A developer who integrated four futures broker APIs (IBKR, TradeStation, Tradovate, ThinkOrSwim) into the same Elixir trading system shares a practical evaluation framework. The post covers authentication complexity (OAuth2 vs custom flows), symbol convention differences across brokers, streaming protocols (SSE vs WebSocket), order execution reliability, and operational concerns like session management and environment parity. IBKR was removed after silent stop order failures. The author's priority order for broker evaluation puts authentication complexity and order execution reliability above commission rates or platform features.
Table of contents
The four brokersAuthenticationSymbol conventionsStreaming protocolsOrder executionOperational concernsThe priority orderSort: