Alpaca vs Interactive Brokers vs Webull: Why We Chose Alpaca

Before we could put a single dollar to work, we had to answer a question we had genuinely never thought about in thirty years of teaching: which brokerage should hold the account? We narrowed it to three that kept coming up in the circles we asked, opened accounts with all of them, and used each one long enough to have an opinion worth writing down. Those three were Alpaca, Interactive Brokers, and Webull.

We landed on Alpaca and we have not looked back. This post explains exactly why, what the other two do well, where Interactive Brokers cost us money that Alpaca did not, and the one genuine complaint we have about Alpaca that you should know about before you sign up.

What we actually needed from a brokerage

Our situation shapes the whole comparison, so here it is plainly. We run two things in parallel. The first is algorithmic trading, where the software places trades inside our own brokerage account rather than us handing money to anyone. Our favourite platform for that, and the one we have used since January, is Future Hedge, and we wrote a full eight-month review of Future Hedge here, month-by-month returns and drawdown included. The second is Josef's own manual trading, which he does by hand and rather enjoys, and which is a much smaller part of the portfolio than he would like it to be.

So our checklist looked like this:

• The capital stays in an account in our names that we control at all times.
• A clean, reliable API so an algorithmic platform can connect and place trades without friction.
• No commissions and no recurring fees quietly eating away at returns.
• A straightforward interface for Josef's manual trades, and clear statements we can hand to a tax preparer.
• An account opening process two retirees can complete without a support ticket.

Interactive Brokers: powerful, professional, and it charges you for it

Interactive Brokers is the serious one. It has been around for decades, the range of markets and instruments is enormous, the execution quality is well regarded, and if you want to trade futures in three currencies across two continents it will happily let you. For a professional trader or someone with a genuinely global portfolio, it is an easy recommendation.

What we liked

• Extraordinary breadth of markets and instruments.
• A mature, well-documented API that algorithmic platforms have supported for years.
• Strong reputation and a long institutional track record.
• Excellent research and reporting tools once you find them.

What pushed us away

The fees. This was the decisive one. Depending on the plan and what you trade, Interactive Brokers charges per-trade commissions, and there are additional costs layered around the edges: market data subscriptions, currency conversion, and various small charges that individually look trivial. Alpaca charged us none of that for the commission-free stock trading we do. When an algorithm places trades regularly, per-trade costs are not a rounding error, they are a permanent tax on the strategy. As someone who taught compounding for three decades, I can tell you precisely what a persistent drag does to a return curve over ten years, and I did not want to volunteer for it.

The complexity. The platform is built for professionals and it shows. The desktop software has an enormous number of panels, the terminology assumes you already know it, and the account structure took us real effort to understand. Josef, who is the more technically patient of the two of us, described it as "flying a 747 to the grocery store."

The onboarding. Opening the account was the longest and most paperwork-heavy of the three by a comfortable margin.

Webull: the friendliest app, the narrowest fit

Webull was the easiest to get started with. The app is genuinely well designed, the charts look wonderful, the signup took minutes, and commission-free stock trading is there. If you are a hands-on retail trader who wants to watch positions on a phone and place trades yourself, we can see the appeal completely.

What we liked

• The best-looking, most approachable mobile experience of the three.
• Fast account opening and a very short learning curve.
• Commission-free stock trading and useful paper trading for practice.
• Good charting for the price, which for Josef's manual trading was a real plus.

What pushed us away

It is built for humans, not programs. That is the heart of it. Webull is designed around a person tapping a screen. Alpaca is designed from the ground up around programmatic access, with the human interface as the secondary layer. For an account whose main job is to host an algorithm, that difference in philosophy matters more than any single feature.

Less transparency where it counted. Working out exactly how our orders would be handled, and what an automated system would be permitted to do, was harder here than it was with Alpaca's plainly written developer documentation.

The gamified tone. Small thing, but real. The notifications and the general design nudge you toward trading more often. At our age and with our horizon, we want a brokerage that is quiet.

