The Best Backtesting Software for Traders in 2025
A trading strategy is only as good as its performance in real market conditions. That’s where backtesting software comes in.
By running your strategy against historical data, you gain insight into how it would have performed in the past—helping you identify strengths, spot weaknesses, and refine your approach before putting real capital on the line.
Not long ago, backtesting required coding skills and access to expensive institutional data. Today, powerful platforms make it accessible to retail traders, bridging the gap between theory and execution.
Of course, past performance isn’t a guarantee of future results. But by systematically testing and optimizing your strategy, you stack the odds in your favor. Here are the best backtesting platforms to help you do just that.
New to backtesting? Read our step-by-step guide.
What are the best stock backtesting platforms?
Whether you prioritize tick-by-tick data, flexibility, or AI-driven insights, each backtesting tool has its strengths and trade-offs. Below, we break down the top options to help you find the best fit.
ProRealTime
One of the most comprehensive trading platforms on the market, ProRealTime has long been a favorite of experienced and active traders. Now, with free web and mobile versions, it’s becoming an increasingly popular choice among new and intermediate traders.
Its ProBacktest environment, available in the software version, is a powerful tool for testing strategies against high-quality historical data in highly realistic market conditions. If execution realism and customization are your priorities, ProRealTime is the clear choice.
The first clear advantage is just how realistic its simulations are. While no backtesting platform can perfectly replicate live trading, ProRealTime comes the closest by capturing every price movement with tick-by-tick historical data.
Instead of relying on simplified OHLC data, it factors in market depth, order execution mechanics, and variable commission structures, providing traders with an accurate view of how their strategy would have performed under real conditions.
ProRealTime is also highly customizable, offering both a no-code interface for intuitive strategy building and a powerful scripting environment for advanced users. The no-code approach allows traders to quickly set up strategies by defining entry and exit conditions, risk parameters, and market scope. This is particularly appealing to those new to backtesting or with no prior coding experience.
For more experienced traders, ProBacktest provides full scripting capabilities, letting you create fully automated, highly specific trading strategies. This flexibility ensures that whether you prefer a visual, drag-and-drop interface or precise rule-based automation, ProRealTime adapts to your workflow.
Aside from strong backtesting, ProRealTime’s paper trading capabilities are worth highlighting. These let you take a backtested strategy to live market conditions without risking real money. Moving from historical to real-time data is crucial, and ProRealTime makes this transition seamless, allowing traders to validate their strategies before committing capital.
Thanks to its integration with Interactive Brokers, Saxo Bank, and IG, ProRealTime allows traders to move seamlessly from backtesting to automated trading, executing strategies in live markets without additional adjustments.
ProRealTime full software version, including ProBacktest, starts at $29/month. A two-week free trial is available.
TradingView
TradingView has been a market-leading trading platform for nearly 15 years, serving more than 90 million customers today. It puts good backtesting features and broad market coverage into an accessible, enjoyable trading experience.
TradingView also has a passionate and active community, with excellent resources and a network of supportive fellow traders.
TradingView is among the most popular trading platforms in the world. Its backtesting comes in two varieties: “regular strategy backtesting” and “deep backtesting.” The first uses only the price data on the chart you’re currently looking at. This price data is limited by your subscription—essentially, it’s a more basic or lite experience.
Deep backtesting, meanwhile, uses price data from the beginning of the date range you specify. This is a far more complete data set, for more compelling analysis. For traders who prefer a more intuitive approach, TradingView also offers Bar Replay, allowing you to manually step through historical price action to test your decision-making in real time.
TradingView provides a broker emulator that considers intrabar price movements and order execution logic. While its granularity may not match ProRealTime’s tick-by-tick precision, recent updates have introduced dynamic data requests and improved boolean logic, making it highly flexible.
