Best Free 13F Trackers Compared: 5 Tested Against SEC EDGAR

HedgeFollow is the best free 13F tracker for most investors, and 13f.info is the better pick when speed or smaller filers matter. On October 22, 2026, AlphaScala compared five free trackers, its own included, with three Q2 2026 filings on SEC EDGAR. Only HedgeFollow and AlphaScala showed all three portfolios with puts kept apart from long positions.

Every tool on this list reads the same SEC filings, yet the free versions disagreed on basic numbers. David Tepper's Appaloosa reported a put on 835,000 Apple shares. WhaleWisdom and 13f.info counted that line as about 3.1% of the portfolio, and Dataroma left it out. HedgeFollow and AlphaScala showed it in a separate options list.

WhaleWisdom's free page also showed 13 "new purchases" for Bill Ackman's Pershing Square, which already held 9 of its 14 Q2 stocks at the end of March.

How we tested free 13F trackers on October 22, 2026

We picked two Q2 2026 filers that report puts and one whose Q2 report came from a different filer than its Q1 report. All of them are on Dataroma's 82-manager list, so every tool could be compared on the same funds. Between 6:41 and 7:01 a.m. Eastern on October 22, 2026, we opened each tool's page for each fund without logging in and recorded the quarter shown, the portfolio total, the position count and how option positions appeared. We then compared each page with the information tables on EDGAR.

Form 13F reports options in terms of the shares underneath them. Special Instruction 10 of the SEC's Form 13F instructions requires those columns to describe "the securities underlying the options, not the options themselves," with a "PUT" or "CALL" designation on the line. The $241.6 million on Appaloosa's Apple line is the value of 835,000 Apple shares, not the price of the puts, and Appaloosa's cover page says the figure "assumes that the put options have been fully exercised." Counting that line as Apple stock owned misreads it: the filing marks it as a put.

Pershing Square tests something else. For Q2 2026, Pershing Square Capital Management filed only a 13F notice (Form 13F-NT), which the SEC's Form 13F FAQ describes as a cover page for a manager whose holdings are "reported on someone else's Form 13F." The holdings sit in a 13F-HR from Pershing Square, Inc., a separate EDGAR filer (CIK 2026053). Nine of the 14 stocks in that report were already in the management company's Q1 2026 13F. Visa, Mastercard, S&P Global, Netflix and Pershing Square USA were new.

What each tracker showed for the three Q2 2026 filings

Two smaller gaps showed up. Dataroma's Third Point total of $4.57 billion is $83.9 million below the filing's long positions: its 38-stock list leaves out two Alphabet depositary-share lines ($76.2 million) and two convertible notes ($7.6 million) as well as the put. HedgeFollow listed Third Point's S&P 500 put at $29.9 million, while the filing reports $28,800,000.

On Pershing Square, WhaleWisdom's free page carried the note "All or part of PERSHING SQUARE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, L.P. 13F disclosures were filed under a combined 13F through PERSHING SQUARE INC." Its activity box still read 13 new purchases, 0 added to, 0 reduced and 100% turnover, on a $19.3 billion market value against $19.47 billion in the filing.

How fast each tracker picked up a new 13F filing

Barings LLC's Q3 2026 13F-HR was accepted by EDGAR at 6:48:42 a.m. Eastern on October 22, 2026, which gave us a same-morning speed check. 13f.info listed it on its latest-filings page when we loaded that page at 7:03 a.m. WhaleWisdom's Barings page showed the Q3 2026 portfolio ($5.84 billion) at 7:05 a.m. HedgeFollow's Barings page still showed Q2 2026 ($5.67 billion) at every check from 7:04 to 7:18 a.m., 30 minutes after EDGAR accepted the filing. Dataroma and AlphaScala do not track Barings. One filing is a small sample, so treat these as single observations.

Speed matters most on one evening each quarter. In AlphaScala's study of 113 13F filings by the managers we tracked from Q3 2025 to Q2 2026, 78% were dated on the deadline day, and the median deadline-day filing was accepted at 4:08 p.m. Eastern. The next deadline is Monday, November 16, 2026.

