By Junior Yearwood | Published: March 1, 2012

With 6700 U.S.-registered mutual funds to choose from, the Holy Grail of sites is one that answers the simple question: which of these damned things is going to give me the information I need to make money without making me sick!  A bunch of sites promise answers.  Almost none of them deliver.  While we thought we’d need to wade through an embarrassment of riches, mostly we found a swamp.

After reviewing a dozen sites and doing a lot of digging, we’ve decided that three are worth your attention.  Our criteria were simple: the site had to have useful, accessible (which is to say, free) content and it had to have research to back up the validity of its ratings.  These three did.  For each of them, we’ll walk you through the site’s history and focus, identify its best features, and offer up a few cautionary words as well.  After that, we’ll give you the short summary of the other sites we reviewed and didn’t recommend.

Gold, Silver, Bronze

There’s no real secret about the #1 site.  Now the 800 pound gorilla of the industry, Morningstar started in Joe Mansueto’s apartment as a very modest operation that applied the style (but not the substance) of the Value Line rating system for stocks to mutual funds. With data on approximately 330,000 investment offerings, a wealth of free content, including many useful tools and screeners and a solid track record. They are the Gold Standard of commercial fund sites. Read the full profile .

Do you remember that Jerry Seinfeld joke? The one about the Olympics?  “I think I have a problem with that silver medal. Because when you think about it, you win the gold you feel good.  But when you win that silver its like, ‘Congratulations, you almost won. Of all the losers you came in first of that group. Youre the number one loser. No one lost ahead of you!’”

It would be easy, but wrong, to dismiss Lipper as “the best loser around.” We have all heard the quote “XYZ beat their ten year Lipper average,” at the end of an ad for a mutual fund or related company. That quote might be meaningless marketing speak but there is no doubt that Lipper is synonymous with performance, and with good reason. Lipper is one of the most widely used and respected commercial fund sites online, and on average their top picks tend to outperform their peers.  The Lipper Leaders search tool is one of the most intuitive screeners out there, and throughout information is provided in a way that is clear and easy to understand.  Add in investment walkthrough for new or inexperienced investors and easily accessible FREE webcasts and videos and you have a site worth checking. Read the full profile.