Free backtesting software, built to disprove your strategy — not flatter it
Backtesting software replays a set of trading rules over real past prices to answer one question: would this have done better than just buying the asset and holding it? Plenty of tools will run that test. The harder thing to find is one that runs it honestly — charging real costs, never peeking at prices the rule couldn't have known, and showing you every losing trade instead of a highlight reel. This is that tool, free and in your browser, no sign-up.
What an honest free backtester has to do
Most demos flatter the strategy. Five things separate an honest backtest from a highlight reel — and this tool does all five, on every run:
- • Charge real costs. Every fill pays fees and slippage — the friction that quietly sinks many a rule that looked like a winner on paper.
- • Block look-ahead. The rules only ever see bars that have already closed, so no signal acts on a price it couldn't have known.
- • Show the losses. Every losing trade and the full drawdown are in plain sight — the pain you'd have had to sit through, not just the end result.
- • Measure against buy & hold. The headline is the excess over simply holding, because a rule that made money only in a rising market didn't earn its complexity.
- • Use the whole glass. Winners and losers across a fixed universe of famous assets — never a cherry-picked chart chosen after the fact.
One job, done honestly
- • No code — build a rule from menus, or describe it in plain words, not a scripting language.
- • Free, no sign-up to run a real backtest on famous stocks, ETFs and crypto.
- • Costs & slippage on, no look-ahead, always measured versus buy & hold.
- • The whole glass — drawdowns and losing trades shown, then a paper-forward test and alerts you act on yourself.
- • No intraday or tick data — it runs on daily bars.
- • A fixed universe of famous, liquid stocks/ETFs/crypto — not every ticker, and no options, futures or forex.
- • No live trading and no broker link — it is non-custodial and never touches your money; any trade you place yourself.
- • Not a charting or real-time-data platform. For those jobs — or intraday, options, forex, or portfolio allocation — a different kind of backtester fits better.
Stating the limits up front is the point: a tool that hides what it can't do is the same tool that hides a strategy's losses.
The honest part most software hides
Across 1145 honest backtests of famous strategies on famous assets, only 24% beat buy & hold. Free software that tells you that — instead of a reel of the ones that worked — is the whole difference. See the whole scoreboard — every winner and every loser →
These are famous names that still trade today. Assets that delisted, went bankrupt or (for crypto) died or were rug-pulled aren't in the set (survivorship bias) — and that history isn't available from the free public data this tool runs on — so this rate isn't a representative base rate for every asset that has ever traded.
This link runs a real backtest — RSI mean-reversion on Apple over the last five years — live, right now. Change the asset or the rule once it opens.
Already tested one elsewhere? Bring your trade list and see it re-scored honestly →
Stocks and crypto, the same honest way
The same engine backtests famous stocks and ETFs and crypto — each charged its own realistic costs and scored against holding that asset — so a crypto result and a stock result are read on the same honest scale.
What makes a backtesting tool honest, not just free
The difference between honest backtesting software and a demo that flatters isn't the interface — it's the five checks above, applied to every strategy, the flattering results and the brutal ones alike. A tool that hides a strategy's losses is the same tool that would hide its own limits, which is why this one states both in plain sight and leaves the verdict to the data. The value isn't being told you'll win — nothing honest can promise that — it's finding the rare rule that genuinely beats holding, and being able to trust the result when you do.
Hypothetical / simulated results — Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. This is an educational, analytical tool — not investment advice, and not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. You make all decisions and execute on your own broker. This is an educational, analytical tool, not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. It is non-custodial: you make all decisions and execute on your own broker. Other tools' features change over time — check their own sites for current details.