The best free 13F trackers, ranked

The ranking below rests on what each free tier showed in our check: the right Q2 2026 portfolio for all three funds, clear handling of options, speed on a fresh filing, history depth and the limits of the free tier. SEC EDGAR is the source the others copy, so it is listed separately, and Fintel blocked our check.

1. HedgeFollow: correct portfolios, puts on their own tab

HedgeFollow got all three Q2 2026 portfolios right in our check. Its portfolio totals ($7.47 billion for Appaloosa, $4.65 billion for Third Point) match the filings' long positions, and puts sit on a separate "Option Holdings" tab with the put type and share count. It also kept Pershing Square's quarter-on-quarter changes intact across the change of filer, showing Uber as a 14.58% add rather than a new buy.

The limit is the cap. The free view shows a fund's top 50 stock holdings and top 50 option holdings: for Renaissance Technologies, the page reported 3,140 holdings and listed 50. Its plans page puts the top 100 behind Level 1 ($45 a quarter or $120 a year) and every holding behind Level 2 ($198 a quarter or $588 a year). It was also the slowest of the three trackers we timed on the Barings filing, and its S&P 500 put value for Third Point did not match the filing.

2. 13f.info: fastest, and not limited to famous funds

13f.info is a plain reader for EDGAR's 13F data, with no paywall on the pages we used. It listed the Barings filing within 15 minutes of acceptance, and its latest-filings page carried reports from small wealth managers alongside the large funds. Its pages for Pershing Square and Third Point run back to Q4 2013. Each line keeps the filing's own option column, so Appaloosa's Apple put is marked "put".

The limitation is that 13f.info stays close to the raw filing. Puts count toward the holdings total and get a portfolio weight (3.1% for the Apple put), so the headline value of $7.73 billion includes $254 million of option notional. Ackman's management-company page showed Q1 2026 as its latest 13F, and the Q2 2026 holdings were one click away under Pershing Square Inc.

3. WhaleWisdom free tier: deep data behind a two-year window

WhaleWisdom showed the Barings Q3 2026 portfolio when we checked, 17 minutes after EDGAR accepted it, and its archive is deep: its pages list at least 97 13F filings for Pershing Square and at least 111 for Third Point. It labels options ("SPYPUT", "Apple Inc (PUT)") and shows the filer's own notes, such as Appaloosa's line about the puts being valued as if exercised.

The free tier is the catch. WhaleWisdom's pricing page offers "View Past 2-Years of 13F Data" for free, and its Standard plan ($90 a quarter) adds API access to 13F history back to 2001 for up to 50 funds and 50 stocks every 90 days. Rank, percentage ownership, quarter first owned and estimated average price were locked columns on the free holdings table. Puts count as holdings with their own portfolio weights, so Appaloosa's new-purchase count reads 8: six stocks plus the two new puts. On Pershing Square, the free activity box counted stocks Ackman already held as new purchases.

4. Dataroma: 82 hand-picked managers, options hidden

Dataroma tracks 82 managers it calls superinvestors, and it stamped its Q2 updates for all three funds with August 14, 2026, the day they filed. Its history pages go back further than the free WhaleWisdom and 13f.info pages we checked: top-20 holdings by quarter to 2007 for Pershing Square and 2008 for Appaloosa. It also kept Pershing Square's Q1 comparison across the change of filer.

Dataroma does not show options at all. Appaloosa's Apple and Berkshire puts, worth $254 million in notional value, do not appear anywhere on its page, and Third Point's total also drops the Alphabet depositary shares and convertible notes. A manager outside its 82, such as Barings or Citadel, is not covered.

5. AlphaScala: 33 managers, options split out, slow this quarter

AlphaScala's hedge fund 13F tracker showed all three Q2 2026 portfolios correctly at 7:01 a.m. Portfolio totals exclude options, and each fund page lists puts and calls in a separate table at notional value. The Pershing Square, Inc. filing is mapped to Ackman's page, so its changes compare with Q1 2026. Every page is free with no signup.

