FanRanked › Leagues › Compare › FanRanked vs Ottoneu
Ottoneu is not a host so much as a game: every player has a salary, every team has a cap, arbitration raises your stars each winter, and free agents go to auction all season. FanRanked has salaries and a cap too, as keeper settings a commissioner turns on inside any scoring format, free to host and free to play. It has no arbitration.
By the FanRanked staff. Updated 2026-11-07. FanRanked is ahead on 37 features, Ottoneu on 4, even on 14.
FanRanked is 100% free to host and free to play.
| Category | FanRanked | Ottoneu | Even |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Formats and Scoring | 5 | 0 | 3 |
| Rosters and Lineups | 3 | 0 | 2 |
| Transactions | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Drafts | 5 | 0 | 2 |
| Dynasty Economics | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Commissioner Tools | 5 | 0 | 1 |
| Community | 3 | 0 | 2 |
| Imports and Data | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Apps and Platform | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| All Features | 37 | 4 | 14 |
If your league wants the Ottoneu game exactly, with its FanGraphs points, its 40-man rosters, its in-season free-agent auctions and its loan system, Ottoneu is the only place that plays it.
If your league wants the Ottoneu game exactly, with its FanGraphs points, its 40-man rosters, its in-season free-agent auctions and its loan system, Ottoneu is the only place that plays it. It is a distinct format with a devoted community, and it costs a fee per team.
If your league wants the economics without the fixed format, FanRanked runs keeper salaries that rise each season, a team cap that is blocked, taxed or shown only, a drop penalty for kept players, and rookie drafts, on top of rotisserie, head-to-head categories or points with any category list. It also has every ordinary league feature Ottoneu does not: FAAB or waivers, instant free agents, snake drafts, custom categories, custom point values, playoffs up to thirty-two teams.
Where Ottoneu is ahead: its in-season auction for free agents, its loan system, a decade of format-specific community and content, and a bigger pool of leagues to join. FanRanked has no in-season free-agent auction; free agents run on waivers or FAAB.
There is no one-click Ottoneu import.
There is no one-click Ottoneu import. Start a league on FanRanked, pick A Salary for what a keeper costs and turn on the team cap in the setup wizard, and import salaries from a CSV exported from Ottoneu. Rosters can be entered through the offline draft tool, which accepts an auction result with bids.
FanRanked is 100% free to host and free to play. The Edge column shows who is ahead; where Ottoneu is ahead is also our to-do list.
| Feature | FanRanked (100% Free to Host and Play) | Ottoneu | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | |||
| Free to host a full-season league | Yes. Every format is free to host and play: dynasty, keeper, redraft, guillotine, best ball and the special formats | No. Paid per team per season | FanRanked |
| Ad-free option for the whole league | Yes. The commissioner buys every manager a year of Pro at $15 per team: no ads and every Pro tool; anyone already on Pro is left out of the total | Yes. No ads | Even |
| Formats and Scoring | |||
| Rotisserie with custom categories | Yes. Any 1 to 20 categories from box-score and derived stats, or up to 12 formula categories you write | Partly. Fixed 4x4 and 5x5 menus | FanRanked |
| Head-to-head categories, each category or one win | Yes. Each category or most categories; periods daily, weekly, semi-weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or custom dates | Yes | Even |
| Head-to-head points and season points | Yes. Periods daily, weekly, semi-weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or custom dates | Yes. FanGraphs and SABR points | Even |
| Custom point value for every stat | Yes. Any box-score stat, derived stat or formula category, up to 40 per league | No. Fixed | FanRanked |
| Innings minimum and games-played caps | Yes. Innings minimum and a games cap per slot | Yes. Fixed caps | Even |
| Configurable playoffs and divisions | Yes. 2 to 32 teams, reseeding, consolation, toilet bowl, placement games, round lengths, up to 16 divisions | Partly | FanRanked |
| Best ball with auto-set best lineups | Yes | No | FanRanked |
| AL-only and NL-only player pools | Yes. AL-only, NL-only or any set of clubs; the pool applies to drafts, waivers and adds | No | FanRanked |
| Rosters and Lineups | |||
| Configurable roster slots | Yes. C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, IF, LF, CF, RF, OF, DH, UTIL, SP, RP, P, BN, IL, NA, TAXI, MiLB, up to nine custom slots, custom roster columns, rookie minimums and maximums, minimum starters per slot | Partly. A fixed 40-man roster | FanRanked |
| Minor-league slots with eligibility rules | Yes. By prospect flag or career at-bats and innings, with age, games and days-on-roster caps, optional auto-graduation | Partly. Minor leaguers count on the 40-man | FanRanked |
| Injured-list slots with rules | Yes. IL10 or IL60, custom injury types, grace days, auto-park, forced activation | Yes | Even |
| Daily or weekly lineups, lock at first pitch | Yes. Daily, daily-tomorrow, weekly or once per scoring period; per-player lock, a fixed time or a time per weekday; nightly auto-start | Yes | Even |
| Commissioner-set position eligibility thresholds | Yes. Games this season and last, starts, appearances | No | FanRanked |
| Transactions | |||
| Waiver order or FAAB bidding | Yes. Rolling, reverse standings or first come; FAAB with minimum bids, tradeable; claim groups and alternate drops | No. In-season auctions instead | FanRanked |
| Instant free agents option | Yes. Same day or next day | No | FanRanked |
