Can someone tell me the major differences between Realtest and Amibroker. I'm leaning towards one of the two. I don't have any real programming experience other than on TradeNavigator, so I will be starting from scratch. My concern with Realtest is it doesn't have much a following yet so I don't think there are a lot of resources out there to help me out with it where as there are all kids of learning resources for Amibroker.
The real difference is that RealTest support native Multimarket Multisystem backtesting... and that's really important.... multimarket multisystem is not the holy grail but I'fd define it as essential to survive as a systematic trader.
Amibroker can do multimarket multisystem, but it's not native and it's a nightmare to implement if one is not a proficient programmer. I asked for this feature (that ....is the chance of not starting from zero.... ) more than 10 years ago in the support member zone, but as of today, my suggestion was never considered.
On the other hand, as of for now, Real test doesn't support intraday data, even if this can change in the future (just my guess, you can ask the developer if this feature is important for you).
On the other hand, AMB could be easily linked with IB or others broker in order to get real time data with API.
AMB can even do automatic trading, but again you have to be a proficient programmer, it's not as easy as in other platforms (Tradestation, Multicharts just to name two).
Also, I don't like the "cocky" attitude of AB forum, where almost every time one's is asking for help, it is treated like a lazy moron who doesn't do your own homework (Warning: I don't go to that forum from a long time for this exact reason, maybe in more recent times this has changed) .
In my little experience, when a problem arise, according to the attitude of the AB forum, the flaw is never in the software, but always in the user (which we know it's impossible, as perfection is not possible in this world)
Also, if you don't have any programming experience AB learning curve is steep.
They say "you can do everything but a cup of coffee" with AB, and it's true, but.... for the trader who doesn't want to become a professional programmer it's a complex platform to learn (especially if you had never used ARRAY programming before).
You cand do a quick test. Go there:
https://www.amibroker.com/guide/a_mistakes.html
If these instrutions don't make a lot of sense to you the first time you read, likely you willl encounter more than one problem with AFL.
If you don't need historical intraday data or realtime data or automatic trading, don't think even one second: go to RealTest.