I trade off the Sterling Platform with Echotrade. Good package. They make additions , new bells and whistles constantly. No complaints here. here's a screen shot....the setup is an older one....notice the ever chatty Nitro in the chatroom.
I use both gr8trade and hammer. All things constant there is a speed difference. I was reluctant to switch to hammer since it looks really archaic while gr8trade looked flashy etc. I was foolish for not trying the platform sooner. I do like both platforms, but I'm becoming partial to hammer since it has yet to crash or cause me any grief. I do like gr8trade analytics. I feel the charts are accurate and offer much customization. Over all both are fine pieces of software, but if I was forced to pick one platform I would have to choose Hammer.
- - - - -- - - - - - - - - - Sorry, but I didn't understand from you post whether gr8trade is faster or slower than hammer. Also could you please post what type of network connection do you use to gr8trade. And the last question, have you tried the last version of gr8trade, I believe it came out early last week?
Sorry about the confusion, I feel hammer is faster. I have a VPN that hammer runs on and gr8trade goes through regular internet. Yes, I do have the version that came out on thursday (gr8). gr8trades tool bar looks slimed down (less features), they aggregate the quotes now, and have a few more order prefs.
If used through regular internet gr8trade had 0.5-1 sec. delay in quotes compared to Redi+ too. This issue has been promised to be resolved by installing local servers in ETG offices. I've been familiarizing with gr8trade for couple of days now, and it looks much better than I expected.
I used to trade out of a protrader office, but since they are closing them I had to go remote. Gr8 trade is better out of an office than remote, but both (office and remote) still have the INCA quote problem that they have been plagued with for the past year. I like gr8trade and feel it would be the ultimate platform if they could eliminate the quote problems, reduce the commission costs , and get features like open book (they were promising this since June, one of the higher ups, who doesn't trade, told us it was useless and they put incorporating the NYSE OB feature on hold).
I can tell you that the open book is a priority issue for gr8trade. The problem wasn't only with the program not having the feature, but also with the quote provider not collecting the openbook information at all. It's reasonable to expect the open book feature being available on gr8trade for etg traders within a short period of time (within 1-2 months).