Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Backtrader VS Matplotlib

Compare Backtrader VS Matplotlib and see what are their differences

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Backtrader logo Backtrader

Backtrader is a complete and advanced python framework that is used for backtesting and trading.

Matplotlib logo Matplotlib

matplotlib is a python 2D plotting library which produces publication quality figures in a variety...
  • Backtrader Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-30
  • Matplotlib Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-14

Backtrader features and specs

  • Versatility
    Backtrader supports a wide variety of data sources and formats, as well as different types of financial instruments, allowing for extensive backtesting and live trading capabilities.
  • Community and Documentation
    The platform has a strong community and comprehensive documentation, making it easier for new users to get started and for experienced users to troubleshoot and optimize their strategies.
  • Python Integration
    Written in Python, Backtrader allows users to leverage Python's extensive ecosystem of libraries for data analysis, machine learning, and other financial computations.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source project, users can modify and extend the platform to meet their specific trading and testing needs without restrictions, and contribute to its development.
  • Flexibility in Strategy Design
    Backtrader offers a flexible and intuitive framework to design complex trading strategies, enabling users to test multiple strategies with different parameters efficiently.

Possible disadvantages of Backtrader

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Despite its flexibility, new users may find Backtrader's extensive features and options overwhelming, requiring a significant amount of time to learn and effectively utilize.
  • Performance Issues
    For very large datasets, Backtrader might experience performance bottlenecks or require additional optimization, as Python is not the fastest language for high-frequency backtesting.
  • Limited Technical Support
    As a community-driven open-source project, Backtrader might lack the formal technical support and customer service that comes with commercial trading platforms.
  • Complexity in Live Trading
    Transitioning from backtesting to live trading can require significant additional setup and potential custom development, especially in integrating broker APIs.
  • Outdated Resources
    Some educational materials and tutorials may be outdated, leading to confusion due to interface or feature updates that are not well-documented.

Matplotlib features and specs

  • Versatility
    Matplotlib can generate a wide variety of plots, ranging from simple line plots to complex 3D plots. This versatility makes it a go-to library for many scientific and technical visualizations.
  • Customization
    It offers extensive customization options for virtually every element of a plot, including colors, labels, line styles, and more, allowing users to tailor plots to meet specific needs.
  • Integrations
    Matplotlib integrates well with other Python libraries such as NumPy, Pandas, and SciPy, making it easier to plot data directly from these sources.
  • Community and Documentation
    It has a large, active community and comprehensive documentation that includes tutorials, examples, and detailed references, which can help users solve problems and improve their plot-making skills.
  • Interactivity
    Matplotlib supports interactive plots, which can be embedded in Jupyter notebooks and GUIs, allowing for dynamic data exploration and presentation.
  • Publication-Quality
    The library is capable of producing high-quality, publication-ready graphics that meet the stringent requirements of academic journals and professional presentations.

Possible disadvantages of Matplotlib

  • Complexity
    While Matplotlib offers extensive customization, it can be complex and sometimes unintuitive for beginners, requiring a steep learning curve to master all its functionality.
  • Performance
    Rendering a large number of plots or handling very large datasets can be slow, making Matplotlib less suitable for real-time data visualization.
  • Modern Aesthetics
    Out-of-the-box plots from Matplotlib can look somewhat dated compared to those from newer plotting libraries like Seaborn or Plotly, requiring additional customization to achieve a modern look.
  • 3D Plots
    Although Matplotlib supports 3D plotting, its capabilities are relatively limited and less sophisticated compared to specialized 3D plotting libraries.
  • Size and Structure
    The package is relatively large and can be slow to import. Its extensive structure can make finding specific functions and understanding the overall architecture challenging.

