ETF Comparison Tool

Enter two to four ETF tickers and press Compare, or pick one of the popular pairs under the form. The funds line up side by side in one table, so you can compare exchange-traded funds on cost, total return, dividends and risk in one view.

To compare two ETFs, fill in the first two fields, and add a third or fourth fund to compare multiple ETFs at once. This ETF compare tool measures every fund over the same periods, ending on the same date, so each row of the table compares like with like.

The table comes with a chart of $10,000 in each fund with dividends reinvested, plus each fund's sector weights and top 10 holdings, so one comparison covers cost, returns, income and what each fund owns.

Every return in the table is a total return: the change in the share price plus the dividends, each one reinvested in the fund. An ETF total return comparison is the fair test, because a fund that pays out more in dividends would look worse on price alone.

The table shows total returns over 1, 3, 5 and 10 years, all ending on the same month end. Returns over 3 years or more are yearly rates, so you can compare ETF returns across periods of different lengths. A fund too young for a period shows Not available rather than a shorter period.

The ETF comparison chart starts on the first month every fund has prices for, up to 10 years back, and tracks $10,000 in each fund month by month. It turns an ETF performance comparison into one graph, so you can compare ETF performance through the falls and the recoveries, not only at the end.

The expense ratio is the yearly fee a fund takes out of its assets, as a share of what you hold. Gaps of a few hundredths of a point look small, but the fee comes out every year and the money it takes stops compounding, so an ETF fee comparison matters most between funds that track the same index.

In a dividend ETF comparison, read yield and dividend growth together: yield is what a fund paid over the last 12 months against its price, and growth is the yearly rate at which that payout rose over 3 and 5 years. A fund can lead on one and trail on the other.

To see what a fee gap costs in dollars over 10, 20 or 30 years, use the Expense Ratio Calculator.

Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of a fund's monthly total returns over the last 3 years. The higher it is, the more the fund's value swung from month to month. Max drawdown is the largest drop from a high to a later low in daily values over the last 10 years, with dividends reinvested.

Sector exposure shows where each fund's money sits, side by side on one set of sector names. To compare ETF holdings, the top holdings list each fund's 10 largest positions with their weights, and each one links to its GNG stock page when there is one.

This ETF holdings comparison stops at the 10 largest positions. For every stock the funds share, with the overlap by weight, use the ETF Overlap Calculator.

The tool opens on VOO vs VTI, two index ETFs: VOO tracks the S&P 500 and VTI the whole US stock market. The same large companies make up most of both funds, so expect their returns, yields and sector weights to sit close together.

Read the table from the top: the expense ratio, the 1, 3, 5 and 10-year total returns with dividends reinvested, the dividend yield with its 3 and 5-year growth, then volatility and max drawdown. The sector weights and top 10 holdings below show how alike the two funds are: the same large companies lead both lists, with smaller weights in VTI.