Rithmic Review

Our Take on Rithmic

Best Prop Firms using the Rithmic Data Feed

1. Apex Trader Funding
2. Audacity Capital
3. BluFX
4. Bulenox
5. City Traders Imperium
6. Crypto Fund Trader
7. E8 Markets
8. Earn2Trade
9. Elite Trader Funding
10. Fast Track Trading
11. Fidelcrest
12. FTMO
13. FTUK
14. Funded Trading Plus
15. FundedNext
16. HyroTrader
17. Leeloo Trading
18. Lux Trading Firm
19. My Forex Funds
20. My Funded Futures
21. OneUp Trader
22. SuperFunded
23. Take Profit Trader
24. The Trading Pit
25. TickTick Trader
26. Topstep
27. TopTier Trader
28. Trade The Pool
29. TradeDay
30. Traders With Edge
31. True Forex Funds
32. UProfit
33. Phidias Propfirm

Plans, Features, Costs

Rithmic connects exchange and venue market data with trading platforms. The supported CME group exchanges are CBOT, Comex, CME, and NYMEX, and additional exchanges and venues are MGEX, NASDAQ, and ICE.

The Rithmic data feed is non-aggregated, gives you the option for MBO (market by order) and MBP (market by price) data, comes with full market depth, and tick by tick data.

Trading Tool

R|Trader Pro: R|Trader Pro is Ritmic’s in-house trading platform, with features like market depth, 100 trading studies, real-time connections to Microsoft Excel, charts, and more. Webtrading is also available, plus an app for iOS and Android.

Traders, system developers, introducing brokers, futures commission merchants, and funding evaluators belong to Rithmic’s clients.

Use Cases:

• You use Rithmic’s R|Trader Pro platform for your funding evaluations of your prop firm. Simply open R|Trader, place your trades, and everything gets logged there.
• Alternatively, Rithmic’s R|Trader Pro platform allows you to manually place trades and send the orders to your connected futures broker, like AMP Futures.
• Or, let’s say you are using NinjaTrader for trading strategy development. You can connect NinjaTrader to Rithmic, and then you connect Rithmic to your futures commission merchant or broker like Wedbush Futures or Optimus Futures. This way, you can place your orders in NinjaTrader and they will be executed on your Optimus Futures account.

Rithmic Costs

There are no direct fees for the R|Trader Pro platform. However, since Rithmic connects the market data with your platform, you have to pay market data fees.

If you are a prop trader and within evaluation, you typically don’t pay a separate exchange fee like for the CME. Instead, the costs are included in your prop firm evaluation fee.

Once you get funded with a real-money account, or if you connect your trading platform via Rithmic to your broker, you have to pay for exchange fees.

Rithmic charges those fees for any single instance and any device. Let’s say you use two tools, NinjaTrader and Quantower, and you connect both via Rithmic to your futures broker and only trade CBOT products. You also use both on your Windows computer at home and on your computer at work. Now, you have to pay CBOT fees 4 times, one for each front-end tool and one for each location.

Brand Popularity

Rithmic has continuously grown in popularity. We’ve evaluated the number of monthly global searches for the brand name.

Read Customer Reviews of Rithmic.com

Rithmic currently has a Trustpilot rating of 1.8 out of 5, based on only 23 reviews, which is categorized as Poor. However, the Rithmic profile on Trustpilot is unclaimed, so the ratings are neither moderated nor checked by any means. Some of the customer reviews appear not to be relevant to this software.

What Is Rithmic, Anyway?

Here’s where things get confusing for most people: Rithmic isn’t a broker. It’s not even really a “trading platform” in the traditional sense. Think of Rithmic as the engine that powers your car, you don’t drive the engine directly, but without it, you’re not going anywhere.

Founded in 2000, Rithmic is a trade execution software and data feed provider. They’re the middleman between you and the futures exchanges, delivering lightning-fast market data and routing your orders to the CME, ICE, NASDAQ, and other major exchanges. Their infrastructure handles approximately 20% of daily futures volume, which is absolutely massive.

When you use platforms like NinjaTrader, Sierra Chart, Quantower, or even Tradovate, you can connect them to Rithmic’s data feed. Rithmic then provides the real-time market data that populates your charts and routes your orders to your broker for execution. Their specialty? Ultra-low latency execution that was previously only available to hedge funds and large trading houses.

Rithmic also offers two proprietary platforms: R | Trader (basic) and R | Trader Pro (advanced). But most traders use Rithmic as the data and execution backbone for third-party platforms rather than using R | Trader Pro directly.

