Best 13F tracker
The best 13F trackers for following institutional ownership
The best 13F tracker depends on what you want from institutional ownership data. To follow a curated set of famous superinvestors for free, Dataroma is the cleanest option. For the deepest 13F database, with history back to 2001, filing alerts, and backtesting, WhaleWisdom wins. For a fast, modern free view across all filers and insiders, HedgeFollow is strong. The official source is always SEC EDGAR, free but raw. And if you want 13F ownership tied to the stocks on your watchlists, sitting next to your notes and models, Brief Equity is built for that. One caveat applies to every tool here: 13F data is delayed, since filings arrive up to 45 days after a quarter ends, so it shows what funds owned, not what they are trading today.
By The Brief Equity Team · Published
The best pick for each use-case
Following famous superinvestors for free
Best pick: Dataroma
Free, curated pages for roughly 80 or more well-known value investors and their quarter-to-quarter moves, with no account and no paywall. It is the cleanest free window into what the big names own. It does not do alerts, backtesting, or coverage beyond its curated roster.
The deepest 13F database, with history, alerts, and backtesting
Best pick: WhaleWisdom
History back to 2001 on its paid tiers, email alerts on new filings, aggregation, a portfolio backtester, per-company holders, and a combined-holdings X-ray. No free tool matches its depth. Standard runs $300 per year and Pro $500 per year, and the free tier covers the last two years.
A fast, modern free view across all filers and insiders
Best pick: HedgeFollow
A clean, modern interface covering thousands of funds plus insider Form 4 activity, with fund pages, stock pages, and heatmaps. Its core product is free, with an optional low-cost paid tier. It is the strongest free experience when you want breadth beyond a curated superinvestor list.
The official, authoritative source
Best pick: SEC EDGAR
Every 13F-HR filing, free and complete, straight from the SEC. It is the primary source every tracker is built on. The catch is that it is raw: one filing at a time, with no cross-quarter diff and no aggregation, so you do the comparison and analysis yourself.
13F ownership tied to the stocks you already track
Best pick: Brief Equity
Search a fund to see its portfolio, follow the managers you care about, see who holds a given company, and open a watchlist ownership lens that shows how institutional ownership moved on each stock you track. It sits next to your feed, notes, and models. It is ownership inside a research workspace, not a standalone database.
At a glance: who wins each capability
| Capability | Best pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Free superinvestor tracking | Dataroma | Free, curated pages for roughly 80 or more well-known investors. |
| Deepest historical 13F database (back to 2001) | WhaleWisdom | Paid tiers reach back to 2001; the free tier covers about two years. |
| Filing alerts and portfolio backtesting | WhaleWisdom | Email alerts on new filings and a backtester no free tool matches. |
| Official, authoritative filings | SEC EDGAR | The free primary source, filed straight to the SEC. |
| Modern, visual free interface across all filers | HedgeFollow | Thousands of funds and insider activity in one clean, free interface. |
| Ownership tied to your watchlists and notes | Brief Equity | A watchlist ownership lens next to your feed, notes, and models. |
| Following funds inside a full research workspace | Brief Equity | Ownership sits with your thesis, your models, and the knowledge graph. |
Every price and competitor detail here is checked against its source before we publish. Read our editorial policy for how we research and correct these pages.
Who Brief Equity is for
It is for you if…
- Investors who already track stocks on Brief Equity and want to see who else owns them.
- People who follow specific funds and managers and want their moves next to their own research.
- People who want a watchlist ownership lens, showing how institutions moved on each stock they track.
Look elsewhere if…
- People who only want a free, standalone superinvestor list; Dataroma and HedgeFollow do that well.
- Researchers who need 13F history back to 2001, filing alerts, or backtesting; WhaleWisdom is the deeper database.
- Anyone who wants only the raw official filing; that is SEC EDGAR, for free.
What a 13F tracker does, and why the data is delayed
A 13F is a quarterly report that large institutional managers file with the SEC, listing the US-listed stocks they hold. Any manager with at least $100 million in qualifying securities has to file within 45 days of the end of each quarter. A 13F tracker reads those filings and does the work EDGAR leaves to you: joining them across quarters, computing what changed, and showing which funds hold a given stock.
Because the filing deadline is 45 days after quarter-end, every 13F tool shows delayed holdings. It tells you what a fund owned at the close of a quarter, not what it is trading today, and it leaves out short positions, cash, and most non-US holdings. That delay is a property of the filing rules, so no tracker escapes it. It is why 13F work is about durable positions and quarter-over-quarter changes, not chasing the latest trade.
Free 13F trackers vs. paid depth
You can do a lot for free. Dataroma gives you clean, curated pages for the famous value investors, HedgeFollow covers thousands of funds and insider activity in a modern interface, and SEC EDGAR is the free, authoritative source underneath all of them. For following a handful of well-known managers, the free tools are enough.
Paid depth is a different job. WhaleWisdom reaches back to 2001, sends alerts on new filings, and lets you backtest a strategy across the full database, which the free tools do not. If your work depends on long history, aggregation, or alerts, its $300 to $500 per year is the price of that depth.
Where Brief Equity fits, and where it does not
Brief Equity is not trying to be the deepest standalone 13F database, and if that is what you need, WhaleWisdom is the better tool. Its edge is integration: 13F ownership lives in the same workspace as the stocks you track, the feed you read, the notes you write, and the models you build. A watchlist ownership lens shows how institutions moved on each stock you follow, and the funds you save connect to the rest of your research in the knowledge graph.
So the honest split is this. For a free superinvestor list, use Dataroma or HedgeFollow. For the deepest database with alerts and history, use WhaleWisdom. For the raw source, use SEC EDGAR. For 13F ownership woven into the research you are already doing on the stocks you already track, that is where Brief Equity fits.
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Frequently asked questions
- What is the best 13F tracker?
- It depends on the job. For free superinvestor tracking, Dataroma is the cleanest. For the deepest database, with history back to 2001, alerts, and backtesting, WhaleWisdom wins. For the official source, use SEC EDGAR. For 13F ownership tied to the stocks on your watchlists and next to your notes and models, Brief Equity is built for that.
- What is the best free 13F tracker?
- Dataroma is the best free tracker for a curated set of famous superinvestors, and HedgeFollow is the best free option for breadth across thousands of funds and insiders. SEC EDGAR is the free, official source for the raw filings themselves.
- Is there a 13F tool with alerts and long history?
- Yes. WhaleWisdom offers email alerts on new filings, 13F history back to 2001 on its paid tiers, aggregation, and a backtester. Its paid plans run about $300 to $500 per year, and its free tier covers the last two years.
- How current is 13F data?
- It is delayed. Managers have up to 45 days after the end of a quarter to file, so 13F data shows what a fund owned at quarter-end, not what it is trading today. That delay is built into the filing rules, so it applies to every 13F tracker equally.
- Does Brief Equity track 13F filings?
- Yes. You can search a fund to see its portfolio, follow managers, see who holds a company, and use a watchlist ownership lens that shows how institutional ownership moved on each stock you track, all inside the same workspace as your feed, notes, and models.
Brief Equity is built by investors, for investors. We weigh these tools the way we would for our own portfolios, with the trade-offs spelled out and the segments we lose left in. For research, not investment advice; market data is delayed. Competitor details reflect public information at the time of writing and can change. Verify current pricing and features on each provider’s site.