Honest Backtest Engine — a backtester built to catch strategies that only work on paper

The problem

A backtest's job is to look good. That's exactly why most of them lie.

Give a strategy enough parameters and enough history to tune against, and it will show you a beautiful equity curve — then fall apart the moment real money is on it.

Overfitting. Look-ahead bias. Costs quietly assumed away. One lucky run dressed up as an edge. These are the ways a backtest fools the person who built it — and usually that person only finds out after the losses are real. The engine is built to find the flaw first.

What makes it honest

It's built to fail your strategy when your strategy deserves to fail.

Every run ends in a single number — how believable the edge is, from 0 to 100 — and the exact checks behind it. Including the ones it didn't pass.

Portfolio · 4 assets

SPY, AAPL, NVDA, AMZN

0edge trust / 100

checklist 70penalties −0trust 70 / 100

✓Out-of-sample positive+30
✓Holds up out-of-sample vs in-sample+15
✓Real costs modelled+10
✓Enough trades to mean something+15
✗Survives multiple-testing correction0
✗Robust to trade-order resampling0

A real result from the bundled sample book. Two checks failed — so the score is 70, not 100. No other tool shows you the red marks. This one leads with them.

What it actually does

Seven ways it tries to prove you wrong.

01Out-of-sample by default

Headlines the results from the slice of history your strategy was never tuned on — the only part that predicts anything.

02Real trading costs

Commission, slippage and borrow are charged on every trade, so the net edge is what you'd actually keep — not a frictionless fantasy.

03Deflated for luck

The Sharpe ratio is discounted for how many parameter combinations you searched. Try a thousand ideas and one will look brilliant by chance — this catches it.

04Monte-Carlo stress test

Reshuffles the order of your trades thousands of times to separate a real edge from a run of good timing.

05Look-ahead-proof

Every signal is computed only from data that existed at that moment. No peeking at the future, no accidental hindsight.

06Data-quality check

Scans your price data for gaps, duplicates and bad bars before they quietly distort the result.

07Signed reports

Export a tamper-evident report. Anyone can verify it's genuine and unaltered — without having to trust you, or the engine.

A backtest result showing the trust score, equity curve with the out-of-sample split marked, and per-asset breakdown

Every run: the trust score, the equity curve with the out-of-sample split marked, and the numbers that matter — net of costs.

The trust score breakdown listing each check that passed or failed

The full scorecard — what passed, what didn't, and why.

Per-trade ledger, monthly profit and loss, and trade statistics

Every trade, every month, in the open — nothing hidden behind the headline.

Your data

Bring your own, or pull it in seconds.

No data wrangling to get started. Three ways in, and sample data bundled so you can try everything the moment it opens.

Yahoo Finance

Type a ticker — AAPL, BTC-USD, EURUSD=X — and pull years of history. No account, no API key, nothing to set up.

Your own CSV

Already have price data? Point it at any CSV of bars and go. Your files never leave your machine.

Interactive Brokers

Trade through IBKR? Pull history straight from your own feed for the instruments you actually trade.

Bundled sample data

A synthetic dataset ships inside, clearly marked as not-real, so you can explore every feature before touching your own data.

How it runs

Opens on your machine. Nothing leaves it.

On Windows it's a single download you double-click — nothing to install. It opens in your browser at a local address on your own computer. Your data, strategies and results stay entirely local.

The strategy builder: pick a strategy, choose data, set costs, stack optional filters

Pick a strategy, choose your data and costs, stack optional filters — then run it honestly.

Why it exists

Most backtesting tools are built to make strategies look good.

Because a good-looking backtest is what sells the strategy, the course, the signal group.

This one is built to do the opposite — to find the flaw before the market does. It won't tell you what you want to hear. It'll tell you what's likely true, which is the only thing worth knowing before you fund an account. If your edge is real, it will hold up here. If it isn't, better to learn it now, for €149, than later, with real money.

The offer

€149once

✓Pay once, yours for good. No subscription, no renewals. Your license never expires.
✓Every future version included — free, forever. New tests, new models, new features land on the same key you bought with. As the engine gets sharper, so does your copy.
✓Runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. Local, private, offline. Your strategies are nobody's business but yours.

The guarantee

Use it for 30 days. If it doesn't catch at least one backtest that was lying to you — if it doesn't change how you judge your own strategies — email me and I'll refund every cent. Keep every report you generated. The risk is mine, not yours.

Get it — €149

Questions

Straight answers.

What do I need to run it?

On Windows, download the file and double-click it — nothing to install. Mac and Linux are included too. It opens in your web browser at an address on your own machine. The first time on Windows you'll click through a standard "unknown publisher" prompt (More info → Run anyway) — normal for independent software.

Does it send my data anywhere?

No. Everything runs locally on your computer. Your price data, your strategies and your results never leave your machine. The only time it touches the internet is if you choose to pull data from Yahoo Finance or Interactive Brokers.

What data can I use?

Any CSV of price bars you already have, plus Yahoo Finance by ticker (no account needed) and Interactive Brokers if you trade through them. Sample data is bundled so you can try everything immediately.

What does "lifetime" actually mean?

One payment, a license key that never expires, and every future version of the engine free — on the same key. No upgrade fees, ever.

Will my key keep working on new versions?

Yes. Your key is designed to unlock every future build. Buy once, keep getting the updates.

What's the refund policy?

30 days, no hoops. If it doesn't earn its place in your process, email licenses@honestbacktester.com and you'll get a full refund — and you keep any reports you made.