Alpaca: why it won for us

Alpaca reads like it was built by people who assumed from day one that software, not a human thumb, would be placing most of the orders. That single design decision produces almost every advantage we care about.

1. No commissions, and no fee creep

Commission-free stock trading, no per-trade charge, no monthly platform fee for what we do. Compared with Interactive Brokers, this alone changed the arithmetic of running an algorithm. Every trade our system takes is a trade that starts at zero rather than starting in a small hole. Over hundreds of trades and several years, that is not a small difference, it is the difference.

2. The API is the product, not an afterthought

This is Alpaca's genuine edge over both of the others. The documentation is clear, the keys are easy to generate and easy to revoke, the permissions are understandable, and connecting our algorithmic platform took minutes rather than an afternoon. With a broker where the API was bolted on later, you feel it constantly. With Alpaca you simply do not think about it, which is the highest compliment I can pay a piece of infrastructure.

3. A free paper trading account that behaves like the real one

We ran everything in paper mode first. Same interface, same API, no money at risk. For two people who were nervous about automation touching their savings, being able to watch it operate for weeks before funding the live account did more for our confidence than any marketing page could have.

4. The money stays ours

The account is in our names, the capital sits in it, and we can log in and see or move it whenever we like. No algorithmic platform ever takes custody. That was a non-negotiable for us, and Alpaca's structure makes it plain rather than something you have to go digging to confirm.

5. Fractional shares and sensible position sizing

Fractional share support means a strategy can size positions properly instead of being distorted by the price of a single expensive stock. For a system that deliberately spreads risk across many names, this is quietly important, and it is handled well here.

6. Simple, readable statements

Now that I file as an independent contractor for my tutoring, I have developed a real appreciation for clean records. Alpaca's activity history and statements are legible and easy to export, which made tax season considerably less unpleasant than it might have been.

The one thing we genuinely dislike about Alpaca

We promised ourselves these reviews would be honest, so here it is: you cannot get anybody on the telephone. If you are the sort of person who wants to ring a number and speak to a human being when something looks wrong, this will bother you, and it bothered us at first.

What we found, after using it for a while, is that email support does work. We have written in several times and every question was answered properly and by someone who clearly understood the product. The catch is speed: it typically takes a couple of days to get something resolved, sometimes with a round trip of messages in between. For a question about a statement or a settings change, that is perfectly liveable. If you are the kind of investor who will panic at midnight and need reassurance within the hour, be honest with yourself about whether you can tolerate that.

Our practical advice: write in early and write in detail. A single email with your account details, screenshots, and the exact question tends to be resolved in one exchange. A vague one turns into a week of back and forth. And do not leave anything time-sensitive, like a transfer before a deadline, to the last day.

The comparison in one paragraph each

Interactive Brokers is the most capable platform of the three and the right answer for professionals and global portfolios, but it charges commissions and assorted fees, and the complexity is real. It is more brokerage than we need, at a price we did not want to pay.

Webull is the nicest app and the easiest start, and it is a fine choice for someone trading by hand from a phone. It is simply not built with automation as the first consideration, which is what our account exists to do.

Alpaca gives us commission-free trading, the cleanest API of the three, fractional shares, excellent paper trading, and full custody of our own capital. Support is email only and takes a couple of days, and we still choose it over the other two without hesitation.

Would we recommend Alpaca?

Yes, and specifically to people in our position: anyone running an algorithmic strategy, anyone who wants zero commissions eating into a long-term plan, and anyone who wants to keep the money in an account they own outright. For us it pairs perfectly with Future Hedge, which handles the algorithmic side of our portfolio and remains our favourite software of the kind, while Josef keeps his own manual trading in the same account alongside it.

The only person we would steer elsewhere is someone who truly needs a phone number to call. That is a real limitation and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Everything else about Alpaca has made our last several months easier, cheaper, and calmer than the alternatives would have.

As always: we are retired professors sharing our own experience, not financial advisers, and nothing here is investment advice. Fees, features, and terms change, so check the current details with each brokerage before you decide.