Worried about reliability of alpaca

Alpaca Products Discussion
1

I’ve been using alpaca’s paper trading api for a few days and it seems to be riddled with bugs. I’ve asked about a few of them in this forum post:

In addition, I’ve tried the python SDK and it also seems to be buggy. The get_barset() function sometimes returns data and sometimes doesn’t (while being called with the same arguments). Additionally, there are obscure requirements about what dates you can pass in and the formatting of the dates, which makes it a bit difficult to use.

If I can uncover these issues while just trying the APIs for a few minutes, what other problems are there? More importantly, do they exist in the live trading platform?

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3

I have noticed this as well. It almost makes it not worth using it. I am frustrated as can be with this and get no response when asking in the forums

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4

Same with using alpaca backtrader library. Can’t send order with it normally. I hope this startup not fall as others.

5

At this point I can’t consider Alpaca a serious algorithmic trading platform.

I will, sadly, need to find an alternative.

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6

if you find one, please let me know. Ive dug around a little bit and have found nearly nothing

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7

Did you look at Interactive Brokers? I do not have any experience with them. Just curious, as I am also looking for a reliable algo trading platform.

8

I have. Extremely clunky. Alpaca beats them out imo

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9

I just saw this article https://blog.alpaca.markets/blog/2018/7/2/9-great-tools-for-algotrading written by an Alpaca Intern couple years ago. Any thoughts on the various options in this article?

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10

We are not as big as Interactive Brokers yet, but hopefully we’ll catch up soon!

11

I’ve been using the platform for 2 days and have found many bugs also. Are we seriously gonna trust this with real money ??

Please fix all the issues !

  1. I have positions in my portfolio that probably don’t exist. At least I can’t liquidate them because it can’t find them.

  2. I had a limit order that seemingly didn’t fire when it reached the take_profit limit, but as in point 1, maybe it did.

  3. When I place a bracket order at the price of the last order, it sometimes appears as if the base price is above my upper limit and doesn’t go through. Is there a better number than the last_trade price ??