1) Amibroker
Amibroker is considered as one of the most important tool for Traders. It’s widely popular across the globe and aids both discretionary and system traders. It comes bundled with a highly powerful backtesting and optimization engine, apart from the usual charting features. One can code custom indicators and also build a fully automated trading system out of Amibroker. In order to build a trading system through Amibroker you need to be acquainted with Amibroker formula language (Amibroker AFL). It’s a high-level programming language and very easy to understand if you start from basics. Even a person from non-programming background can learn AFL and avoid spending unnecessary on expensive ready-made AFL’s. See the below link for some of the interesting tutorials on Amibroker:
Tutorials Archives - Trading Tuitions
2) Investar Trading Platform:
It is a desktop based application for Technical Analysis. It comes pre-loaded with backfill data depending on the subscription you have purchased. Also, it has hundreds of technical indicators with an Alert and screener feature. You can choose different timeframes as low as 1-min for charting.
Pros:
The charts load smoothly with practically no time lag.
There is enough backfill data available out of the box and no need to purchase any data separately.
Interface is very smooth and intuitive.
Learning curve is very smooth for Investar, and many online tutorials and webinars are available.
Screener feature is quite robust and clean.
Himanshu Patil, the founder of Investar India conducts free Technical analysis sessions for Annual Subscribers. These sessions are quite informative.
Its offers fundamental analysis features too.
Multi Timeframe analysis feature is helpful for advanced traders.
Cons:
There is no backtesting feature. One cannot code and test strategies.
Customer support is poor, email response is delayed most of the times.
It’s little expensive as compared to other tools available in the market. At the time of writing this article, yearly subscription with all the features cost around 25K.
3) TradersCockpit:
It is another powerful Trading platform with advanced features. It is web-based and does not require to download/install anything on the local machine. Its robust backtesting feature makes it stand apart from others.
Pros:
It has web-based interface, so can be accessed through any computer/handheld devices across the globe.
It has powerful Options module where we can test and evaluate option strategies.
One can backtest trading strategies over variety of instruments.
It supports Tradescript language which is very easy to learn and code.
Very impressive customer support. You can get your strategies coded and backtested.
Webinars are conducted weekly/on-demand basis.
Alerts generated through the trading strategy can be sent through SMS.
Forum access for subscribed customers.
Cons:
Charting is poor as compared to other platforms. It’s not very user-friendly and intuitive.
Java based interface doesn’t look eye catching.
Backtesting engine is very slow as compared to Amibroker.
Not enough backfill data is available.
Screeners are not user-friendly.
4) iCharts
iCharts is web-based Technical analysis platform. It is lightweight and easy to use. It comes loaded with basic charting and backtesting features.
Pros:
Its very light weight and loads in seconds.
Platinum charts are based on Microsoft Silverlight which looks better than traditional java based charts.
It comes loaded with 80+ technical indicators.
There is an option to create custom indicators of your own.
There is provision to backtest strategies.
It supports Tradescript language which is very easy to learn and code.
Subscription is very cheap as compared to its peers. At the time of writing this article, yearly subscription of Platinum service costs below 15K.
Cons:
It’s a very basic platform and cannot be used for advanced technical analysis.
Backtesting is not very robust.
Updates are released very rarely.
5) Zerodha Pi
Pi is a very popular Trading platform from Zerodha. One has to be Zerodha customer to avail the benefits of Pi. Buy/Sell can be placed directly through Pi and doesn’t require a separate interface.
Pros:
Very neat and clean interface.
Provision for backtesting and creating custom indicators.
Buy and Sell orders can be placed directly through chart.
Can be integrated with Amibroker for semi-automated trading.
Advanced features such as Artificial intelligence and neural networks.
It supports Tradescript language which is very easy to learn and code.
Free of cost for zerodha customers.
Cons:
Backtesting is not robust.
Available only for Zerodha customers.
Pi is released recently and is not completely stable as compared to other tools.