Bloomberg Professional vs FRED Economic Data
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Bloomberg Professional
Access key Bloomberg Terminal functions on your mobile device. Stay updated with breaking news, market data, and communicate with colleagues and clients. Requires a Bloomberg Terminal and Bloomberg Anywhere subscription.
- Breaking news updates
- Market data access
- Instant Bloomberg messaging
- Security data and research
- Portfolio tracking
- Customizable alerts
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This app is only accessible by Bloomberg Terminal clients with a Bloomberg Anywhere subscription. Markets don’t stop when you leave your desk. Stay ready with 24/7 access to breaking news, markets, clients and colleagues wherever you go. ASKB by Bloomberg AI: A new conversational AI interface that transforms how financial professionals discover, analyze and act on market intelligence. News and Research: Read breaking and overnight news or dig deeper with AI-powered document search. IB (Instant Bloomberg): Exchange ideas, research, pricing, indications of interest and more with a global network of financial professionals. All with the same compliant communication capture as on the Terminal. Market Data: Quickly assess markets across asset classes. Access analyst recommendations, estimates, ownership data and summaries of developed and emerging markets. Worksheets: Access worksheets away from the Terminal, monitor watchlists in real time and view related news, events, research and charts. Please note: your B-Unit app is required for the initial login only.
FRED Economic Data
Access a vast collection of economic data from numerous sources on the go. Visualize trends with custom graphs and easily share insights. Stay updated with the latest economic news and research.
- Access 149,000+ economic data series
- Browse data by category, source, or popularity
- Create custom data graphs
- Store favorite data series
- Share data series and graphs
- Receive economic news and updates
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Take the economy with you wherever you go. The FRED app gets you the economic data you need— anytime, anywhere. Enjoy full access to nearly 149,000 economic data series from 59 regional, national and international sources. The graphs and supporting data are housed on the St. Louis Fed’s signature database—FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Database). The FRED app is perfect for students, financial market professionals, academics and anyone else interested in economic data. What you can do with this app: •browse for data by category, release, source and popularity or search by keywords or series ID; •view and create custom graphs; •store your favorite data series for quick and easy access; •share your favorite data series or graphs via e-mail or post them directly to your Twitter or Facebook account; •and receive the latest news on new data series , updates, and St. Louis Fed economic research. The app is free to download. If you encounter problems or have suggestions for improving our app, please contact us at webmaster@research.stlouisfed.org.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Bloomberg Professional at every 2 weeks against FRED Economic Data's every 4 months. Bloomberg Professional also leads on rating (3.7 vs 3.4) and ratings volume (459 vs 87). FRED Economic Data's advantage is monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases) and iOS requirement (14.0 vs 26.1). On price, review sentiment, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Bloomberg Professional holds the better App Store score, 3.7 against 3.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Bloomberg Professional has 459 ratings behind it against 87, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 33% of Bloomberg Professional's written reviews are positive against 37% of FRED Economic Data's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Bloomberg Professional ships an update every 2 weeks, FRED Economic Data every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Bloomberg Professional | FRED Economic Data |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.7 (459 ratings) — better | 3.4 (87 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 33.5% of reviews | 37.1% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 459 — better | 87 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.1 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 159 MB | 26 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Bloomberg Finance LP | Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis |
Customer experience
Bloomberg Professional
FRED Economic Data
User reviews
Bloomberg Professional
From 459 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Productive on the go
- 🚀 Frequently updated
- 💡 Great for research and preset monitors
- 🚀 Versatile and replicates terminal functions
