City A or City B?
Decide with data.
Side-by-side metro and state comparisons across cost of living, rent, crime, wages, schools, childcare, and environment — all from official federal sources.
- Metro areas
- 387
- States covered
- 51
- Data dimensions
- 7
- Federal sources
- 6
- Cost of Living · PlainCost
- Rent · PlainRent
- Crime · PlainCrime
- Wages · WageDex
- Schools · PlainSchools
- Childcare · PlainChildcare
- Environment · PlainEnviro
Compare Two Metros
Compare Two States
Popular Metro Comparisons
Popular State Comparisons
7 Data Dimensions
Cost of Living
Regional Price Parities from BEA
Rent
HUD Fair Market Rents by bedroom count
Crime
FBI crime rates per 100K population
Wages
BLS occupational salary data
Schools
NCES enrollment and student-teacher ratios
Childcare
DOL childcare cost estimates
Environment
EPA facilities, water systems, Superfund sites
City Comparison Guides
Learn how to compare cities objectively with federal data.
How to Compare Cities
A six-dimension framework for evaluation.
Understanding Metro Data
What each data dimension reveals and its limits.
Relocation Decisions
From shortlist to final choice with data.
Using Data for Relocation
8-factor framework with cost, crime, schools, jobs, and climate.
Fastest-Growing Metros
Top 15 metros ranked by population, jobs, and income growth.
Seven federal datasets, harmonized to MSA + state level for direct comparison
Frequently Asked Questions
What is PlainCompare?
PlainCompare is a cross-portal city comparison tool that lets you compare U.S. metro areas across multiple dimensions — cost of living, crime rates, school quality, wages, rent, and more — using data from federal sources.
Where does the comparison data come from?
PlainCompare aggregates data from multiple federal agencies including the BEA (cost of living), FBI (crime), NCES (schools), BLS (wages), HUD (rent), and EPA (environment). Each data point links back to its source portal for deeper analysis.
How many metros can I compare?
PlainCompare covers 384 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across the United States. You can compare any two metros side by side or browse rankings across all metros.
Is PlainCompare free?
Yes, PlainCompare is completely free. No account or signup required. All comparison data comes from public federal sources and is presented without any paywall.
Browse the data
Explore metros, states, counties, and rankings across cost of living, wages, rent, safety, schools, childcare, and environment — all from federal sources.
Browse rankings
Cheapest metros, safest states, highest-paying jobs, best schools — ranked from official federal datasets.
MetrosAll 387 U.S. metros
Browse every metropolitan statistical area with composite scores across seven dimensions.
MethodologyHow we compute scores
Read about our methodology, source datasets, and limitations — every score is reproducible from public data.