CDs vs. everything else
Head-to-head breakdowns with a short quiz and live math, so the decision rests on your own numbers rather than a generic table.
Every comparison here keeps to the same discipline: a side-by-side table listing only the features that genuinely differ, a short quiz that weighs those features for your own situation, and live math using your numbers. Not one of them ends in “it depends” — each names a winner for the inputs you give it, and points out which input would flip the verdict.
Nearly every CD-versus-something question turns on the same four axes, and the headline rate is not among them. Liquidity: can you get at the money before the term ends, and what does doing so cost? Rate certainty: is the yield fixed for the whole term, or free for the issuer to cut next month? Tax treatment: Treasury interest escapes state and local income tax while CD interest does not, which in a high-tax state can reverse the ranking outright. Credit risk: FDIC and NCUA insurance cover $250,000 per depositor, per institution, per ownership category — a limit a large balance can pass without anyone mentioning it.
The comparison you want depends on what you are really weighing up. Where the alternative keeps the money reachable, read CD vs. high-yield savings or CD vs. money market account — both swap yield for access, and the question is what that access is worth to you. Where it is a government security, the tax axis dominates: CD vs. Treasury bills and CD vs. Series I savings bonds both turn on it. And where you are choosing where to buy rather than what to buy, bank CD vs. brokered CD covers the one comparison in which the product is identical and the wrapper decides everything.
A note on what these are not. None of them is a ranking of providers, and none carries a referral link — the winner is whichever option your inputs favour, and it changes as you change them. Rates shown are a dated snapshot of nationally available offers rather than quotes you can act on, so treat them as the scale of the difference and check the current number with the institution before committing anything.