Forex Tester
Pros
- HISTORICAL DATA
- GREAT REPUTATION
- CONSTANT UPDATES
- EXPORT DATA TO EXCEL
- LONG LIST OF FEATURES
Cons
- WINDOWS OS ONLY
Backtesting is one of the most important parts of learning to trade forex. Backtesting allows traders to gain experience over years of historical data, in only days and greatly grow their knowledge and skillset. With manual backtesting it’s hard to ensure you’re not biased within the markets and it’s really easy to miss things – this is where backtesting tools come in…
In this article we are taking a look at Forex Tester. Forex Tester is one of the most popular forex backtesting tools that allows traders to design strategies, import data and test strategies over years of historical data on over 800 trading pairs. Traders around the world love the platform and it’s easy to see why! Let’s find out more…
What Is Forex Tester?
Forex Tester 5
Forex Tester is one of the worlds leading forex backtesting tools. Used by over 50,000 traders, the solution allows you to go to any point in the historical data, analyse, trade, fast forward and look at your trading data. It’s actually been described as a video game for traders.
- Best backtesting tool
- Lightweight
- Cheap
- Easy to setup
- Get started in minutes
Forex Tester is one of the best trading simulators
in the industry. The platform allows forex traders to easily test their hypothesis and strategies on a huge array of pairs, over years of trading data to find an edge. The tool is extremely easy to use and I would imagine thousands of traders around the world have found profitability from testing their strategies on the platform.
With over 50,000 traders in 184 countries, it’s clear to see why Forex Tester is one of the most popular trading simulators over the last 15 years. Is this the trading simulator for you? Let’s take a look at the features…
How To Use Forex Tester?
Unlike Soft4Fx, one of the largest competitors, Forex Tester actually has it’s own user interface and platform that is completely separate from MT4. This is a huge selling point in my opinion as MT4 is definitely not the best when it comes to user friendliness and functionality.
Simulators, especially those linked with MetaTrader are typically quite complicated. However, Forex Tester is very simple and they actually have a whole quick start guide here, on how to get setup and testing within just minutes. The drawback of the platform you will be working on is the fact that it will not work on a Mac computer. Therefore if you only have access to a Mac, I’d recommend using one of the services in our forex vps list to get yourself on a Windows operating system.
Forex Tester Pricing – How Much Does It Cost?
Forex Tester comes with a free trial where you’re able to use some of the features. In fact, most of the features are included in the free trial but you only have access to it for 1 hour at a time, without having to start a new project. You also can’t test more than 1 month of data, you can’t save projects and you only have access to high impact USD news. This greatly limits what you can do on the platform but it’s still worth exploring if you’re wanting to try before you buy!
The pricing of Forex Tester is staggered into 3 options ranging from Basic to Super. In the basic package, you will only be paying for the software and no data license to pull data into the platform. This is usually $299 but there is usually a sale on, bringing the price down to $149 with no recurring fees.
For the standard package you will need to also purchase data to use it. This can come in the form of a monthly subscription, annual subscription of a one time payment. This will allow you to backtest from the H1 time frame and above. The monthly subscription will be $22 monthly, on top of the $149 for the software. The annual subscription comes in a bit cheaper, at $290 for the software and data. Then the lifetime package is $519 which is definitely worth doing if you’re a professional forex trader, not just dipping your toes.
If you’re debating purchasing the standard package, you might as well jump in at the super package as the price point is really similar but the quality is much higher. In the super package you will have access to time frames as low as 1 minute and tick data meaning the quality of the lower time frame moves is much more realistic. You’ll still need to purchase the license, alongside a data subscription to actually import data to the platform.
I would opt for either the lifetime package, if you’re a professional trader, or the annual subscription package and this nearly halves the price of the data over the year!
Forex Tester Features – Is It Worth The Price?
Forex Tester is known for being the most feature rich simulator on the market. Let’s take a look at some of these features and how they may be of use to us as traders…
1. See high impact news on the chart
The platform allows you to see high impact news in the data, allowing fundamental traders to analyse and markets, or technical traders to justify reasons for trades. This data is hard to find manually so this is very valuable to traders!
2. Notepad for journalling and notes
Forex Tester has a notepad feature that allows you to write down a few thoughts about each trade taken during a backtest. This makes it very easy to look over the data once you’re finished and draw conclusions.
3. Deposit of funds
You can instantly add new funds to your simulated trading account if it’s running low, without having to restart the whole backtest!
