An Amibroker data feed is what actually powers your charts, backtests, and live scans. AmiBroker itself is just the engine, not the fuel. Pick the wrong provider and it shows up later: gaps in your backfill, lag during volatile sessions, a feed that drops mid-trade with nobody answering the phone. This guide covers what separates a solid Amibroker data feed provider from a mediocre one right now, and how to check before you commit to a subscription.
What an Amibroker data feed actually does
AmiBroker doesn’t ship with market data. A data feed is a separate service, usually a plugin or a small companion app, that pushes prices into AmiBroker’s local database, either as end-of-day (EOD) bars or as a continuous real-time stream. Once that connection is running, AmiBroker treats it like any other data source: charts populate, AFL scans run against it, backtests pull from whatever history the feed has backfilled.
A complete feed includes OHLC price data, volume, and open interest for derivatives, plus enough historical depth to backtest against. It’s the quality of each of these, not just whether they’re present, that decides whether your strategies are testing against real conditions or noise.
Real-time vs. EOD: picking the right tier
This is the first real decision. Real-time feeds stream throughout the session, sometimes down to the tick, and matter most if you’re day trading, scalping, or running intraday AFL scans that need to react within seconds. EOD feeds update once after the close, and they’re genuinely enough if you’re swing trading or backtesting on daily or weekly timeframes. You don’t need tick noise to see a trend playing out over three weeks.
Amiprofits runs a single tick-by-tick real-time feed covering NSE and BSE equity, F&O, MCX commodities, and currency segments. Data refreshes up to roughly 100 times a second, with candle formation starting from 5 seconds, so it’s built for the intraday tier rather than a slower EOD-only plan.
What actually separates providers
Once you’re past the real-time-vs-EOD decision, comparing providers comes down to a handful of concrete questions rather than marketing copy.
Backfill depth matters more than most people expect going in. A feed that only holds a year of 1-minute data will quietly cap how far back you can backtest, even if the live feed itself runs fine. Amiprofits includes 1-year 1-minute backfill and 20-year EOD history as standard.
Symbol limits are another one to check. Some providers cap how many symbols you can track live and charge more to raise that cap; Amiprofits doesn’t apply a symbol limit on its plan.
Update frequency changes how much the gap costs you. Tick-by-tick feeds update on every trade; others batch updates at fixed intervals. That barely matters for swing trading and is decisive for scalping.
Indicator access is worth factoring in too. Some providers sell data and leave you to buy AFL strategies elsewhere. Amiprofits includes 10 in-house premium indicators plus access to a community library of over 5,000 free AFL indicators.
Platform compatibility is easy to overlook until it isn’t. Amiprofits runs on Windows 7 and later (64-bit), with a Chrome-based interface and an Android app for checking things on the move.
And then there’s support when the feed drops, which is the hardest thing to judge before you’ve actually paid for a month. An ISP hiccup or a server restart at the wrong moment turns into a real problem if nobody picks up. A free trial that runs the live feed on your own machine is about the only honest way to test this in advance.
Data quality and reliability, in practice
Accuracy and consistency matter more than any single line item on a spec sheet. A feed with small but frequent price discrepancies erodes confidence in every signal it generates, and gaps in historical data distort backtest results without ever throwing an obvious error. Worth checking for:
Consistent delivery without gaps between live and historical data. Clean, adjusted historical data that accounts for splits and dividends. Transparent handling of corporate actions. A support channel that actually responds during market hours, not just business hours.
Setting up an Amibroker data feed
The installation pattern is broadly similar across providers. Download the feed’s plugin or “data feeder” application from the provider’s site, install AmiBroker itself first if you haven’t (version 6.20 or later is typical), then install the feed software and log in with the credentials your provider issues after signup.
Once you’re logged in, the feeder connects to the provider’s servers and writes quotes directly into AmiBroker’s local database, so you’re not importing files by hand. With Amiprofits, activation is instant after payment, and setup usually takes a few minutes from installer to live chart.
If something doesn’t connect on the first try, the usual culprits are a mismatched AmiBroker version, a firewall blocking the feeder’s connection, or login credentials that haven’t activated yet. Most providers’ support teams can sort any of these out within minutes during market hours.
How to decide
Match the tier to your actual holding period instead of buying the most expensive plan on offer. Days or weeks: EOD data covers you at a fraction of the cost. Minutes or hours: real-time data isn’t optional, and there’s no cheaper substitute once your holding period drops below a session.
Beyond that, weigh backfill depth against how far back you actually backtest, check that the symbol count and segments match what you trade, and use a free trial to see whether the feed runs stably on your own machine and connection before you commit to a monthly or annual plan. Amiprofits offers a free trial and is priced at ₹699/month or ₹6,999/year, with all core segments, unlimited symbols, and the indicator bundle included rather than sold as an add-on.
Bottom line
The best Amibroker data feed for you probably isn’t the cheapest one or the one with the longest feature list. It’s the one that matches how you actually trade, covers the segments you use, and keeps running when the market is moving fastest. Try the free trial, check the backfill against your own backtesting needs, and confirm support actually answers during market hours before you commit.