Backtrader videos

Backtrader Python Review

More videos:

  • Review - Algorithmic Trading with Python and Backtrader (Part 1)
  • Review - Backtrader Live Forex Trading with Interactive Brokers (Part 1)

Matplotlib videos

Learn Matplotlib in 6 minutes | Matplotlib Python Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Backtrader and Matplotlib)
Finance
100 100%
0% 0
Technical Computing
0 0%
100% 100
Development
100 100%
0% 0
Data Science And Machine Learning

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Backtrader and Matplotlib

Backtrader Reviews

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Matplotlib Reviews

25 Python Frameworks to Master
Matplotlib is a widely used tool for data visualization in Python. It provides an object-oriented API for embedding plots into applications.
Source: kinsta.com
5 Best Python Libraries For Data Visualization in 2023
You can use this library for multiple purposes such as generating plots, bar charts, histograms, power spectra, stemplots, pie charts, and more. The best thing about Matplotlib is you just have to write a few lines of code and it handles the rest by itself. Metaplotilib focuses on static images for publication along with interactive figures using toolkits like Qt and GTK.
15 data science tools to consider using in 2021
Matplotlib is an open source Python plotting library that's used to read, import and visualize data in analytics applications. Data scientists and other users can create static, animated and interactive data visualizations with Matplotlib, using it in Python scripts, the Python and IPython shells, Jupyter Notebook, web application servers and various GUI toolkits.
Top Python Libraries For Image Processing In 2021
Matplotlib is primarily used for 2D visualizations such as scatter plots, bar graphs, histograms, and many more, but we can also use it for image processing. It is effective to get information out of an image. It doesn’t support all file formats.
Top 8 Python Libraries for Data Visualization
Matplotlib is a data visualization library and 2-D plotting library of Python It was initially released in 2003 and it is the most popular and widely-used plotting library in the Python community. It comes with an interactive environment across multiple platforms. Matplotlib can be used in Python scripts, the Python and IPython shells, the Jupyter notebook, web application...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Matplotlib seems to be a lot more popular than Backtrader. While we know about 107 links to Matplotlib, we've tracked only 3 mentions of Backtrader. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Backtrader mentions (3)

  • My reality of trading and how i wish i had never started.
    I do like what I see and hear about backtrader.com. I would say they are a notable exception to my general rule of not trusting or using backtesting frameworks. However, I still think it is important to understand how the framework you are using works. So if you are using backtrader for backtesting you still need to put in the time to understand the backtesting engine. Source: about 2 years ago
  • My reality of trading and how i wish i had never started.
    What about backtrader.com? And I feel like it would be step 2 after you at least have something to backtrade and test haha. Source: about 2 years ago
  • I need to know what can go wrong with my 'masterplan'
    Backtesting is basically applying your strategy on historical price data to see if it makes money. I've used Backtrader it works decently well: https://backtrader.com/. Source: over 3 years ago

Matplotlib mentions (107)

  • Python for Data Visualization: Best Tools and Practices
    Matplotlib is the backbone of Python data visualization. It’s a flexible, reliable library for creating static plots. Whether you're making simple bar charts or complex graphs, Matplotlib allows extensive customization. You can adjust nearly every aspect of a plot to suit your needs. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Build a Competitive Intelligence Tool Powered by AI
    Add data visualization to make it actionable for your business using pandas.pydata.org and matplotlib.org. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Data Visualisation Basics
    Matplotlib: a versatile library for visualizations, but it can take some code effort to put together common visualizations. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Creating a CSV to Graph Generator App Using ToolJet and Python Libraries
    In this tutorial, we'll create a CSV to Graph Generator app using ToolJet and Python code. This app enables users to upload a CSV file and generate various types of graphs, including line, scatter, bar, histogram, and box plots. Since ToolJet supports Python (and JavaScript) code out of the box, we'll incorporate Python code and the matplotlib library to handle the graph generation. Additionally, we'll use... - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Something is strange with CrowdStrike timeline
    It looks like matplotlib to me: https://matplotlib.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Backtrader and Matplotlib, you can also consider the following products

quantra - A public API for quantitative finance made with Quantlib

Pandas - Pandas is an open source library providing high-performance, easy-to-use data structures and data analysis tools for the Python.

QuantConnect - QuantConnect provides a free algorithm backtesting tool and financial data so engineers can design algorithmic trading strategies. We are democratizing algorithm trading technology to empower investors.

GnuPlot - Gnuplot is a portable command-line driven interactive data and function plotting utility.

Quantopian - Your algorithmic investing platform

Plotly - Low-Code Data Apps