The gaps are real. We track 33 managers, not thousands, and hold four quarters per fund, Q3 2025 to Q2 2026 for all but one. Our Q2 2026 data went up on October 22, 2026, 69 days after the August 14 deadline, when we restarted a 13F pipeline that had stalled. Before that fix, our pages made the errors this test looks for: option lines were added into share counts, so Citadel's Nvidia puts and calls read as a $28.8 billion long position, and our Appaloosa page pointed at the old Appaloosa Management L.P. registration, whose last 13F covers Q4 2015. The ingest job now runs twice a day, and November 16 will be its first deadline-day test. Our methodology page lists sources and update schedules.

Unranked: SEC EDGAR, the source every tracker copies

EDGAR full-text search is not a tracker, but it is free and it is where every filing appears first. Its FAQ says it can search "the full text of all EDGAR filings submitted electronically since 2001," and it indexes 13F information tables, so a CUSIP search finds the 13F filings that list a stock: Apple's CUSIP (037833100) returned 6,776 13F-HR documents filed between July 1 and September 30, 2026. Each information table has a PUT/CALL column.

EDGAR does none of the arithmetic. It shows no portfolio weights or quarter-on-quarter changes, and a 13F notice only names the other manager, so you follow that name yourself.

Unranked: Fintel, which blocked our check

Fintel returned an HTTP 403 security block to every request we made between 6:41 and 6:57 a.m. Eastern, so we cannot say whether it shows the Q2 2026 holdings or how it treats puts. An archived copy of its Appaloosa page from December 7, 2025 (Wayback Machine) showed the Q3 2025 filing next to an upgrade prompt for "premium data and export to Excel."

Which free 13F tracker fits which question

• What did a fund hold at quarter end? HedgeFollow or AlphaScala, because both keep options out of the portfolio weights.
• Has a manager filed yet tonight? 13f.info's latest-filings page or EDGAR itself.
• What has a superinvestor owned for 15 years? Dataroma's history pages, or WhaleWisdom's paid archive.
• Which funds hold a given stock? An EDGAR full-text search on the CUSIP, or 13f.info's holder lists.

A 13F lists long positions as of a quarter end that is usually about 45 days old when the filing appears, and the SEC tells filers not to include short positions, so copying one puts your capital at risk.

FAQ

What is the best free alternative to WhaleWisdom?

HedgeFollow, if you want the free tier to show a fund's latest 13F portfolio with options separated. In AlphaScala's October 22, 2026 check it showed the Q2 2026 holdings for all three funds we tested, with totals that exclude options. 13f.info is the better choice for speed and for filers of every size, and it has no paywall on the pages we used.

Do 13F trackers count puts as long positions?

Some do. Form 13F reports a put at the value of the shares underneath it, marked "PUT". In our check, WhaleWisdom and 13f.info gave Appaloosa's Apple put a portfolio weight of about 3.1%. HedgeFollow and AlphaScala listed it apart from the long positions, and Dataroma did not show it.

How fast do 13F trackers update after a filing?

Some update within 15 minutes, and others take more than half an hour. For a Barings 13F accepted by EDGAR at 6:48 a.m. Eastern on October 22, 2026, 13f.info listed it by 7:03 a.m. and WhaleWisdom showed it by 7:05 a.m., while HedgeFollow still showed the prior quarter at 7:18 a.m.

Why does Pershing Square's Q2 2026 13F look different on some trackers?

Pershing Square Capital Management filed a 13F notice for Q2 2026, and the holdings were reported by Pershing Square, Inc., a separate EDGAR filer. Trackers that link the two show the usual quarter-on-quarter changes. WhaleWisdom's free page showed 13 new purchases and none added to or reduced, although 9 of the 14 stocks in the report were already held at the end of Q1 2026.

Does Dataroma show options positions?

No. Dataroma's Appaloosa page for Q2 2026 lists 25 stocks worth $7.47 billion, which matches the filing's long positions. It leaves out the two puts, on Apple and Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares, that the filing reports with $254 million of notional value, and its Third Point page omits that fund's S&P 500 put.