Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Quantopian VS Pyfolio

Compare Quantopian VS Pyfolio and see what are their differences

Quantopian logo Quantopian

Your algorithmic investing platform

Pyfolio logo Pyfolio

Pyfolio is a world-class python library that is all for the performance and risk analysis for the financial portfolios, working in collaboration with Zipline in order to provide backtesting support.
  • Quantopian Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-27
  • Pyfolio Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-30

Quantopian features and specs

  • Community Collaboration
    Quantopian provided a platform for users to share and collaborate on trading algorithms, enabling users to learn from each other and improve their strategies.
  • Access to Data
    Quantopian offered access to a wide range of financial data sets, which allowed users to develop and back-test their algorithms using historical data.
  • Comprehensive Development Environment
    It featured an integrated development environment (IDE) with tools for coding, testing, and back-testing trading strategies in Python, which was user-friendly and powerful.
  • Educational Resources
    Quantopian provided various educational resources, including lectures, tutorials, and a supportive community forum, which were beneficial for both beginners and experienced traders.
  • Competition and Incentives
    Quantopian organized contests that incentivized users to develop successful trading algorithms, with the potential to receive a live trading allocation from the company.

Possible disadvantages of Quantopian

  • Shutting Down Services
    Quantopian shut down its retail offering in 2020, which meant that users could no longer use their platform for developing and testing new algorithms.
  • Limited Live Trading Options
    Users found limited options for deploying their strategies into live trading. Quantopian allowed this only for algorithms selected for allocation, which reduced accessibility for many users.
  • Dependence on Platform
    Users who developed algorithms on Quantopian's platform were heavily dependent on it, and when it shut down, they had to transition to other platforms, which could be challenging.
  • Resource Limitations
    There were computational and resource limitations for users, which could restrict the complexity of the algorithms and back-testing users could perform without additional infrastructure.
  • Portfolio Selection Process
    The selection process for having algorithms licenced for live trading allocation was competitive and not transparent to many users, which could lead to frustration.

Pyfolio features and specs

  • Comprehensive Analysis
    Pyfolio provides a detailed analysis of portfolio performance including metrics like returns, risk, and exposure which helps in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your investment strategy.
  • Integration with Zipline
    Pyfolio integrates seamlessly with Zipline, another Quantopian library, allowing users to analyze the backtest performance results effortlessly.
  • Visualization Tools
    The library comes with powerful visualization tools that make it easy to plot and interpret various performance metrics and diagnostics related to the portfolio.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source, Pyfolio is accessible to a large community of users who contribute to its development and help fix bugs and improve functionality.
  • Customizable
    Offers flexibility to customize reports and analyze specific parameters relevant to a user's strategy, which can be crucial for advanced strategies.

Possible disadvantages of Pyfolio

  • Maintenance Issues
    Since Quantopian shut down, Pyfolio has not been actively maintained, potentially leading to compatibility issues with new Python versions or other libraries.
  • Limited Support for Asset Classes
    Pyfolio was initially designed with a focus on equities, so it may not be as effective for other asset classes such as futures or options without substantial modification.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    New users, especially those without a strong statistical or quantitative background, may experience a steep learning curve due to the complexity of financial metrics used.
  • Lack of Real-time Analysis
    Pyfolio is primarily designed for backtesting and may not support real-time portfolio performance analysis and reporting out of the box.
  • Dependence on Other Libraries
    Though it integrates well with certain libraries, it still relies on several other libraries for data processing and analysis, which may complicate its standalone use and lead to dependency hell.

Quantopian videos

Algorithmic Trading with Python and Quantopian p. 1

More videos:

  • Review - Quantopian, simple strategies

Pyfolio videos

Using Pyfolio to Analyze your Trading Strategies

More videos:

  • Review - Analyzing Backtest with Pyfolio - Algorithmic Trading with Python and Quantopian p. 8
  • Review - Psychsignal Lesson 6: Pyfolio

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Quantopian and Pyfolio)
Finance
68 68%
32% 32
Development
63 63%
37% 37
Tool
71 71%
29% 29
Investing
60 60%
40% 40

User comments

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Quantopian and Pyfolio, you can also consider the following products

quantra - A public API for quantitative finance made with Quantlib

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.

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

Intrinio - Intrinio is a trading platform, providing professionals with the best in class financial market data API and other tools.

Quantreex - An automated trading platform that you let you create trading strategies intuitively.

CloudQuant - Crowd based algorithmic trading development and backtesing for stock market trading.