An OpenInsider alternative
OpenInsider is a good free Form 4 screener. This page covers what it does well, what InsiderAlpha adds once the screening is done, and when you are better off using both.
Try it on one filing
Open the recent purchases feed, pick a company, and look at the buyer's earlier filings before you read anything into the new purchase. The filing pages need no account. Keep our Form 4 walkthrough open next to the SEC document to check the transaction code, the dates and the footnotes.
Credit where it is due
OpenInsider is a screener over SEC Form 4 filings, and it is entirely free: no paid tier, no locked columns. If a raw Form 4 screener is all you need, it does the job. InsiderAlpha's screener is free too and needs no account, if you want a second view of the same filings.
So the comparison below is about what happens after the screen: picking out the few filings in a day that are worth your time.
Head to head
OpenInsider claims read from openinsider.com on 27 August 2026. "Not mentioned on their site" means exactly that: we read their pages and could not find it, not that it cannot be done.
| OpenInsider | InsiderAlpha | |
|---|---|---|
| Form 4 screening | Yes, free, and no account needed | Yes, free, and no account needed |
| What it costs | Free. No paid tier, no pricing page | A 7-day demo, card required and never charged for the demo, reads the daily trading plan once its session has closed. After it, paid plans read the plan before the open |
| Ranked daily shortlist | Not what it is for. It is a screener: you sort the table | A daily trading plan ranked by Alpha Score, with entry and stop levels for every name. Members see what drove each score |
| An insider's earlier purchases | Not mentioned on their site | How the stock moved after an insider's earlier purchases, on their profile where there is enough purchase history |
| Form 144 (planned sales) | Not mentioned on their site | Tracked market-wide, with the filer matched to an insider profile |
| Form 8-K | Not mentioned on their site | Every 8-K, cross-referenced against insider buying in the same company over the previous 42 days |
| Alerts | Not mentioned on their site | A daily email digest and RSS feeds |
| Programmatic access | Not mentioned on their site | A hosted MCP server, in the demo and on every paid plan, and personal access tokens |
If you are weighing more than two tools, the full table compares six of them on price, free tier, data freshness, Form 144 and 8-K coverage, alerts and API access.
What InsiderAlpha adds after the screen
A ranked daily trading plan
Each qualifying Form 4 purchase gets an Alpha Score, and the scores rank the daily trading plan. Every entry carries entry and stop levels, and members see what drove each score.
An insider's earlier purchases
A new purchase is easier to judge next to the buyer's history. InsiderAlpha keeps a profile for every active insider with their roles and filings, and, where there is enough purchase history, how the stock moved after their earlier purchases. Those figures come from the filings and price data, not from anything the insider reports about themselves.
Beyond Form 4
Planned insider sales show up in advance on Form 144, and company news arrives as 8-K filings. InsiderAlpha tracks Form 144 notices and 8-K filings alongside the 249,274 Form 4 filings in the database, and checks each 8-K against the insider buying in the same company over the previous 42 days.
Email, RSS and MCP
You get a daily email digest and RSS feeds, and a hosted MCP server your AI assistant can query, in the demo and on every paid plan. A mobile app is in the works but not out yet.
Research you can check
Our Form 4 study publishes filing-lag and transaction statistics from a fixed snapshot, with the method and downloadable aggregates. The learn library explains each signal and its limits, with links to the primary sources.
When you should not switch
If you open a Form 4 screener once a week, sort by value and move on, OpenInsider already does that for free. A second tool would add work for no gain, and we would rather tell you so than sell you something you do not need.
InsiderAlpha earns its place when you want the day's purchases ranked rather than listed, with the reasons for each score, or you want the plan to come to you instead of going to look for it.
Pricing, plainly
OpenInsider is free. InsiderAlpha starts with a 7-day demo: Card required. Your card is never charged for the demo. After 7 days, pick a plan to keep going. The screener, the company and insider pages and the filing feeds cost nothing and mostly need no account at all. The paid plans mainly sell timing: you read each daily trading plan as it builds, from the previous close, where the demo reads it once its session has closed. See the plans.
The demo is enough to judge the ranking before you pay for anything.
Questions people ask
Is OpenInsider free?
Yes, entirely. When we read openinsider.com on 27 August 2026, there was no paid tier, no pricing page and no premium page anywhere on the site. If a free Form 4 screener is all you need, it is a good one and you do not need to replace it.
Is InsiderAlpha free?
Not as a free plan. InsiderAlpha starts with a 7-day demo: a card is required, it is never charged for the demo, and after 7 days you pick a plan to keep going. The demo reads the daily trading plan once its session has closed, with the whole plan archive, the daily email digest, RSS feeds, a watchlist, search, and the hosted MCP server so an AI assistant can query it. Recent filings need no account: company pages, insider pages, the filing feeds and the screener are open to anyone, and the demo opens each company's and insider's full filing history. What the paid plans mainly sell is timing: reading each plan before the open.
What does InsiderAlpha do that OpenInsider does not?
Most of the difference comes after the screen. InsiderAlpha ranks each day's qualifying Form 4 purchases into a daily trading plan, with an Alpha Score and entry and stop levels for every name. It tracks Form 144 and 8-K filings next to Form 4, so a purchase and its context sit on one page. And you can follow it without opening the site: by email, by RSS, or through a hosted MCP server that an AI assistant can query.
Should I switch from OpenInsider to InsiderAlpha?
Not if you want a raw Form 4 screener. OpenInsider is free, quick and good at that, and so is the InsiderAlpha screener, which also needs no account. Add InsiderAlpha, or switch, when finding the filings is no longer the hard part and deciding which of the day's purchases deserve a closer look is.
What are the alternatives to OpenInsider?
OpenInsider, InsiderAlpha, InsiderScreener, Quiver Quantitative, Finviz and SecForm4 all cover SEC insider filings in some form. They differ most on price, on how fresh the data is, and on whether they go past Form 4. Our comparison of all six, with a source and a verification date for every claim, is at insideralpha.ai/compare.