To create strategies, you’ll need to learn TradingView’s own language: Pine Script. This could be intimidating to non-coders, but Pine Script is actually lightweight and user-friendly. In fact, TradingView is widely known for being intuitive and easy to use. And Pine Script is a great introduction to coding algorithms, leaving you room to experiment and grow as you get comfortable. Plus, with AI-driven advancements making no-code solutions more accessible, even non-coders can start automating strategies with minimal effort.
Even better, you can copy and adapt strategies shared by others in TradingView’s popular and engaged community.
That same community is what makes TradingView so appealing. The constant feedback and shared insights help traders refine their skills, while experienced users often monetize their strategies, offering ideas that others can subscribe to. While it’s an excellent platform for beginners, there’s plenty for advanced traders looking to collaborate and explore new approaches.
TradingView’s backtesting features are limited on the basic plans, so traders looking for deeper historical data and more flexibility may need to upgrade. Individual plans range from $155 to $599 per year, with higher-tier Pro plans reaching €2,399 annually. Pricing varies based on features like extended historical data, advanced backtesting tools, and additional real-time market access.
The backtesting tool is available on all paid plans, and you can try any of them for free for 30 days.
TrendSpider
TrendSpider is part of a new generation of trading testing tools. It uses automated pattern recognition and AI-powered strategy creation to make complex analysis relatively straightforward.
Users love its modern interface and approach—alongside very powerful backtesting—and the platform’s popularity is growing quickly.
TrendSpider is an intriguing platform for numbers-obsessed, highly analytical traders who want complex backtesting, quantitative strategies, and a range of timeframes and asset classes. You get automated chart pattern detection, candlestick pattern recognition, and strategy testing capabilities.
The platform lets you configure strategies manually, use natural language inputs (write commands in plain English), and even generate machine learning-based trading models using AI. All have up to 50 years of historical data. It is generally no-code, although you can create custom indicators and strategies using JavaScript.
This is very appealing to technical analysts who want to experiment and explore. But, its backtesting has some limitations. It relies on OHLC data, meaning it doesn’t capture every price movement within a candle. Additionally, it’s designed primarily for strategy development rather than execution, as it doesn’t integrate with brokers for live trading without a connector.
Paper trading is only available as a demo by contacting the support team, which means many users are missing this important step.
Finally, you cannot execute live orders directly from TrendSpider. This doesn’t prevent you from backtesting, but if you’re happy with a strategy and want to take it live, you may encounter some difficulties.
There’s no free plan, and subscriptions range from $54 to $82 per month for the Standard plan, $91 to $149 per month for Premium, or $122 to $199 per month for Enhanced.
The Standard plan only includes long-term backtesting, while the other plans include both short-term and long-term backtesting, and the AI Strategy Lab.
Choose the right backtesting tool for your system
Backtesting is a critical step in any effective trading system. The right platform will depend on the markets you trade, your frequency, and the other tools and brokerages you use. It will also depend on the depth and detail of analysis you need, how automated you want to be, and how much coding you’re willing to do yourself.
When you make your selection, remember the three factors we saw above:
- Market accuracy with realistic conditions
- Customization and flexibility
- Ease of use
Beyond ProRealTime, TradingView, and TrendSpider, there are several other platforms that offer backtesting:
- MetaTrader 5 – Popular among forex and CFD traders, with built-in strategy testing and broker integration.
- NinjaTrader – A strong choice for futures traders, offering historical backtesting and real-time market execution.
- Backtrader – A powerful Python-based framework for traders who want full control over their strategy testing.
- QuantConnect – Cloud-based and geared toward quants, supporting Python and C# for advanced backtesting.
- MultiCharts – A solid option for traders who need advanced execution modeling and institutional-grade testing.
- cTrader – A good choice for forex traders who want automated backtesting with cAlgo.
Whatever you end up choosing, make sure you find a tool that feels good to use, and that will quickly become a part of your regular trading rhythm.
Othmane holds a Master's in Financial Analysis and has passed the Level 1 of the CFA Program. He brings several years of experience in reviewing and editing finance-related content.
Enjoy free trading practice on
ProRealTime Paper Trading Simulator.
