My sister's family actually lives in Germany so they are somewhat familiar with the US retail brokerages and in turn I am familiar with the German ones, namely Trade Republic and flatex, only 2 to choose from :)

So regarding trading stocks on Trade Republic, you get a super wide bid-ask spread that is unheard of in the US.. They route their trades through a Hamburg-based market maker called Lang & Schwarz, and try to make as much as they can on stocks(!) PFOF.

Regarding the derivatives, they don't offer options at all!! What they do offer is called "optionsscheine" which is not an option but a warrant, created by some investment bank like Deutsche or Commerz. Apart from a very real counterparty risk compared to options, they are quite expensive. And yes, you cannot "go short" with this optionsscheine, only long. So no verticals or diagonal option trades. Below is the link if someone wants to learn more about investing in these "optionsscheine":

https://www.globalinvestorgroup.com/articles/3695830/europea...

Please, don't get me wrong, I am not mocking Germany and I do respect German ppl, I just think that retail brokerages there suck bigly due to the lack of competition and a severe red tape. Would be glad to hear your counter-arguments.