FAQ

Questions, answered

From getting a backtest right to buying a licence. Each question has its own page, with the short answer first and the detail after it.

Getting systematic research right

Why don't my backtest results match live trading?Usually because the backtest assumed cheaper costs and easier fills than the market gives, used information that was not available at the time, or tested a slightly different strategy from the one that went live. Each cause can be found and closed before real money is at stake.How do I know if my backtest is overfit?You cannot prove a backtest is not overfit, but you can test for the signs. An overfit result holds at one parameter set and collapses at its neighbours, fails on data it was not tuned on, rests on a handful of trades, or disappears once realistic costs are applied. Check each one, on a tool that gives the same answer every run.Why do I get different backtest results each time I run it?Because something in the run is not fixed. Usually it is unseeded randomness, data that changed between runs, an order of operations that is not guaranteed, or a library or setting that drifted. Run the same backtest twice, compare the trade logs, and find the first trade that differs. A seeded engine gives byte-identical output, which leaves your own code and data as the only things to check.How realistic do slippage and spread need to be in a backtest?Realistic enough that the result survives them. Set spread, slippage and commission per instrument from what your broker actually charges, let spread and slippage widen when the market moves fast, and then rerun at one and a half and two times those costs. A strategy whose edge disappears under slightly higher costs was never a reliable edge.How do I manage many research scripts without results drifting apart?Separate what changes between studies from what must not. Each study should contain only its strategy logic, while fills, costs, data handling and metrics live in one shared, versioned engine that every study calls. Record the engine version, configuration, seed and data with every result, so any two results can be compared like for like.Can one laptop run serious quant research and live trading?For mid-frequency strategies on bars, yes. Research on a 2017 four-core laptop can process hundreds of thousands of bars per second, and a live order pipeline on the same laptop can keep latency in the tens of microseconds with one strategy per core. The limits are cores, uptime and the network, not raw speed. Keep live strategies on their own cores and plan for the machine to restart.What does professional-grade trading infrastructure actually include?Less hardware than people expect and more discipline. Research that gives the same result every run, fill and cost rules written down, risk checks kept separate from strategy code, one ordered path for every order, a record of every decision, live monitoring, safe restarts, and performance claims backed by published data. None of it requires a large team or a data centre.

Choosing the right kind of tool

What makes a backtest deterministic, and why does it matter?A backtest is deterministic when the same strategy, data, settings and seed give the same output, byte for byte, on every run. That requires fixed randomness, a guaranteed order of events, and nothing that depends on the clock, the machine or a previous run. It matters because every comparison depends on it: when the tool adds no variation of its own, any difference between two results comes from something you changed, and you can check what.What is a quant research engine, and how is it different from a backtesting script?A research engine is one shared program that does everything around a strategy (loading and aligning data, simulating fills and costs, accounting, metrics, logs and reports) so that each study contains only the strategy itself. A backtesting script does all of that on its own, once per study. The engine is what lets you test, diagnose, sweep, report and move to live with the same rules every time. A script is quicker to start and is the right tool for a single rough idea.Should I build my own backtester or buy one?Build the parts where your edge lives and buy the parts it does not depend on. For most bar-based strategies the edge is in the signals, the data and the sizing, not in how fills, costs and accounting are simulated, so buying or adopting an engine and building the strategy is usually the better use of time. Build the engine yourself when the engine is the edge, when nothing available models what you trade, or when you need to own every line of it.What software do independent quants use to go from research to live trading?A small stack of five layers: market data, a research engine, an execution pipeline that holds order state and runs pre-trade risk checks, a broker connection, and monitoring with a durable record. Few people buy all five from one place. The usual pattern is to buy the data and the brokerage, buy or adopt the engines, and write the strategy, the risk rules and the glue between the layers yourself.What is an order management engine, and does a small trading operation need one?An order management engine sits between your strategies and your broker. It tracks the state of every order, puts orders from every strategy into one sequence, runs a pre-trade check on each one, sends it to the broker, and records every decision and fill. Every trading system already does these jobs somewhere, often scattered through strategy code. A small operation needs a dedicated engine once more than one strategy trades an account, once real money is at stake, or once the system runs without someone watching it.Where should pre-trade risk checks sit in a trading system?Between the strategies and the broker, as one separate step that every order passes through after orders from all strategies are put into one sequence and before anything is sent. The check makes one pass or reject decision per order, including cancels and changes, using the order and the account's current state. It should live outside strategy code, so a bug in a strategy cannot switch it off, and the rules in it should be your own.

