Free and Low Cost Tools for Strategy Backtesting
Summary
The document collects suggestions for software and services that can be used to backtest investment strategies. The examples span a mobile portfolio tool, a Python framework, a form based service, standalone engines, and a brokerage platform with strategy testing and optimization features. The replies mention differing capabilities, including portfolio backtests, technical or fundamental signals, multiple asset types, walk forward analysis, and optimization across machines.
The material is a list of community recommendations rather than a controlled comparison. It does not test accuracy, speed, data quality, or whether paid products outperform free alternatives, which was the original question. Some entries have limitations or qualifications: one platform may require an account or paid data, and one service is recommended by its founder. The advice that the best choice depends on the user’s definition of best is apt; researchers should compare tools against their own needs for coding, asset coverage, data access, and validation methods.
Key ideas
- The listed choices range from code based frameworks to no code services and trading platforms.
- Reported features include portfolio tests, signal construction, optimization, and walk forward analysis.
- Data coverage, coding requirements, and access conditions vary across the suggestions.
- The document offers no benchmark to establish which tool is most accurate or capable.
- The appropriate choice depends on the user’s requirements and definition of quality.
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Full text
# What are the best free software for backtesting? # What are the best free software for backtesting? I am running a project to compare features of different backtesting software. A viewpoint to touch is on whether pricey software come with better characteristics/results thus justifying a higher price. For the purpose, it would be great to compare some free backtesting software and see how these relate. Anyone who can suggest any free one? ## Answer by Marc Zuckerlieb (score 1) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/49971 Statmetrics (www.statmetrics.org) is a free Android app for quants and supports backtesting for multiple portfolios. ## Answer by K3---rnc (score 1) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/55717 Backtesting.py framework, written in Python, has got a simple API and provides quick, interactive results. It's free and open-source. ## Answer by ivanftp (score 1) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/59749 PyInvesting allows you to backtest your investment strategy without writing a single line of code: - Simply fill in a form specifying your backtest details - Create signals using both technical and fundamental data from 2006 onwards - Backtest your prefered investment strategy (Relative Strength, Fundamentals, Moving Average and Strategic Allocation) - Performance analysis is a breeze with our clean and beautiful user interface - Extensive coverage of instruments (stocks, ETFs, FX and Crypto) across multiple exchanges - Allows you to go live and profit from your investment strategy where you will receive daily email updates about any live orders. Disclaimer: I’m the founder of pyinvesting.com, a backtesting software for stock market investors. ## Answer by user42108 (score 1) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/59756 Question has been discussed elsewhere. Zorro and Turing Trader are the two free backtesting engines I know of. As to which is "best" - depends on how you define "best". ## Answer by jersey bean (score 0) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/55724 This option is not exactly free, however I thought it was worth mentioning. Year ago you had to pay fees for using Tradestation, like $100 per month or something like this, now there's no charge. Although you must open an account (I don't recall the account minimums). You do have to pay a small monthly fee for certain data feeds (i.e. Futures), although can you can always import your own 3rd party data. They have some of the most mature backtesting software, including Walk-forward optimization. If you do use their data network, you have access to 1-minute bars, seconds, ticks. You can also run standard parameters optimizations, and you can run it inside of Windows VMs if your a Mac user. You can also scale it across multiple machines in offline mode, which is powerful if you want to run optimizations in parallel. To code your strategies, you must use EasyLanguage. There's also the Optimizations API, where one option allows you to provide a XML file with the optimization parameters that you want to run. For years I resisted Tradestation for various reasons, but I finally caved and now have learned to love it. Its very powerful if you know how to use it. ## Answer by Muleta Argaw (score 0) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/68906 Try www.infertrade.com its completely free, very simple and accurate tool. I am sure you love it.
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