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes and stability issues
- 🔍 Lacking key terminal functionality
- 🔍 Clunky and counterintuitive UI
- 🔍 Slow performance and refresh issues
- 🔍 Forced updates and device compatibility issues
FRED Economic Data
From 87 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Access to economic data
- 👍 Useful for fact-checking
- 👍 Comprehensive data source
- 👍 Handy for quick conversations
- 👍 Great content
Room to improve
- 🐛 App is non-functional
- 🐛 Broken experience
- 🐛 Web slop or React Native
- 🐛 Cropped graph images
- 🐛 Unreadable charts
Bugs and requests
Bloomberg Professional
Reported bugs
4 issues- Search function not working
- Worksheet views and column widths issues
- Portfolios not loading properly
- Incompatibility with older iOS versions
Requested features
5 requests- Add IB chat functionality
- Improve portfolio management features
- Allow offline content access
- Provide more customization options
- Integrate with iPhone calendar for events
FRED Economic Data
Reported bugs
78 issues- App is non-functional
- Graph images are cropped
- Graph images are cropped, only top half visible
- Saving photo only saves top half of graph
- Cannot login with Apple account
Show 73 moreShow fewer
- Cannot remove favorites
- Charts are miniscule and unreadable
- Expanding graph axes go off page
- Graphs are off the screen
- Cannot be viewed properly
- Issues with logging in
- Issues with saving data or comparisons
- Chart is cut off at the bottom
- Doesn’t let you scroll through the graph
- Only see half the charts
- Cannot change settings or parameters in horizontal view
- Select years automatically gives projections instead of actual
- Expanded horizontal view bugged out, did not show half of data
- X axis often isn’t visible
- Bad Request: Account Verification Failed
- Full screen view of saved graphs often glitches and does not show full screen
- Cannot view saved dashboards
- Poor search functionality
- Search bar doesn’t narrow down list
- Doesn’t update
- Doesn’t work
- Search is a disaster
- App runs like it's 2005
- App is buggy
- App is buggy again
- Buggy search
- Charts on iPhone in portrait mode is idiotic
- When rotating phone, chart goes from five-year to max chart
- iPhone keyboard screen covers login page
- Thumbnail charts too small to read
- Cannot be used in landscape mode
- Formatted in a huge image that puts axes off the page
- Still inappropriately formatted in landscape
- Text is almost microscopic in landscape
- Stays in portrait mode on iPad
- iPad Pro charts are clipped
- Cannot zoom on graphs
- Graph scale incorrect to the point of obfuscation
- Cannot share blog posts
- Won’t display in landscape
- No value add over the website
- Crashes when attempting to add new series to a graph
- App crashes sometimes when comparing two graphs
- Navigation path to current page is unknown
- App is very buggy
- App crashed when attempting to add a graph
- New version needs months of testing
- Older version was more stable and reliable
- Can’t navigate because of screen layout
- App is broken
- Cannot launch app on iOS
- Issa broken
- Unusable as of this date
- Won’t launch on iOS 11
- App is broken, but can get past splash screen with workaround
- App is currently totally broken and unusable
- Death upon arrival
- Cannot pass the “New Features” page
- “Get Started” button aligned with home touch button
- App cant load
- Cannot get past the “New Features” screen
- “Get Started” link is outside the usable space
- App freezes
- Fails to load on current iOS and iPhone 8
- Can’t make it past preferences screen
- Screen has a “get started” window over the app that doesn’t allow interaction
- App was useful prior to iPhone X, now broken and useless
- Cannot get past the new features page
- Wouldn’t even start
- App takes forever to load
- App showed splash screen and exited
- Crashed a few times
- App gets crash sometimes
Requested features
12 requests- Include widgets for favorites
- Include all web version edit graph features
- Allow saving and sharing in multiple formats (PDF, Excel)
- View saved dashboards
- Use graphing editor tool
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- Add help section with common definitions
- Allow indexing two datasets for comparison
- Add a button for zero-based Y-axis
- Add URL for series on info page
- Ability to add different series to the same graph
- View data in list form as % change
- More detail in descriptions for each data set
In-app purchases
Bloomberg Professional
No in-app purchases
FRED Economic Data
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Bloomberg Professional free?
Is FRED Economic Data free?
Which has better reviews, Bloomberg Professional or FRED Economic Data?
Do Bloomberg Professional or FRED Economic Data have ads?
Which is updated more often, Bloomberg Professional or FRED Economic Data?
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