multichart vs amibroker ?

Hi,

I own both MultiCharts.net and AmiBroker, but don't use either in anger. In general both are good products.

AmiBroker is what I have been using to just look at charts. It works very well, quite fast. Back testing is very good. Lots of free code, examples and active user groups. Howard Bandy uses it in his books. Very popular in some of the meetups I have attended. I like that they provide "Stocks and Commodities" magazine "Traders' Tips" source code. That said I would not want to auto trade (I did test the auto-trade add on many years ago with an IB paper trading account) with it or do any complex programming with it. It's programming paradigm does not fit with how I work. It is clear to me that it is fundamentally designed to look at charts and back-test efficiently.

MultiCharts.net I have barely used. I did study some of the programming tutorials on the web. Seems to be nicely event driven. Decent programming and debugging via real IDE, etc. Fits how I like to program. Downsides, to me, are: very little source code, examples, tutorials, users groups, etc. No "Stocks and Commodities" magazine "Traders' Tips" source code that I know of.

I personally think they are both worth owning. AmiBroker is inexpensive and powerful, though I have bought it at least 3 times over the last 15 plus years. MultiCharts.net has a much better programming paradigm (for me) and I would find it hard to believe that it's auto-trading is not better than AmiBroker (but I have not tested it). MultiCharts is having one of their rare sales through the end of November. $997.

What fits your needs I don't know, but having both is worthwhile to me. When I see an article or an indicator for one of them, I can quickly install it, study it with some charts, and see if it might be useful. One of these days I will probably buy MultiCharts EL just for that reason.

My sense is that if you are running 75 strategies on AmiBroker with tick data it may be very slow. With minute or 5 minute data, probably doable. I have no idea about MultiCharts, but I am sure I would rather I was programming and debugging in MultiCharts. Your mileage may vary

Let us know your experiences with whatever you choose.

Grant
 
Thanks for your reply, Grant. I'm using Amibroker now for my autotrading, all from 1 min to EOD. It needs extra programming to go from a backtest to live code, and this takes time for me coming from a non-programming background. However, i learn some new tricks every day, and slowly i start to like it more and more. But, when i gradually start adding new strategies it gets a little more complicated. Hence, not sure i made the wrong choice, so that is why i asked if anyone else is using AB for live trading. But it seems most are using it for backtesting, not for autotrading (?).
 
Ive been an Amibroker user for maybe 15 years now (losing track of time) but I use it for finding opportunities to buy, that is when to buy.
Also to advise me on best contenders to buy.
Stocks, EOD trading.
I do my own programming and run Explorations, when I have the money and not already fully invested.
Atm Im holding about 23 positions, gold, copper, nickel, iron ore, coal, oil and a couple other odds & sods. (Cheese, fishing, drilling, milk etc)
 
Pasternak said:
That is not a very helpful comment. Can you please elaborate?
More...
Just go to the forum, everytime he replies to someone he leaves some snarky reply. If he doesn't like to do customer service type roles, then he shouldn't even bother to do it. Which can only mean that he's a miserable person who can't get laid. I point this out and his legions of fanboi's all crowd around to suck him off.
 
antiseptic said:
Just go to the forum, everytime he replies to someone he leaves some snarky reply. If he doesn't like to do customer service type roles, then he shouldn't even bother to do it. Which can only mean that he's a miserable person who can't get laid. I point this out and his legions of fanboi's all crowd around to suck him off.
More...
I have not been following Amibroker comments for some years as I no longer upgrade the software or write new programs. I can never recall Tomasz being like that so this comment is news.
Perhaps in his old age he is turning into a grumpy old man, sorry to hear about this.
 
Hello,

Just wanted to revive this thread. Was not able to find any kind of comparison between Multicharts and Amibroker anywhere online. Still deciding on which one to learn and use. It would be great if someone who has used recent versions of both, could suggest which one offers better features and functionality. A comparison of essential and advanced features would be great.

Thanks
 
seekingAlpha11 said:
Hello,

Just wanted to revive this thread. Was not able to find any kind of comparison between Multicharts and Amibroker anywhere online. Still deciding on which one to learn and use. It would be great if someone who has used recent versions of both, could suggest which one offers better features and functionality. A comparison of essential and advanced features would be great.

Thanks
More...

I have been using Amibroker since 2006. Amibroker AFL script need some learning even with experience in programming. It's multi platform e.g. javascript or basic can be used in AFL script. Take a look at some AFL scripts here.
https://www.wisestocktrader.com/
You notice that some AFL scripts are for charting and some for scanning(in Amibroker it's called Exploration). I am an experience programmer in Excel VBA, Javascript and perl but at times I struggled in the Amibroker programming environment like a dog chasing its own tail. Don't get me wrong, Amibroker has a lot of bells and whistles, experience users can built powerful interactive charts. For non programmer, it will be a challenge to master it.

Just a word of caution. There are plenty of AFL scripts in the internet but don't expert one to take and use it successfully. At best, just take it as coding example. The biggest barrier is a psychological one. If you do not code the model and understand it, you will not be able trust and use it.
 
Peter8519 said:
I have been using Amibroker since 2006. Amibroker AFL script need some learning even with experience in programming. It's multi platform e.g. javascript or basic can be used in AFL script. Take a look at some AFL scripts here.
https://www.wisestocktrader.com/
You notice that some AFL scripts are for charting and some for scanning(in Amibroker it's called Exploration). I am an experience programmer in Excel VBA, Javascript and perl but at times I struggled in the Amibroker programming environment like a dog chasing its own tail. Don't get me wrong, Amibroker has a lot of bells and whistles, experience users can built powerful interactive charts. For non programmer, it will be a challenge to master it.

Just a word of caution. There are plenty of AFL scripts in the internet but don't expert one to take and use it successfully. At best, just take it as coding example. The biggest barrier is a psychological one. If you do not code the model and understand it, you will not be able trust and use it.
More...

Thank you for sharing your experience, Peter. I understand that EasyLanguage might actually be easier to learn and execute than AFL, but i wanted to understand if any of the two software in general has an advantage over the other in terms of features and functions.

If Amibroker emerges as a clear winner as a software, im willing to put in the extra effort to learn AFL.
 
seekingAlpha11 said:
Thank you for sharing your experience, Peter. I understand that EasyLanguage might actually be easier to learn and execute than AFL, but i wanted to understand if any of the two software in general has an advantage over the other in terms of features and functions.

If Amibroker emerges as a clear winner as a software, im willing to put in the extra effort to learn AFL.
More...

EasyLanguage is not easier. AFL is pretty easy actually and easy to learn.
Advantage of AmiBroker. It is faster, light weight, almost no bugs, almost no limits and cheaper. MC is just copycat but being behind.
 
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