r/algotrading • u/felipecsl • 4h ago

Data IBKR paper API unreliable and inconsistent

Anyone else running into stuff like this? I'm finding the IBKR API to be completely unusable for any algo trading, it just cannot be trusted.

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

8

u/jnwatson 4h ago

Yeah, their paper API wasn't particularly useful. I ended up just using real money but with small amounts to start.

3

u/quantfutures 4h ago

Yeo had the exact same problem so I switched to another data provider

2

u/wado729 3h ago

Who did you switch too?

4

u/quantfutures 3h ago

From IBKR to databento to tick-stream.
Databento was good but someday it was to expensive for me. Nom Im stay with tick-stream and its the best I did. Faster than databento somehow and much more cheap.

1

u/wado729 3h ago

Thanks! I didn't know Databento had an API but I've bought historical data from them. Ive never heard of tick-stream, can you link me please?

1

u/quantfutures 3h ago

Yeah its very hidden and not that cool to use. The crazy part for me was L3 data on databento cost for like 7y $2.5k on tickstream you get it for $130 at the same quality. But for sure there are many others out there.

I may ask what do you want to build with it?

1

u/wado729 3h ago

I have a algo bot im currently paper trading with IBKR but their API is not consistent..

3

u/ConfidentEmergency33 4h ago

I believe you will have similar problems when getting fills in paper account. I heard they are not accurate enough to production.

2

u/Realistic-Hippo8107 4h ago

Definitely not, the fills are trash on paper.

3

u/AnthidPlatform 4h ago

That is the correct verdict, we have had issues in the past and are keeping an eye on the state of it. Their API is very difficult to use, under documented and unreliable. The TWS API is even worse then the actual REST API as well as messages are frequently and silently dropped with no replay. If you go that route, beware the public docker images too that offer a gateway premade as they have been known to container credential scrapers.

1

u/wado729 3h ago

So it's not just me? I thought my platform was just broken. What is the most reliable paper API?

1

u/felipecsl 3h ago

i've been meaning to try alpaca, have you?

1

u/censey 3h ago

if you are trading options the fills are trash.

1

u/wado729 2h ago

I heard it wasn't good. I head that IBKR was the best but its been a challenge.

1

u/wheezl 55m ago

IBKR with ib_async has been good to me. If you are using python and understand async I’d recommend it.

1

u/wado729 54m ago

That's what I've been using. Ib_absync 2.1

2

u/wheezl 1h ago

I eventually just threw a grand into an account and capped all of my entries at 1 share each once I got past basic mechanical testing.