4. Multiple order types
Choose between live market orders, buy stops, buy limits, sell stops and sell limits!
5. Export all trading data to Excel
You have the option to export all historical data to Excel, which is going to be hugely useful for traders that like to work on algorithmic and automated trading!
6. Custom timeframes for testing
You’re able to create custom timeframes to simulate on the historical data. For instance, you could do a 10 minute chart or maybe an 8 minute chart – I’m not really sure on the benefits of this but I know traders like to do it sometimes!
7. Over 40 indicators ready to use
The platform comes with over 40 indicators pre installed and ready to use for backtesting!
8. Full statistics and P/L
Full access to a huge range of statistics and metrics to gauge how successful the backtest was with your trading strategy. This saves a huge amount of time by automatically compiling the results, rather than having to manually dive into these.
9. Test multiple EA’s at once
There is functionality to run multiple different EA’s simultaneously and test them on the same data to see the difference in the performance. This makes A/B testing EA changes dramatically faster!
10. Have multiple charts on one window
It doesn’t sound like something to get excited about but if you’ve used any of the other top forex simulators you’ll understand that most won’t allow multiple charts in one window like this! This can make backtesting much faster and allow you to cover much more data in a day.
11. Over 800 pairs to choose from
With over 800 pairs to choose from, you’ll be able to test your strategies on a huge range of instruments to find the best edge in the markets!
12. Build EA’s within the platform
Easy forex builder allows you to construct EA’s within the platform to test. This saves a huge amount of development time for traders and new strategies can be taken to the live markets much quicker with this add-on.
13. Import all historical data
When you purchase the platform, you will also be paying a data fee that allows you to instantly import a huge amount of historical data to trade. Without this, the quality of the backtest would be too low to draw any useful conclusions from.
Forex Tester 5
Forex Tester is one of the worlds leading forex backtesting tools. Used by over 50,000 traders, the solution allows you to go to any point in the historical data, analyse, trade, fast forward and look at your trading data. It’s actually been described as a video game for traders.
- Best backtesting tool
- Lightweight
- Cheap
- Easy to setup
- Get started in minutes
Is Forex Tester Better Than Other Backtesting Software?
When it comes to comparing backtesting tools, it’s important to realise that there really isn’t much competition. We have compiled a list of ALL of the forex backtesting tools in the industry and there is about 7, at a push. If we take away manual backtesting systems and tools aimed at institutional sized traders, we are left with just a handful of competitors.
Forex Tester simply has more features than the competitors in the market. Not only does it have more useful features, it also has a much nicer user interface. Backtesting isn’t something that takes 5 minutes, traders have to use their backtesting tools for thousands of hours and that’s why having something that looks nice is incredibly important.
Forex Tester Reviews – What Do Traders Think?
If you’ve seen any of our other reviews, whether it is our prop firm reviews or even trading course reviews you’ll know that we always like to see the options of other traders around the world. Opinions vary and it’s easy to overlook things when you’re really enjoying a service/product!
On ForexPeaceArmy, one of the most well loved forums for forex traders, Forex Tester is clocking in at 4.3 stars with 10 reviews. Although this is great, only 10 reviews really isn’t enough to help us come to any kind of meaningful conclusion.
On Trustpilot Forex Tester has got a Great score of 4/5 but again very few reviews, clocking in at just 4 reviews currently. This, again, isn’t enough of a user base to really gage the opinion of traders and how much they’re enjoying the product. This doesn’t mean that the product is bad by any means, just the fact that not many people leave reviews of things like backtesting tools.
Although reviews are limited it is clear to see how impressed traders are with the tool and constant updates being delivered by the team.
Forex Tester Customer Support
Most traders aren’t going to ever need to speak to the customer support team because the tool is so easy and simple to use. Let’s say however, you get a few issues importing historical data and need some help – what are your options?
There are numerous ways to get help from Forex Testers customer support. Firstly, you can use their question/resolution section in the Contact Us page to get answers to most commonly asked questions.
If your questions are not answered on the FAQ section of the website, you can contact live support. If your question is more complex or out of business hours then you can create and submit a ticket for the support team to assist you.
In Summary – Is Forex Tester The Best Backtesting Tool For Traders?
In conclusion, Forex Tester 5 is one of the best simulators in the market for forex traders. The platform comes with a huge range of features and historical data, making it the most valuable tool for gaining experience quickly and testing potential strategies.
If you have any experience with the platform please do drop a comment below, I’d love to hear your experience using the simulator!
