I've been a TS user for a few years now. I use several brokers for execution: I use TS for live testing of automated strategies only with smaller size. My advice to you is that if you trade larger size (positions > $100k or more than 10 contracts per turn) do not use TS as your primary broker.
Their commissions are not very good and their reliability suffers at the worst possible times. Customer service is there until you absolutely need it... and when you absolutely need it, you will be on hold for 3 hours hoping to get through. This has happened to me 2 times this year and while these situations didn't cost me much so far, if it happens enough times there will be a time when it really hurts.
As a software package I think TS is OK.
The good: You have access to a lot of intraday data as well as quick strategy testing. Of all the backtesting products I've tried, none allow as quick implementation and testing of concepts as TS does.
The bad: The platform is not robust. I've had to clear the TS cache folder sooo many times over the years... TS users know what I'm talking about. The software does break and it also has a lot of trouble with Vista. There have been little to none improvements to the core software since I became a customer. Also, moving money to/from my account is a pain.
THE ABSOLUTELY UGLY: NO PORTFOLIO BACKTESTING. This irks me so much: TS charges high commissions, they charge you for a 2nd rate platform (99/month), provide poor brokerage service when you need it most, and after thousands of requests by ALL of its customers TS still does not provide a portfolio backtesting feature. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.
Overall, you get a lot of features. Great charting, easy strategy testing for single products. But, IMO TS does not respond to customer requests and does some critical things very badly. The NO PORTFOLIO BACKTESTING issue really just pissess me off
Mike
