Trade futures from the order book.

BackLab is a desktop trading app for twelve CME futures. It draws the whole order book as a heatmap, shows who traded at every price, and puts your Tradovate orders right on the chart.

Download BackLab See how it works

Mac (Apple silicon and Intel) and Windows. Free to download.

BackLab rebuilt in your browser, running on a simulated Micro Nasdaq market. Point at the chart or the book.

The whole order book, drawn over time.

Every limit order waiting in the book is shaded by size, second by second. Bright bands are prices where size is resting. Trades are drawn on top where they printed, so you see what was offered and what actually traded.

Switch the span, the palette and the layers, drag the contrast and floor, and point at the heat to read the size resting there.

Look-back and colours
Show anything from the last minute to the last two hours. Pick the Deep, Gold, Heat or Mono palette and tune the contrast for the market you trade.
Resting size
The brighter the band, the more size sat at that price, and the longer it stayed. Watch it get pulled or traded through.
Trades, sized by volume
Green when a buyer took the ask, red when a seller hit the bid. The bigger the bubble, the bigger the print.
The book
The live ladder: resting size at each price on the bid and the ask.
Traded volume
How much has traded at each price this session, split by buyers and sellers.
Session stats
Bid, ask, spread, book imbalance, session delta, the last print and the point of control, updated as they change.

See inside every candle.

Open any candle as a footprint and see how much traded on the bid and the ask at each price. Point at a row to read it.

One-minute footprint: sellers on the left of each row, buyers on the right, imbalances shaded, delta and volume under each candle.

Bid × ask: every trade counted on the side that crossed the spread
Imbalances: a price where one side traded three times the other is shaded
Delta and volume: under every candle, with the busiest price boxed
Bars: seconds, minutes, ticks, range or Renko, built from real prints
Split view: a second timeframe beside the first, or TradingView next to BackLab

Every level you trade, already drawn.

Switch layers on from one panel and BackLab keeps them current on every timeframe and every market. Try the switches.

Sessions
Asia, London and New York, boxed and shaded, so you know whose market you are in.
Key levels
Prior day high, low and close, the overnight range, initial balance, opening range, week and month.
Volume profile
Session and TPO profiles with the point of control, value area and naked POCs from earlier days.

Your orders live on the chart.

BackLab trades through your Tradovate account. Right-click to place an order, drag it to move it, click × to cancel it. The chart only shows an order as working once Tradovate confirms it.

Working orders sit at their price with a line to the axis.

Brackets: a take-profit and stop go on with every entry if you want them, and you drag them where you like
Flatten and cancel: ⇧⌘F closes every position and ⇧⌘K cancels every order, on every armed account
Risk limits: daily and weekly loss limits, a trailing drawdown and a contract cap that lock the account when hit
Several accounts: arm more than one and trade them together. Logins are kept encrypted on your computer
Demo first: orders go to Tradovate's demo environment until you switch live trading on

Alerts you can hear from across the room.

Set an alert on a price, a line or any drawing. BackLab watches all twelve markets in the background, so an alert on gold still fires while you're on the Nasdaq.

Turn the voice on and press Test.

Sounds, Mac notifications and a list of everything that fired today
Alerts read aloud by a Mac voice or a natural-sounding Azure voice
Copies sent to your Discord, with buttons to pause trading
TradingView alerts received through a webhook on your computer

Years of history, stored on your machine.

BackLab keeps every one-minute bar and every trade it sees, and fills in older history in the background. Browse any market by year, month, day and session, and open any of them on the chart.

The vault
Every one-minute bar and every trade BackLab sees is kept on your computer, and older history fills in behind it. Browse any market by year, month, day and session.
Calendar
US economic releases with forecasts and prior values, holidays, early closes and contract rolls, with a countdown to the next session.
Journal
Every trade recorded from your fills, with why it was placed and how it closed, plus an equity curve, drawdown and daily results.

Twelve markets, each with its own history.

Index, metals and energy futures on CME Globex. Each keeps its own drawings, alerts and stored bars, and rolls to the front contract on its own.

Symbol	Market	Tick	Tick value	Point value
Equity index
MNQ	Micro Nasdaq-100	0.25	$0.50	$2
NQ	E-mini Nasdaq-100	0.25	$5.00	$20
MES	Micro S&P 500	0.25	$1.25	$5
ES	E-mini S&P 500	0.25	$12.50	$50
MYM	Micro Dow	1	$0.50	$0.50
YM	E-mini Dow	1	$5.00	$5
M2K	Micro Russell 2000	0.10	$0.50	$5
RTY	E-mini Russell 2000	0.10	$5.00	$50
Metals and energy
MGC	Micro Gold	0.10	$1.00	$10
GC	Gold	0.10	$10.00	$100
MCL	Micro Crude Oil	0.01	$1.00	$100
CL	Crude Oil	0.01	$10.00	$1,000

Get BackLab.

Sign in, download, then connect your Tradovate account inside the app. No account yet? Turn on Demo mode for a simulated market with a real-looking book and tape.

Step 1

First, sign in.

Signing in adds you to the list that hears about new builds. Your address isn't shared with anyone.

Step 2

Download and open it

Download for Mac Download for Windows

Installing on a Mac

BackLab isn't signed with an Apple Developer ID yet, so macOS blocks the downloaded installer until you allow it. The quickest way round that is one line in Terminal (Applications ▸ Utilities ▸ Terminal):

curl -fsSL https://backlab.trade/install.sh | bash

It downloads the right installer for your Mac, asks for your Mac password, and installs BackLab into Applications. Or, without Terminal:

Open the downloaded .pkg. macOS says it can't check it for malicious software. Click Done.
Open System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway next to the BackLab installer.
Open the .pkg again and click Open. Enter your Mac password when asked. BackLab installs and opens.

On Windows?

Open BackLab-windows-setup.exe. If you see "Windows protected your PC", click More info ▸ Run anyway. After that, BackLab updates itself.

Latest build —Published —Update size —