Tradovate vs Rithmic for prop traders

Most futures prop firms put your account on one of a handful of platforms, and Tradovate and Rithmic are two of the most common. You usually don't choose; the firm does. But knowing how they differ helps when you connect a copier or spread accounts across firms.

What they are

• Tradovate is a futures broker and platform with its own web, desktop and mobile apps. Prop firms on Tradovate give you a Tradovate login with your accounts behind it.
• Rithmic is order routing and market data infrastructure. You trade through a front end such as R Trader Pro, NinjaTrader, Quantower or others, and your firm runs its accounts on its own Rithmic system.

Logging in

With Tradovate the main thing to get right is the environment: live or demo. With Rithmic it's the system (which firm) and the gateway (which location). Both are covered step by step in our guides for Tradovate and Rithmic.

Front ends

If you like to trade from TradingView, check which platforms your firm supports it with. If you use NinjaTrader or Quantower, both can connect to Rithmic, and NinjaTrader also works with Tradovate. With a copier that reads fills from the leader account, the front end you click in doesn't matter: the fill is what gets copied.

Sessions

Brokers limit and expire sessions differently. With either platform, expect to reconnect occasionally, and make sure your copier tells you when a connection drops rather than failing silently. Edgeable marks the session stale after three missed Heartbeats and alerts you.

When your accounts are on both

That's common once you trade with more than one firm. You don't need two copiers: one copy group can include Tradovate and Rithmic accounts together. See copying trades across brokers.

Which is better?

For prop trading, the honest answer is whichever your firm uses and your preferred front end supports. Pick the firm for its rules and payouts, then connect whichever platform it gives you.