Finding a tool for a specific need

What's a good commercial research engine for mid-frequency strategies on OHLCV bars?A good one gives byte-identical results for the same inputs and seed, publishes the rules it fills orders by, models bid, ask, spread and slippage, runs fast enough to sweep parameters, keeps your strategy on your own machine and has a path to live trading. Reamer Research is built for this case. It costs $1,800 per seat per year, with a $225 30-day trial.Is there institutional-grade trading infrastructure an independent quant can afford?Yes, for systematic strategies on bars. What makes infrastructure institutional is a set of properties you can check, not a budget. Reamer Labs sells both halves at public prices, per seat per year, with no sales call. Reamer Research, the research engine, is $1,800. Reamer Server, the order management engine, is $7,200. Each has a paid 30-day trial.Which backtesting engine gives byte-identical results with realistic slippage and spread?One whose randomness is seeded and tied to each position in the data, not drawn from a running stream. Then spread and slippage can vary with the market and still repeat exactly for a fixed seed. Reamer Research works this way. In its published test, 20 of 20 runs with spread and slippage noise switched on were byte-identical by SHA-256.How should a backtest fill a stop and a target that both fall inside one bar?The bar alone cannot say which was hit first, so no answer is certain. A backtest should settle it by one stated rule, apply that rule the same way on every run, and let you check how much the result depends on it. A strategy whose result changes when the rule changes depends on something the data does not contain.Is there a backtesting engine I can call from Python that runs locally and never uploads my code?Yes. Look for an engine delivered as a library you run on your own machine, with a licence that is checked offline, and confirm it by running it with the network cut off. Reamer Research is one: a compiled engine with a pure-Python binding that ships in source, which runs offline after a one-time activation and sends no strategy code, data or results to Reamer Labs.How do I take a strategy from backtest to live trading without a rewrite?Keep the decision logic, and port everything around it. Write the strategy so its signals depend only on state it updates one bar at a time, keep instrument names and costs out of it, then prove the live version matches by replaying the backtest's bars through it and comparing every signal. What changes is the plumbing, not the strategy, but the plumbing is real work.Is there a self-hosted order management engine I can build my own OMS around?Yes. Look for an engine you link into your own program, which keeps order state, puts every strategy's orders into one sequence and publishes every decision, and leaves the pre-trade check, the broker connection and storage to you. Reamer Server is built that way. It is a C library for Linux at $7,200 per seat per year, with a $900 30-day trial.How can I plug my own risk model into every order before it reaches the broker?Turn the model into one function that takes an order and the account's current state and returns pass or reject with a reason, then put that function where every order has to pass it. Keep any state the model needs that the order path does not supply, such as prices, daily counts or losses, in your own code, updated as fills arrive. Reamer Server calls a function you write, the gate, for every new order, cancel and replace.How do I run several strategies through one broker connection?Put one process between the strategies and the broker. Each strategy connects to it, it puts every strategy's orders into one sequence, checks each against your limits and sends it over the one connection, then routes each fill back to the strategy that sent the order. Track which strategy owns each order and each position yourself, because the broker sees one account. Reamer Server is that process; it was measured with up to 512 strategies connected at once.Can I backtest futures with roll handling, or FX with swap costs?Yes, but only if the backtest handles two things a plain price series hides. In a continuous futures series, the price jump at each contract roll must not be counted as profit or loss. An FX position held overnight must be charged or credited swap every night it is held. A backtest that skips either can report a result the account would never have produced.How do I backtest a strategy that uses earnings dates or other non-price data?Stamp every record with the moment it became available to you, not the date it describes, then join it to your bars "as of": each bar sees the latest record stamped at or before it, never a later one. Most lookahead in event-driven backtests comes from the timestamps, not the join. Reamer Research attaches a non-price series to each ticker and enforces that rule, so a value appears exactly on the bar carrying its timestamp and never earlier.