Why Do Professional Traders Obsess Over Rithmic?

Speed That Measures in Microseconds

The big selling point is latency, or rather, the lack of it. Rithmic advertises tick-to-trade execution in under 250 microseconds. That’s a quarter of a millisecond. For context, it takes 300-400 milliseconds for you to blink.

Why does this matter? In high-frequency trading and scalping, every millisecond counts. When you’re competing for fills in the order queue, being faster means you get filled first. For algo traders and scalpers, this speed advantage can be the difference between profitability and failure.

Their infrastructure is co-located at major data centers in Chicago (right next to the CME), which means there’s essentially no distance for your orders to travel. This physical proximity to exchange matching engines is why Rithmic dominates among prop firms and professional traders.

Market Data That Doesn’t Lie

Many data feeds aggregate, filter, or smooth out market data to reduce bandwidth. This means you’re not seeing every tick, you’re seeing an approximation. Rithmic provides unfiltered, tick-by-tick market data with full market depth.

They offer Market By Order (MBO) data, which shows you individual orders in the order book, not just aggregated levels. This granular view is critical for order flow traders who need to see exactly what’s happening at each price level.

The data includes precise timestamps down to the microsecond, so you can track exactly how long it took for your order to reach the exchange. This transparency is rare and valuable for serious traders.

Server-Side Order Management

Here’s something crucial: Rithmic handles orders on their servers, not your computer. This means:

• Bracket orders stay live even if your computer crashes
• Trailing stops continue working if your internet drops
• OCO orders (one-cancels-other) are managed server-side

This is massive for risk management. You’re not dependent on your local machine staying online for your protective stops to work.

Integration With Everything

Rithmic connects to virtually every professional trading platform:

• NinjaTrader
• Sierra Chart
• Quantower
• MultiCharts
• Bookmap
• MotiveWave
• Jigsaw
• Thinkorswim
• And dozens more

You can also build custom trading systems using their APIs (R | API for C++/.NET or FIX 4.2 for execution). For developers, this flexibility is unmatched.

The R | Trader Platforms

R | Trader (Basic)

This is Rithmic’s stripped-down platform. You get:

• Real-time quotes
• Market volume
• Order placement and management
• Position tracking
• Performance stats

What you DON’T get: Charts. Yeah, seriously. If you want to see price charts, you’ll need a third-party solution or screen two running something else.

This platform is basically for execution only, place orders, manage positions, view your account. It’s free with your Rithmic data subscription, but honestly, most traders skip it entirely.

R | Trader Pro

This is Rithmic’s full-featured platform, and it’s actually pretty solid. You get:

Advanced Charting: About 100 built-in technical indicators. You can draw trend lines, shapes, arcs, fans, and other visual tools. Customizable chart styles and timeframes.

Excel Integration: This is where R | Trader Pro shines. Two-way communication with Microsoft Excel means you can build indicators, run calculations, and even automate trades using Excel formulas. For quants who live in spreadsheets, this is powerful.

Depth of Market: Full order book visibility with real-time bid/ask spreads and order flow analysis.

Advanced Order Types: Market, limit, stop, stop-limit, brackets, OCO, trailing stops, all managed server-side for reliability.

Mobile App: Trade from iOS or Android devices. The app is functional but basic, tiny buttons, no full-screen mode, pretty bare-bones interface.

The Interface: Clean but dated. It’s functional, not beautiful. Everything is visible and accessible, but customization options are limited. It feels like software designed by engineers for engineers.

The big limitation? You can’t import third-party indicators or connect to non-Rithmic data sources. You’re locked into their ecosystem, which some traders find restrictive.

What’s This Actually Going to Cost?

Here’s where it gets interesting, and potentially expensive.

Rithmic Connection Fee

$25/month minimum, This is waived if you trade more than 100 round-turn contracts per month through some brokers.

Some brokers structure this differently, but expect to pay around $25/month for access to Rithmic’s infrastructure.

Routing Fees

$0.10 per contract per side

This means each contract you trade costs you 10 cents when entering and 10 cents when exiting = 20 cents round turn.

This is actually quite competitive for professional-grade execution. It used to be $0.25 per side, so the reduction to $0.10 is significant.

Market Data Fees

Here’s where it adds up:

CME Group Bundle (CME, CBOT, COMEX, NYMEX):

• Level I (Top of Book): $9-12/month
• Level II (Full Depth): $41+/month

Individual Exchanges:

• $3-4/month per exchange for Level I
• $16/month per exchange for Level II

Professional Rates: If you’re classified as a professional trader (registered with FINRA, manage client funds, etc.), rates are significantly higher, often 5-10x more expensive.

