AmiBroker

What it is

AmiBroker is a Windows desktop application for writing trading systems in AFL — its own array language — and testing them across a whole symbol universe. The engine is what people buy: C++ compiled to machine code, arrays as native types so formulas vectorise instead of looping, and every chart and Analysis window on its own thread. The vendor quotes a 100-symbol, 10-year, 100-step exhaustive optimisation at 25 seconds.

Backtesting is portfolio-level by default rather than a per-symbol loop: shared equity, bar-by-bar ranking when entry signals outnumber buying power, scaling in and out, a rotational mode for sector switching, and walk-forward and Monte Carlo folded into the optimiser alongside exhaustive, PSO and CMA-ES searches. The charting and the Exploration/Scan screener are real — hence the charting and screeners listing — but they mostly serve to look at what the backtester found.

Pricing

A perpetual licence: Standard $299, Professional $379, Ultimate Pack Pro $499. "Perpetual" covers the version you bought, forever. Upgrades are free for 24 months from purchase; after that you either freeze on your version or pay the 50%-off upgrade price — $159 Standard, $189 Professional — for another 24-month window. AmiQuote and the AFL Code Wizard + AI Assistant are $99 each, with lifetime upgrades. The 30-day trial needs no signup, but it is build 6.93 from August 2024, while the current 7.00.1 (22 December 2025) is members-only: you evaluate an older build than you buy.

Data & coverage

None included — AmiBroker is an analysis shell over somebody else's feed, and the data bill is separate from the licence. Free end-of-day and fundamentals arrive through the AmiQuote add-on (Yahoo Finance, Stooq, Tiingo, Quandl); real time through plugins for eSignal, IQFeed, Interactive Brokers and any DDE source; end-of-day vendors include Norgate, TC2000, CSI and FastTrack. Markets are whatever your feed covers.

Integrations

A documented C++ Data Plugin API for any source that lacks one, ODBC and DDE plugins, direct reading of MetaStock databases, and an OLE Automation object model that lets an outside script drive the Analysis window and export results to CSV. Live and paper orders go to Interactive Brokers through the free IBController add-on. The v7 AI assistant is bring-your-own-model: an OpenAI or Gemini key, or a local model in LM Studio — and it needs an AFL Code Wizard licence (bundled in Ultimate Pack Pro, $99 otherwise), without which it stops after five responses per run.

Limitations

• Windows only, and no market data, so the sticker price is not the running cost.
• No options analytics: no chains, no greeks, no spread modelling. Futures and mutual funds have dedicated handling; options have none.
• Live trading is Interactive Brokers and nothing else. IBController's shipped build is dated 2010 and its docs still call it low-level, "phase-one" and awaiting a higher-level interface.
• Standard is 32-bit only, which caps RAM at 4GB and bars at 1 minute — a constraint on tick work, not a marketing split.
• AFL is a language you will only ever use here: no Python bindings, no way to reuse a strategy elsewhere. And sales are final — no refunds — which is why the trial matters.

Alternatives

MultiCharts and NinjaTrader cover the same Windows-desktop ground with broker execution as the main event and backtesting attached, rather than the other way round. If the strategy lives in Python, an open-source vectorised backtester costs nothing — and gives up the portfolio machinery AmiBroker has had for twenty years.