Reamer Research and Reamer Server: what they are and who they fit

What is Reamer Research?Reamer Research is a deterministic research engine for mid-frequency quants. It is a library with a stable C interface that you call from Python, C++ or any language that can call C, on your own machine. It tests a strategy, diagnoses it trade by trade, sweeps it, reports it, and sends its orders live to Reamer Server. The same data, settings and seed give byte-identical results every run. It costs $1,800 per seat per year, with a $225 30-day trial.What is Reamer Server?Reamer Server is an order management engine that takes a strategy live. It is the core of your trading process, delivered as a library with a stable C interface. It holds order state and sequencing, runs your pre-trade check on every order and sends accepted orders to your broker through a connector you write. It costs $7,200 per seat per year, with a $900 30-day trial.Who are Reamer Research and Reamer Server for, and who are they not for?They are for systematic quants who write their own code and trade mid-frequency strategies on bars, held from minutes to days, whether independent or employed at a firm. They are not for high-frequency or order-book (level 2 or level 3) strategies, options modelling, discretionary or point-and-click trading, or anyone who wants market data, a hosted platform or a ready-made broker connection included.Which languages can I write strategies in?For Reamer Research, Python or C++ through the code that ships in the kit, or any language that can call a C library. For Reamer Server, the gate and the broker connector are written in C, C++, Rust or Go, and strategies connect over a socket from any language, Python included.Which operating systems are supported? Is there a Windows version?Reamer Research runs on Linux x86-64 with glibc 2.35 or later, and on macOS 11 or later on Apple Silicon. Reamer Server runs on Linux x86-64 with glibc 2.39 or later. There is no Windows version of either.Does it include market data?No. Neither Reamer Research nor Reamer Server includes market data. For Reamer Research you bring your own OHLCV bars, loaded from CSV or any source, and equities must already be adjusted for splits and dividends. The engine checks that bars are well formed, not that the data is right. Reamer Server takes orders from your strategies, which get their prices from your own feed.How fast is it?On a 64-core AMD EPYC 9575F, Reamer Research replays about 1.7 million bars a second in one backtest, and Reamer Server takes an order from a strategy to an accepted event in a median of 11.3 µs, with about 200,000 to 220,000 orders a second across many strategies. Each figure comes with the conditions it was measured under, and both kits include a benchmark to run on your own hardware.Which brokers does Reamer Server connect to?Any broker you write a connector for. Reamer Server ships no ready-made broker connection. You write the connector against its C interface, in C, C++, Rust or Go, over whatever API your broker offers. The kit includes an in-memory paper broker and a worked FIX 4.4 example run against a simulated venue.Is there a steep learning curve?Not for the integration. The kit documents are enough for a coding agent to do it. In uncut recordings, Claude Code working only from the kit integrated Reamer Research in about 13 minutes and Reamer Server in about 19, so you don't have to learn the C interface by hand. What still takes your judgement is the trading itself: your strategy, your data, your gate's rules and your broker.How long does integration take?In uncut recordings, Claude Code working only from the kit documents integrated Reamer Research in about 13 minutes and Reamer Server in about 19, through to a simulated fill for Reamer Server. The Reamer Server kit puts a person's first simulated trade at a few hours. Going live at a real broker takes longer, because the broker's protocol details, session recovery and certification are your work.What results and metrics does a run produce?A Reamer Research run produces 31 summary metrics, every closed trade, every fill and every order with its outcome, as one schema-versioned JSON document. From Python the binding returns less, the main profit and cost totals and the closed trades, so the full set comes through the C interface.Can I paper trade before going live?Yes, by pointing your Reamer Server connector at your broker's paper or demo account. The