R | Trader Pro Platform

Free with your Rithmic data subscription. Unlike NinjaTrader or Tradovate which charge platform fees, R | Trader Pro costs nothing beyond the connection and data fees.

API Access

$100/month per User ID for API connections. This is a flat fee regardless of trading volume and allows you to connect up to 5 different trading platforms simultaneously.

Total Monthly Cost

Bare minimum: $25 connection + $9 data = $34/month (plus routing fees per trade)

More realistic: $25 connection + $41 data (Level II) = $66/month (plus routing fees)

With API access: $100 + $25 + $41 = $166/month (plus routing fees)

Compare this to platforms like Tradovate which include data and routing in their pricing, and Rithmic can get expensive fast.

The Good, The Bad, and The “Why Is This So Technical?”

What Actually Impresses Me:

Execution speed is genuinely superior, That sub-250 microsecond claim isn’t marketing hype. For high-frequency trading and scalping, Rithmic is objectively faster than most alternatives.

Unfiltered tick data, You’re seeing every tick, every order, exactly as it happens. No aggregation, no filtering, no delays.

Server-side order management, Your stops and brackets don’t depend on your computer staying online. This is professional-grade risk management.

MBO (Market By Order) data, See individual orders in the book, not just price levels. Critical for order flow analysis.

Rock-solid reliability, When connected through a quality broker, Rithmic’s infrastructure rarely goes down. It’s built to handle massive volume without breaking.

API flexibility, Build whatever you want. C++, .NET, FIX protocol. Full control for algo traders.

Used by the pros, 20% of daily futures volume runs through Rithmic. Prop firms, hedge funds, and institutional traders rely on it.

Excel integration is clever, For traders comfortable with spreadsheets, this opens up powerful custom analysis options.

What Drives Me Absolutely Crazy:

R | Trader is useless, Offering an “execution platform” with no charting is ridiculous. Who trades blind?

Steep learning curve, This is not beginner-friendly. At all. You’re expected to already understand futures trading, data feeds, and technical infrastructure.

Zero educational resources, Rithmic provides almost no tutorials, guides, or educational materials. You’re on your own to figure things out.

Customer support is technical only, They’ll help you troubleshoot connectivity issues, but don’t expect hand-holding on how to use the platform or develop trading strategies.

Limited customization in R | Trader Pro, You can’t import third-party indicators or access non-Rithmic data sources. The interface is rigid.

Cost adds up quickly, $25-66/month base + routing fees on every trade. If you’re a low-volume trader, this pricing makes zero sense.

Professional data rates are punishing, If you’re classified as professional, market data costs skyrocket to hundreds per month.

Mobile app is bare-bones, Tiny buttons, no full-screen mode, minimal functionality. It works, but it’s not pleasant to use.

Windows-focused, While R | Trader Pro technically runs on other platforms, it’s clearly designed for Windows. Mac and Linux users will struggle.

Trustpilot score of 1.8, With only 23 reviews, Rithmic has a “Poor” rating. Common complaints include data lags, phantom executions, incorrect order processing, and reliability issues (particularly with prop firm versions of Rithmic).

Who Should Actually Use This?

Rithmic is perfect if you’re:

A high-frequency or algorithmic trader, The speed advantage and API access make this essential for automated strategies.

An active scalper, If you’re making dozens or hundreds of trades per day, microsecond latency matters.

Part of a prop firm, Most funded trader programs use Rithmic infrastructure. You’ll need to get comfortable with it.

An order flow trader, MBO data and full market depth give you insights that aggregated feeds can’t provide.

Trading high volume, At 100+ contracts per month, those $0.10 routing fees are competitive and often lower than alternatives.

Technically proficient, You understand data feeds, latency, order routing, and don’t need educational support.

Building custom trading systems, The API flexibility lets you create exactly what you need.

Skip it if you:

Trade casually or infrequently, Paying $25-66/month plus routing fees makes no sense if you’re trading 10 contracts per month.

Are a beginner, The lack of educational resources and technical complexity will overwhelm you.

Want a simple all-in-one platform, Rithmic is infrastructure, not a complete solution. You’ll need separate charting software.

Trade stocks or options primarily, Rithmic focuses exclusively on futures (and some forex). Not ideal for equities.

Need customer support and education, You’re expected to figure things out yourself or ask your broker.