| Trade review: commissioner, vote or timed | Yes. None, commissioner, league vote with a veto count, or a timed window | Partly | FanRanked |
| Multi-Team Trades | Yes. Up to four teams in one trade | No | FanRanked |
| Trade draft picks years ahead | Yes. One to five seasons of future picks, set by the commissioner | No. No drafts after the startup | FanRanked |
| Conditional picks and swap rights | Yes. Finish, protected, usage and swap conditions | No | FanRanked |
| Trade analyzer and trade finder inside the league | Yes. Analyzer, a balance-this-deal helper, and a finder with three-team loops | No | FanRanked |
| Drafts | |||
| Live snake draft room | Yes. Clock by round, queue with pick-from-queue, chat, pause, undo, force pick, pick trades on the board, automated drafts | No. Auction only | FanRanked |
| Auction draft | Yes. Live or slow, proxy or sealed bids, keepers pre-loaded at salary | Yes | Even |
| Slow draft with hours per pick | Yes. Clock in hours with an overnight pause and custom days off | Yes. Auctions run over days | Even |
| Offline draft entry | Yes. Paste snake or auction results with a dry run | No | FanRanked |
| Rookie draft with a first-year-player pool | Yes. Startup, rookie, supplemental and MiLB drafts | No | FanRanked |
| Weighted draft lottery | Yes. NBA, NHL, linear or even odds, seeded and auditable | No | FanRanked |
| Linear (non-snake) draft order | Yes. Snake, snake with third-round reversal, or linear | No | FanRanked |
| Dynasty Economics | |||
| Keepers with a count and a deadline | Yes. 0 to 60 keepers with a minimum, position caps, years limits, hidden or public picks and a deadline default; a flat dollar raise or last price paid in auction leagues | Yes. Everyone is kept at salary | Even |
| Keeper cost by draft round | Yes. Round drafted with escalation, a first-round floor rule, a pickup round, first picks or named picks; keepers fill their slots on the board | No | FanRanked |
| Contracts with years, options and extensions | No. Keeper salaries instead: a price that rises each season he is kept, with finish raises and a yearly limit | Yes. One-year with raises | Ottoneu |
| Salary cap with hard or soft enforcement | Yes. An optional team cap on keeper salaries: blocked, luxury tax or shown only; a floor; a change by team; cap space in trades | Yes. A hard cap | Even |
| Arbitration and salary raises | No | Yes. The signature feature | Ottoneu |
| Dead money and multi-year cap sheets | No. Dropping a kept player costs a share of his salary this season only | Partly. Cut penalties | Ottoneu |
| Commissioner Tools | |||
| Change settings mid-season with an audit trail | Yes. Every section validated and logged, mid-season included | No | FanRanked |
| Constitution page with version history | Yes. 25 versions and read receipts | No | FanRanked |
| Dues ledger and payout table | Yes. Ledger, per-team amounts, part payments, waive and refund, prize pools, payouts by place, reminders; card checkout is not wired yet | No | FanRanked |
| Season archives, record book and trophy case | Yes. Archives, record book, awards, trophy case; twelve seasons from Yahoo | Yes | Even |
| Sandbox copy of your league to test changes | Yes. A private copy to try a rollover or a rule change | No | FanRanked |
| Commissioner assistant that reads your rules | Yes. Reads settings, constitution, trades and flags; proposes, never applies | No | FanRanked |
| Community | |||
| Chat, message board and polls | Yes. Reactions and images; threads, pins and polls on the board | Yes | Even |
| Discord bot and webhooks | Yes. Webhook embeds for chat, trades, waivers and posts; a bot that links accounts and DMs alerts | No | FanRanked |
| Push notifications in a store app | Partly. Web push and email are built; there is no store app to carry push yet | Partly. Email | Even |
| Power rankings, playoff odds, matchup previews | Yes. Plus a news feed filtered to your rostered players | No | FanRanked |
| Side games inside the league | Yes. Weekly pick'em and a prospect bracket | No | FanRanked |
| Imports and Data | |||
| Bring a league over from another host with its history | Yes. Yahoo and Fantrax in one click with past seasons; ESPN, CBS, RTSports and NFBC rosters through Connections; rosters and salaries from one spreadsheet | No | FanRanked |
| CSV exports and a read-only API | Yes. Eight CSV datasets and a read-only league API token | Partly. CSV exports | FanRanked |
| Minor-league stats can score | Yes. Chosen levels and a weight, from the MLB Stats API | No | FanRanked |
| Apps and Platform | |||
| Apps in the App Store and Google Play | No. Installs to your home screen as a web app; store apps are not published | No. Web only | Even |
| Live scoring during games | Yes. About every four minutes while games are on | Partly. Updated through the day | FanRanked |
| Rankings and trade values that read your league | Yes. Dynasty rankings, trade calculator, StreamMachine and player values read your rosters and settings | No | FanRanked |
| Sample leagues to explore without signing up | Yes. Seven sample leagues, each frozen on one day of the season: dynasty, keeper, redraft, season points, weekly head-to-head, and a salary-cap league in season and in the offseason | No | FanRanked |
| Public leagues to join right now | Partly. A marketplace of open seats, but far fewer leagues than the big hosts | Yes | Ottoneu |
| Postseason formats | Yes. Long Ball, One and Done, October Box Pool and Playoff Draft | No | FanRanked |
No. A kept player's salary rises by the league's yearly raise and a finish raise after a big season, set by the commissioner.
No. Free agents run on a waiver order or FAAB bids. That is the main thing an Ottoneu league would miss.
Yes for full-season leagues, hosting and playing. Ottoneu charges per team.
You can run a points league with its own values, a 40-man-style roster and a cap on keeper salaries. You cannot run arbitration, the in-season auction or loans.