server handles paper and live orders the same way, and the licence allows both. The kit's in-memory paper broker only checks that your server is wired up correctly; it fills every order instantly at a made-up price, so it is not a market simulation.What does it take to move from Reamer Research to Reamer Server?Your trading logic and your order structure carry over. The relay functions in the Reamer Research library send the same orders your strategy returns in a backtest to a running Reamer Server and reads the fills back. Around it, you build a pre-trade gate and a broker connector once per deployment, feed live bars, and keep indicators as running state. Cost settings stay in research: live costs are what your broker charges.How does Reamer Research compare with Backtrader?Both run a strategy one bar at a time against historical data. Backtrader is a free, open-source Python framework whose last release was in April 2023; costs and slippage are settings you add. Reamer Research is a paid, compiled engine with a written execution specification, costs modelled by default, byte-identical runs per seed and active maintenance. Backtrader is fine for a first look at an idea; Reamer Research is for results you need to trust and repeat.How does Reamer Research compare with vectorbt PRO?vectorbt PRO is a vectorised Python library, very fast at testing thousands of parameter combinations of a strategy whose shape is already fixed. Reamer Research is an event-driven engine that steps through time with order-level fill rules from a written specification, for checking whether a strategy survives realistic costs in the first place. Some researchers use both.How do Reamer Research and Reamer Server compare with QuantConnect?QuantConnect is a full hosted platform with market data, a cloud IDE, backtesting on its open-source LEAN engine and managed live trading through supported brokers, sold as a monthly subscription. Reamer Research and Reamer Server are two local libraries, a research engine and an order management engine, that you build your own system around. QuantConnect fits if you want data and brokers handled for you; Reamer Labs fits if you want to own the system and keep everything on your machine.How do Reamer Research and Reamer Server compare with NautilusTrader?NautilusTrader is a free, open-source trading platform with a Rust core and a Python API that runs the same strategy code in backtest and live, down to tick and order-book data, with ready-made venue adapters. Reamer Research and Reamer Server are two paid libraries for strategies on bars, a research engine with a written execution specification and an order management engine around your own gate and broker connector. NautilusTrader fits order-book and multi-venue trading; Reamer Labs fits mid-frequency bar strategies where you own the risk gate and the connection.How do Reamer Research and Reamer Server compare with EPAM Deltix QuantOffice?Deltix QuantOffice is an enterprise trading platform from EPAM that covers research, backtesting, paper trading and live execution on one code base, with the TimeBase data store and over 100 exchange and broker connectors, sold under a commercial licence to institutions. Reamer Research and Reamer Server cover the same span, research through live trading, as two smaller libraries that one person or a small team can buy self-serve and run without an integration project.How does Reamer Research compare with DolphinDB?DolphinDB is a time-series database with its own scripting language, streaming and a backtest plugin that simulates order matching down to tick-by-tick and Level-2 data. It suits teams that want to store and compute on large market-data sets in one system. Reamer Research is a backtesting engine only, for strategies on OHLCV bars, with a written execution specification and byte-identical runs, driven from Python, C++ or C. You bring your own data and keep it however you like.Why use Reamer Labs if I want to build my own trading system?You still build your own system. Reamer Labs supplies only its core, the part that has to be right and works the same for everyone. Reamer Research is the research engine, with fill and cost rules already written and tested. Reamer Server is the order core, with order state, sequencing and a record of every decision. You build everything around them your own way, including strategies, data, risk rules, the broker connection, storage and monitoring.

