Zorro has some quite interesting features, e.g. how parameter optimization is directly tied into algorithm implementation. Also, it can easily implement portfolio and option strategies. If you are serious about software development, you will probably want an object-oriented language, and a debugger. If price is driving the decision, there might be more powerful open-source solutions. I am the maintainer of www.TuringTrader.org, an open-source backtester in C#, and therefore obviously biased. Cheers, Felix
Yes. I've been running a Zorro strategy for a while (Z7). Not profitable at the moment. But in their defense, I think that the creators of Zorro wanted to provide free software with which anyone could make a profit (the Z systems). But that dream has not apparently been realized. However, this desire pervades their software. They are the "robin hood" of the trading world. I'm hoping to create something that will be profitable. Don't ask me what. But if any software can do it, I think Zorro can.
The software was created by "social justice" game programmers with no trading experience. That's not necessarily a bad thing but they've implied on their website through the years that they think they know how to successfully trade. Not really. They're created yet another tool to help one autotrade at the rudimentary level, no different than NT or MultiCharts or Amibroker or etc. Zorro tries to limit what you can do for free with their package by setting an upper profit cap on how much it will allow you to make through their trading engine. All you have to do is ship out your signals to your own order manager (e.g. gets the signals from Zorro and manages the trades with whatever broker you want) and that takes care of that.
From Zorro's old web page, taken down and replaced over a year ago (this is all I have of it ... post takedown)
Their new home page still mentions this objective, albeit only briefly and at the very bottom: https://zorro-trader.com/index.php
Also, I found the old page through the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20180815172911/http://www.zorro-trader.com/