I've been using CMS's VT for several months to get a demo account to trade a few systems but the connectivity issues with their host is leaving me with a lot of reliabilty issues together. Their charts are excellent but it's the host reliability that's holding me back from going live and automated together. What other platforms are available that allow you to write your own trading systems permit it to operate as an automated system by means of a brokerage? I understand about TradeStation but I do not feel like paying $1200 a year to use it and also have open an account with $5000. What's me hooked with CMS is that I can open an account using a few hundred bucks and be able to trade a mini original, 1 pip = $1, allow the system operate and'make sure' my actual results are like the demo and see whether a live automated account link is more secure then the demo account. The $1 pip value is moot I understand but if the equilibrium problem is still there and something crashes using a open position and it goes against me 50 pips... that's just $50 not $250, $500....If what's gravey after several weeks, then trade several mini's at a time...

Any suggestions or opiniions on other platforms?