access more data, create a watchlist, or open charts, but they’re still tables.

FinViz, on the other hand, offers extremely useful visualizations of your screen results. You can use a heatmap, for example, to group stocks by sector, size them by market cap, and color them according to recent performance. Or you can modify the settings to visualize P/E, dividend yield, cash flow, and more. FinViz also offers bubble charts that can be used similarly, but make it easier to compare fundamental and technical parameters across an X-Y axis.

StockRover vs. FinViz: Charts

Both StockRover and FinViz offer technical charts. Neither particularly stands out in this regard, however. The charts are reasonably customizable, but you won’t get access to many technical studies.

The main feature to highlight here is that StockRover’s charts enable you to plot fundamental data alongside price and technical data. Alternatively, fundamental data can be charted on its own. This makes StockRover more useful for visualizing changes in a company’s financial position over time, whereas the screener and FinViz’s visualizations only offer the most recent snapshot of fundamental data.

StockRover vs. FinViz: Portfolio Analysis

StockRover and FinViz include surprisingly similar portfolio analysis tools. These tools aren’t so much for tracking your performance over time (there are no broker integrations to import transaction data), as for helping you diversify your holdings. For example, both platforms include correlation analysis that enables you to explore what stocks in your portfolio historically experience price changes together.

One additional feature that StockRover offers is portfolio rebalancing. With StockRover’s tool, you can assign target percentage values to each of the stocks you hold in your portfolio. As drift happens over time, StockRover will calculate the number of shares of each stock that you need to buy or sell to return to your target allocation.

StockRover vs. FinViz: Backtesting

FinViz boasts a significant analysis tool that StockRover doesn’t have – backtesting. With FinViz, you can set up a trading strategy in nearly the same way you would for a stock screen. The platform will then calculate your historical profit and loss from this strategy.

To be sure, FinViz’s backtesting tool isn’t the most comprehensive we’ve seen. But it’s noteworthy that FinViz offers this type of analysis while StockRover does not.

StockRover vs. FinViz: Pricing

Both StockRover and FinViz are fairly affordable for the quality of tools they include.

StockRover has a basic free plan, although this leaves out most of the platform’s screening and analysis features. The Essentials plan costs $7.99 per month and offers wider access plus five years’ worth of historical data. However, you’ll need a Premium plan for $17.99 per month to put screens on screens, create custom filters, and access portfolio analysis tools.

FinViz has a more generous free plan that gives you access to most of the stock screener filters and visualizations, but delays price data by several minutes. FinViz Elite, which costs $39.50 per month, offers real-time data, and unlocks the platform’s backtesting tool.

Which Service Is Better?

Whether StockRover or FinViz is better for you depends on your trading strategy and style. StockRover leans heavily towards fundamental analysis, which makes it a better platform for medium- and long-term investors. The appeal for long-term investors is bolstered by the software’s focus on ETFs and portfolio analysis tools, which can help you keep your portfolio on track over the course of years.

FinViz takes a more balanced approach to fundamental and technical analysis. The free version of this software can be very useful for medium- and long-term traders, since you get access to most of the screener and portfolio tools at no cost. However, short-term traders will need a FinViz Elite plan to unlock real-time data and technical backtesting. 

StockRover And FinViz Alternatives

StockRover and FinViz are both strong platforms with a lot to offer. But if you’re interested in these, you might also want to consider TradingView. This software offers a massive trove of fundamental and technical indicators, and it’s fully customizable. You can write your own indicators using the built-in coding tool or borrow and modify crowdsourced indicators from other traders on TradingView.

The main downside to TradingView compared to StockRover and FinViz is that it can be expensive. There’s a free tier, but paid plans vary the number of indicators you can have on a single chart. The Pro+ plan, for example, costs $29.95 per month and still only allows you to have 10 indicators overlaid on a single price chart.

Conclusion: StockRover vs. FinViz

StockRover and FinViz are easy to use platforms that offer a lot more than just stock screening. StockRover is best for medium- and long-term investors who prefer fundamental analysis, while FinViz is best for short- and medium-term traders who want to blend fundamental and technical analyses. Both services are highly affordable and offer free tiers, so you can access many of their complementary features without paying twice.