Are on a tight budget, There are cheaper alternatives that provide adequate speed for most retail traders.

Use Macs exclusively, While possible, Rithmic is clearly Windows-optimized.

How Does It Stack Up?

Rithmic vs CQG

CQG offers broader market coverage and more comprehensive charting and analytics tools, but Rithmic wins on raw execution speed and data quality. Rithmic’s Market By Order data is superior to CQG’s Market By Price aggregation, making it better for order flow analysis.

Cost: CQG is typically more expensive overall, with $0.10/contract routing (same as Rithmic) but higher platform fees.

Speed: Rithmic has the edge in ultra-low latency. CQG is fast, but Rithmic is faster for high-frequency strategies.

Reliability: CQG historically has more stability issues when using third-party platforms like MultiCharts. Rithmic is generally more stable.

Choose Rithmic if you prioritize execution speed and MBO data. Choose CQG if you need broader market access and more analytical tools.

Rithmic vs Trading Technologies (TT)

Trading Technologies is the gold standard for institutional traders and prop shops. TT offers the absolute fastest execution and most sophisticated order flow tools, but at a significantly higher price point.

Rithmic is essentially “TT for retail traders”, professional-grade speed and reliability at accessible prices.

Choose TT if you’re managing institutional capital or trading massive volume. Choose Rithmic if you want pro-level tools at retail-friendly prices.

Rithmic vs IQFeed / Interactive Brokers

IQFeed and IB data feeds are significantly cheaper but slower. They’re adequate for swing traders and lower-frequency strategies, but not competitive for scalping or algo trading.

Choose Rithmic if you need the fastest data and execution. Choose IQFeed/IB if you’re trading longer timeframes where microseconds don’t matter.

Rithmic vs Native Broker Platforms (Tradovate, NinjaTrader Brokerage)

Platforms like Tradovate include data and execution in their pricing, making them cheaper for low-volume traders. However, they don’t match Rithmic’s raw speed and data quality.

Choose Rithmic if you’re a high-volume trader where execution speed directly impacts profitability. Choose native broker platforms if you want simplicity and lower costs.

My Completely Honest Take

Rithmic isn’t a product for everyone, and that’s by design. This isn’t NinjaTrader trying to serve everyone from complete beginners to professionals. Rithmic targets a very specific segment: serious futures traders who need institutional-grade execution speed and are willing to pay for it.

The execution speed is real. The unfiltered data is real. The server-side order management is real. These aren’t marketing claims, they’re measurable advantages that matter immensely if you’re trading the right strategies.

But here’s the thing: most retail traders won’t notice the difference. If you’re swing trading or making a few trades per week, paying $66/month plus routing fees for infrastructure that’s 50 microseconds faster than the competition is ridiculous. You’re paying for speed you can’t utilize.

However, if you’re scalping NQ with 50+ round-turns per day, those microseconds compound. Getting filled first in the queue, seeing every tick without aggregation, having your stops managed server-side, these features become worth every penny.

The lack of educational support and the technical complexity are intentional. Rithmic isn’t trying to onboard newbies. They’re providing professional-grade infrastructure to traders who already know what they’re doing.

That said, the Trustpilot score of 1.8 is concerning. The complaints about data lags, phantom executions, and reliability issues (especially with prop firm versions) can’t be ignored. While many professional traders swear by Rithmic, there’s clearly a subset of users experiencing serious problems.

The pattern seems to be: Rithmic connected through quality brokers (AMP Futures, Optimus Futures) = excellent reliability. Rithmic through prop firms or cheaper brokers = more frequent issues.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars, Professional-grade infrastructure with unmatched speed and data quality, but expensive, technical, and not suitable for most retail traders.

If you’re a serious futures trader trading high volume with strategies that benefit from ultra-low latency, Rithmic is probably essential. The speed advantage and MBO data are worth the cost and complexity.

But if you’re trading casually, learning futures, or don’t specifically need microsecond execution, you’re better served by simpler, cheaper alternatives like Tradovate or native broker platforms.

Bottom line: Rithmic is the infrastructure backbone that powers professional futures trading. Phenomenal speed, unfiltered data, and rock-solid server-side order management, but expensive, technical, and designed for experienced traders who already know exactly what they’re doing. Not a product for beginners, but arguably essential for serious scalpers and algo traders.

The 20% of daily futures volume that runs through Rithmic doesn’t lie, it’s the professional’s choice. Just make sure you’re actually at that professional level before paying professional-level fees.