Top Fantasy Football League Apps
There are a lot of considerations when it comes to choosing the right fantasy football app for your league. We compiled the below reviews with pros and cons for each league platform so you don’t have to.
Yahoo – The King
Most common, free, easy to use, strong access across all devices.
Yahoo is one of the earliest mainstream fantasy football apps and is the go-to option among fantasy footballers. Year after year it performs well across devices, it has great features, it is so long standing that most fantasy tools work with it, and it’s free!
Team managers know Yahoo very well, it is comfortable for vets, and a great option for newcomers as well with a simplified tools. It is hard to go wrong with a Yahoo fantasy league, it’s the standard for a reason.
Yahoo is slightly less customizeable than most of the other options and tends to be a bit slower to adopt to trends in how fantasy is played. Still, an, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” attitude is fair from the industry leader.
SleeperApp – The Newcomer
Perfect for all but extremely custom leagues, excels on iPhones, free.
Sleeper burst onto the scene a few years back and has some best in class features due to it’s origins. Originally Sleeper was a chat focused fantasy companion app, but quickly pivoted into a full league management tool. Sleeper has great social and chat features and fantastic iPhone usability combined with a strong fantasy application.
Another area Sleeper shines is in its flexibility. There are a multitude of scoring and league configuration options that sleeper presents without a whole lot of confusion. Sleeper is probably the best current bet for standard fantasy dynasty and keeper leagues.
The only downside worth noting is that Android version of the app frequently has problems. It is not any less feature rich, but bugs and outages are much more likely.
ESPN – The Biggest Name in Sports
Easy for all to use including easy standard setups, free, lacks some customization.
ESPN is the biggest name in sports and second biggest name in fantasy sports. It’s simple to setup and easy to use though it lacks some customization options. It trades customization for streamlined efficiency, and often that is a blessing in disguise for newer fantasy managers.
ESPN is a great solution for any reasonably standard redraft fantasy league as it makes these type so leagues easy to setup and manage. It is a really easy app to pick and is connected directly to ESPN’s data.
Highly custom and non-redraft leagues are probably better served by one of the other options on this list, but that is an outcome based on the decision to cater to mainstream managers and there’s nothing wrong with that.
NFL.com – Football First
It’s from the NFL, great apps, free.
NFL.com is a comparative newcomer but that came with a development budget similar to Yahoo and ESPN and the results are impressive. While it’s currently the smallest of the big three, this approach is a recipe for success as NFL was able to learn from successes and mistake of Yahoo and ESPN and improve upon them.
NFL.com is the right answer for those that are football fans first and second, fantasy managers third and great for most everyone else that wants the ease of use of ESPN with a few more options for customizatioon. It is also extremely technically sound and delight to use, especially on mobile devices.
Some lack of adoption is the only downside, but NFL.com is a great app and over the years, working under the same roof as the NFL may mean NFL.com fantasy can do things no others can.
MFL (MyFantasyLeague) – Best for Customization
Most customization, sophisticated, paid service.
This is the first paid option on the list but it is very reasonably priced for what it provides. The level of customization is unmatched on the rest of the list so if your ideal league is highly custom, MFL is the right choice.
MFL continues gaining popularity as the fantasy community becomes more tech savvy, robust and mature. It is rarely where someone would start playing rather it’s a place that folks graduate to if they’ve conquered standard formats and want to set up something different.
You need to need customization for MFL to really be worth it. The price is fair for what you get, but there are other free options that go 75% of the way and web and mobile apps take some getting used to. Still this is the right choice if you want to set up or play in a league that the other guys can’t accommodate.
Fantrax – Original in Options
High customization, great for multisport, paid service.
Like MFL, Fantrax excels at customization and options. Created by a group of fantasy managers over ten years ago this is another great choice for customization. It also has deep multisport support making it probably the best option for dual sport leagues.
Fantrax is less known but may have the exact features that your league needs as each of the highly custom options on this less have somewhat different option sets. It’s a paid app, but reasonably priced if you needs it’s features.
CBS – Money $
Mainstream customization and sophistication, high priced paid service.
Another recognizable brand with close ties to the NFL. Out of the household name options, CBS is far and away offers the most options and opportunities to customize. Like the other customization focused fantasy league managers on the list it has some features that are not available anywhere else.
Price is the problem with CBS. At roughly double the other priced options on this list it is hard to justify for all but high dollar leagues. With most money leagues buying in for $20-$100 per player, a nearly $200 league fee is a huge commitment.