Best Brokers for Trading Platforms

The online brokers that we have listed below are, in our opinion, the brokers that have the best trading platforms. If you are looking for an options broker that makes it easy to place orders and has plenty of useful features and tools, then these are the brokers that we recommend signing up with.

Many traders know exactly what they want from an online broker and this makes choosing which broker to use a lot easier. It's largely why we designed our best options brokers section the way we did, because by listing recommended brokers in a variety of categories, traders can simply choose which category is relevant to them and then join one of our recommendations.

However, many options traders aren't entirely sure what it is that they really want from a broker, and this can make it harder to decide where to sign up. One solution is to simply look for the online brokers that have the cheapest commissions, but the cheapest brokers aren't always the best brokers.

If you are unsure about which broker to choose then a good way to decide is to look for the brokers that have the best trading platforms because, a good trading platform is one of the biggest benefits a broker can offer. We are confident you won’t be disappointed in using any of our recommendations listed above.

Best Option Brokers By Category

Attributes of the Best Trading Platforms

To some extent, what makes for the best platform at an online broker is a subjective thing. Some traders may find a particular trading platform absolutely perfect for them, but another trader might not like that platform at all. While most options traders will almost certainly have their own personal preferences, there are certain attributes that are particularly important in relation to a trading platform.

Any good trading platform should be well laid out and easy to use for example. We discuss this in more detail below along with the other attributes that we believe are vital for a good platform.

  • Good Layout & User Friendly
  • Functionality
  • Speed of Execution
  • Stability

Good Layout & User Friendly

A good layout might not sound that important, but it really is much easier to use an online broker where it's easy to find what you are looking for. It also helps when the platform is easy on your eye, particularly if you are a full time trader and may well be spending lots of time looking at it.

User friendliness is important too, specifically in relation to placing your orders. This should be a simple process that doesn’t take much time to do as it can be very frustrating if you want to get an order placed quickly and you have to enter in a lot of information. An ordering process that just takes a few clicks is much better. All processes, such as making or deposit or checking your open positions, should be user friendly as well..

Functionality

The best brokers offer plenty of functionality in their trading platforms in addition to just the placing of orders. While a lot of that functionality or even all of it might not always be needed by every options trader, having some useful extra features is usually appreciated by most traders.

One particularly useful feature is the ability to create specific options spreads as one order, without having to place each of the required transactions separately. Most of the commonly used options trading strategies are basically just a particular type of spread that is able to create other spreads quickly and easily which can be very beneficial.

Other useful features include, among others, being able to access your brokerage account from your smart phone or being able to look at statistics of your past trades.

Speed of Execution

Any good online broker should have a system that executes your orders quickly and efficiently. In fast moving markets, just a very short delay can have a significant effect on the profitability of your trades as it can cause you to miss the prices you were after.

Knowing at what price point to enter a position and exit it, is a key skill in options trading. However, in some respects you are only as good as your broker. This is why we believe that the fast execution of orders is such an important quality of trading platforms by the brokers.

Stability

It's absolutely essential that the platform at an online broker is as stable as it possibly can be. Many traders rely on being able to spot opportunities in the market and react to them quickly, and many also make trades where the plan is to enter a position and then exit them within a very short space time.

Basically, timing is crucial for options traders. If the trading platform at a broker isn't perfectly stable, and is prone to freezing or crashing, then this can cause serious problems for traders, which is why it's such an important quality in our opinion. These days, most brokers do indeed ensure that their platforms are as stable as they need to be, but there is always room for improvement.

Summary

The importance of the quality of the trading platform should never be under estimated as it can have a major impact on your overall experience. In our opinion, choosing an options broker based on how good their platform is can be a good a way to choose a broker. The brokers that we have recommended on this page all have trading platforms that we consider to be among the best, based on those attributes that we have discussed.