For serious systematic traders focused on speed, realism, and automation, Amibroker is generally the stronger backtesting software. It’s fast, flexible, and has a proven portfolio-level engine for building and testing trading systems. Optuma, on the other hand, excels in charting, discretionary analysis, and institutional-grade visual tools. But its backtesting and scripting capabilities come with more limitations.

If your goal is to build confidence through systematic trading, not just pretty charts, read on.

With Amibroker, you write in AFL (Amibroker Formula Language). It’s a clean, expressive scripting language designed for technical traders. It also gives you control over every part of your trading strategy, from signal generation to position sizing.

Optuma uses OSL (Optuma Script Language) which is less well-known. It’s fine for basic logic but lacks the power and flexibility of AFL. Complex system development and signal generation become harder to scale.

Verdict: If you’re serious about learning trading system development, Amibroker gives you more freedom and capability.

This is the make-or-break category.

Amibroker is known for its lightning-fast, portfolio-level backtesting. You can test thousands of symbols across decades of data in minutes. It supports walk-forward testing, Monte Carlo, and custom metrics to help avoid curve fitting.

Optuma does allow portfolio-level testing, but it’s slower, less flexible, and more limited in realism. As a result, it’s more suited for indicator validation than robust systematic backtesting.

 Amibroker wins decisively here. This is why it’s used by hedge funds and experienced systematic traders.

Amibroker provides a full suite of optimization tools, including brute-force, multi-variable sweeps, and Monte Carlo simulations to stress test your systems. This makes it easier to find stable parameter ranges and test your system’s edge.

Optuma has some optimisation capability, but fewer tools and less control over robustness testing. If you want to simulate noise, randomness, or system stability under different market conditions, you’ll hit limits faster.

Optuma shines here. Its visual interface and custom charting tools are some of the best available. If you’re a discretionary trader or a data visualisation enthusiast, Optuma’s charting engine is impressive.

Amibroker also offers advanced technical analysis and scanning. While not as “pretty” out of the box, it’s highly customisable and integrates cleanly with your scripts and scans.

Both platforms can scan markets quickly. Amibroker’s exploration feature is particularly useful for scanning entire exchanges using live signals.

Optuma wins for charting visuals. Amibroker wins for flexibility and integration with automation

Amibroker has a huge user community, deep forums, third-party books, and years of user-generated content. While the UI feels dated, the learning materials are vast.

Optuma has more polished support, but documentation is often less accessible and geared towards institutional users.

Compared to something like RealTest, which has clean, modern documentation written for systematic traders, both Amibroker and Optuma can feel a bit overwhelming at first.

Verdict: Amibroker has more support from the community. Optuma has better design, but less documentation depth.