Trust and evidence

Who makes Reamer Research and Reamer Server? Is Reamer Labs legitimate?Reamer Labs is Chaitanya Palghadmal, a sole proprietor in Pune, India, who writes both products, publishes their benchmarks and answers the support email. It is a real business but a small, new one, so check it rather than trust it: the legal terms name him, payment runs through Paddle as merchant of record, and the method and raw data behind the figures are published with DOIs.Have the benchmarks been independently verified?No. No third party has audited the Reamer Research or Reamer Server benchmarks; Reamer Labs ran them itself. What you can check is the method, published as a whitepaper with a DOI, the raw output of every run, also published, and your own hardware, using the benchmark programs that ship in each kit.Does my strategy code or data ever leave my machine?No. Reamer Research and Reamer Server run entirely on your own machine, and neither sends strategy code, data, results or orders to Reamer Labs. Their only contact with Reamer Labs is activating or deactivating a licence, which sends the licence key and a one-way hash of the machine's identity. There is no telemetry, no usage analytics and no crash reporting.Reamer Labs is one person. What happens if it stops?Your installed copy keeps running until its licence term ends, because the licence is checked on your machine, not against a server. What stops is updates, support, renewals and moving the licence to a new machine. If you need protection beyond that, you can set up a source escrow at your own cost, which releases the source to you only if Reamer Labs becomes insolvent or ends the product.Is it secure? Can it pass my firm's vendor review?Each kit ships the documents a vendor review usually asks for, including a filled-in security questionnaire, a software bill of materials and signed release files. The security testing behind them was done by Reamer Labs itself; no outside firm has audited either product. Whether that is enough depends on your firm's policy, and you can test the binaries yourself.Are there customer reviews?Not yet. Reamer Research and Reamer Server are newly launched, and there are no published customer reviews or testimonials. Reviews will appear on the public software listings as customers post them. Until then, the evidence you can check is the uncut integration recordings, the published benchmark method and raw data, and the trial.

Buying and running a licence

How much do Reamer Research and Reamer Server cost?Reamer Research is USD 1,800 per seat per year, and Reamer Server is USD 7,200 per seat per year. Each is paid once for the year and nothing renews automatically. A 30-day trial costs USD 225 for Reamer Research and USD 900 for Reamer Server. A seat is one product on one machine.Is there a free trial?No. There is no free trial or free evaluation licence. There is a paid 30-day trial, USD 225 for Reamer Research and USD 900 for Reamer Server, which gives you the full product on the same terms as an annual licence. The 30 days start when you first activate, not when you buy.Can my firm pay by invoice or sign an order form?Yes. An annual licence can be paid by invoice, issued by Paddle and payable within 14 days by bank transfer, and a signed order form is available on request. Both are at the same prices as the card checkout. The 30-day trial is card only.What counts as a seat? Can I move it to another machine?A seat is one product on one machine at a time, with unlimited runs and processes on that machine. To move it, deactivate on the old machine and activate on the new one. If the old machine is lost, support releases the seat by hand. A Reamer Research seat is also personal to one person.What happens when my licence expires?Anything already running keeps running. Expiry never stops a live process, including a Reamer Server instance that is trading. What it stops is starting a new process, so after expiry a restart will fail until you renew. Nothing renews or charges automatically; renewing is a new purchase.Can I get a refund?Refunds are handled by Paddle, the merchant of record that sells every Reamer Labs licence, under Paddle's refund policy. A request goes to Paddle within 14 days of purchase, and Paddle decides it case by case. There is no partial refund or cancellation partway through a term. The paid trial is where you decide whether the product fits, and much of it can be checked for free before that.What support is included?Email support from the person who builds the product, included with every active licence and not sold separately. Hours are 09:00 to 18:00 India time on weekdays, and requests are triaged into three severity tiers with best-effort acknowledgment targets of one, two and five business days. There is no 24/7 desk, no phone line and no contractual SLA unless a signed order form commits one.What exactly do I receive after buying?An email with your licence key and a link to download the kit. The kit is the product itself, compiled libraries and command-line tools with the full documentation and reference code, and it holds no key. You activate the key once per machine with the reamer-license tool, and the term starts then. Nothing is shipped physically and nothing is hosted for you.

Buy a licence30-day trial or annual licence. Key and kit by email on payment.