Backtesting Software Compared: Replay Tools and Platform Testers
Five backtesting tools side by side: price, data, free option and limits, from replay tools to the MetaTrader 5 and cTrader testers.
3 Nov 2026 · 6 min read
Backtesting tools fall into two groups: replay tools that show you a chart one bar at a time while you place trades by hand, and testers that run coded rules on history. This page sets out what five of them offer. It does not rank them.
The comparison
| Tool | What it is | Data | Price | Free option |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FX Replay | Browser-based replay and practice platform; replay steps “one candle at a time”. It also bundles a journal. | Source not named. Timeframes “from 5-second candles through to monthly”. Seconds data and futures only on Pro. | Intermediate $15 a month, billed yearly ($180). Pro $29.16 a month, billed yearly ($350). Monthly billing: $17.99 and $35. | Beginner plan, free: 2 sessions, 50 trades a session, 1 week of data retention. |
| TradingView Bar Replay | A replay mode inside TradingView's charting, on every plan from Basic up. Deep backtesting is on Premium and Ultimate. | Day and higher intervals on every plan; minute data from Essential (180 days) and Plus (365 days), all of it on Premium and Ultimate; seconds on Premium and Ultimate; ticks on Ultimate only, 7 days. Does not work with tick-based or spread charts. | Per month, billed annually: Essential €12.95, Plus €29.95, Premium €59.95, Ultimate €199.95. | Basic plan, €0 “forever”: day and higher intervals only, no minute, second or tick data. |
| MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester | The tester inside the MetaTrader 5 terminal: runs automated programs on history, with a visual mode. | Modes from “Open prices only” to “Every tick based on real ticks”. History is taken from the trading platform; spread “is taken from historical data”. | Not listed. | Not applicable: no plans. |
| cTrader cBot backtesting | The backtesting feature for cBots inside cTrader, with a visual mode. | Tick data from the server, M1 bars from the server, M1 bars from a .csv file you supply, or H1 bars from the server. Spread fixed or random; commission per million units. | Not listed. | Not applicable: no plans. |
| Soft4FX | A plug-in for MetaTrader that replays past data; compatible with MT4 and MT5, with multi-currency trading in the MT5 version only. | Tick-based replay. “10 - 20 years of tick data” included with the licence, from Dukascopy, TrueFX and HistData. | $109 one-time (“+tax”). No monthly or yearly plans. A 14-day money-back guarantee. | Free demo, with unlimited time and all features, limited to 5 trades per simulation, 2 sample years of data, no saving or loading. |
Prices as of November 2026. Check the vendor's site before you buy.
More on two of them in FX Replay pricing and limits and TradingView Bar Replay limits.
Questions that separate them
- Do you test by judgement or by code? Replay tools suit the first; the two platform testers run programs written for MetaTrader 5 or cTrader. See manual against automated backtesting.
- What resolution do you need? A replay of bars cannot tell you which of a stop and a target was hit first inside one bar; ticks can. See bar replay against tick data.
- How much history, on which markets? Depth, and whether futures or seconds data are included, is gated by plan in the two replay products.
- Where does the data come from, and who may use it? Of the replay tools, only Soft4FX names its data sources. Free data has terms of its own: what each source says.
- How is it priced? By the month, billed yearly, or once. Compare the total over the time you will use it, not the first number on the page.
Trepeat today
Trepeat is not in the table because it does not sell a replay tool or a backtester.
We're working on a free journal and a backtester, with no date yet. Today Trepeat is a trade copier for MT4, MT5 and cTrader, currently on demo accounts, and you can add notes, a grade and screenshots to any copied trade once it closes, with a calendar of your results.
How the journal works. Once you have a result from any of the tools above, the steps for judging it are in how to backtest a trading strategy.
Written by the Trepeat team.