Full Guide on the Best Futures Trading Platform - NinjaTrader
I’ve recommended NinjaTrader as the best option for futures trading since 2021. As of 2026, I’m finally and officially partnered with them. Affiliate disclosure: I may earn a commission if you open an account through these links. NinjaTrader is one of the most established and reliable trading platforms in the industry, and I use them for all of my futures trading (not just with prop firms).
Why do I use NinjaTrader for trading futures?
When I first started trading in 2021, I researched every option for where to trade futures — NinjaTrader was the clear winner and is still who I trade through. As a price-action trader, all I need is reliability, specialized software for placing and managing trades directly on the chart, and customizable order types and presets. I personally bought and own the lifetime license to NinjaTrader years ago, but you can get started completely for free by going here. Plus, it’s the best for sim trading.
Scroll down to see the full video-tutorial on how to set up and use NinjaTrader
What do I mean by “custom brackets” and “presets” for trading directly on the chart?
Chart trading is an essential feature to me and many other price action traders. Plus, NinjaTrader makes it easy to switch between different trade presets, which all can have unique features like auto-breakeven, trailing stop losses, position scaling, and more. Moving your profit targets and stop losses by dragging their lines on the chart makes it easy to target and visualize specific price levels, which is excellent for learning as well as avoiding mistakes. In just a few clicks, you could switch between a preset with anything you specify — like a 10 point stop-loss with a 15 point profit target using 3 contracts and a trailing stop loss — or essentially anything else you could imagine. You can name each preset to make it easy to adapt to every situation and trade type.
Create fully customizable workspaces (or even switch between multiple!)
You can create your own unique workspace full of charts, trade management tools, account windows, and more. The platform can be as simple or as complex as you’d like, since you get access to custom coding, market replay tools for trading historical data, free libraries of tools and indicators (made by NinjaTrader as well as the trading community!), and so much more. For example — if you want 7 charts up of different markets mix-and-matched on different timeframes, you can do that. But, maybe if you want to experiment with different layouts, you can always save that workspace and create a new one. NinjaTrader is built specifically for customization like this.
How to Use NinjaTrader - Full Setup Guide
Everything on how to use NinjaTrader is described in the video here. Since 2021, I’ve made several platform tutorials on my YouTube channels, and I personally purchased the lifetime license for my own futures trading.
Watch the video to help set up your own customized workspace after signing up for an account with NinjaTrader by clicking here.
I learned how to trade through NinjaTrader, and that entire journey was documented on the ImanTradingLive YouTube channel. You can see the platform throughout all of my videos both there and on my main channel, and it’s great to finally be partnered with what I think of as the best platform in the futures industry. NICE!
Get started with NinjaTrader for free by going here