FIX FAQs

FIX stands for Financial Information eXchange. It is an open protocol owned and maintained by The FIX Protocol Organisation. Essentially, it is a universal messaging 'language' that brokers, fund managers, and exchanges use to communicate securities transactions. However, it is not a software application in and of itself; it only dictates the format that messages and the means of maintaining the conversation must take.

FIX messaging has multiple advantages over conventional trading by phone and fax:

• Speed - execution occurs more rapidly after decision making
• Reduction in error rates - through less manual involvement
• Saving time - traders can deal with more clients and trades as each trade takes less time to execute and not all trades require manual intervention

FIX Engine is a software that implements FIX protocol specifications. Our FIX engine supports the full range of FIX protocol sessions and application messages. We offer highly optimized FIX engine in the form of libraries (.NET,C++.Java, Python) and FIX servers (C++,Java) , designed to serve as integral components of mission-critical, high-performance platforms. Our FIX engine provides broad services, enabling seamless integration into real-world enterprise environments. These services, referred to as “FIX to World,” facilitate message transformations and transport across most middleware solutions commonly used in the financial services industry.

FIX Adapted for STreaming^SM (FAST) protocol is a technology standard developed by The FIX Protocol Organisation, to optimize communication in the electronic exchange of financial data on the network. FAST, at its core, is a data compression algorithm that significantly reduces bandwidth requirements and latency between a sender and receiver. It is used to support high-throughput, low latency data communications between financial institutions. In particular, it is a technology standard that offers significant compression capabilities for the transport of high-volume market data feeds and ultra low latency applications.

FIXP (FIX Performance Session Layer) is a session layer protocol developed by the FIX Trading Community to provide a lightweight, high-performance, reliable session for financial messaging.

FIXP exists as a formal specification and a reference implementation is available (e.g., “silverflash”), but it is still a draft/industry standard.

CME Group’s newer iLink 3 binary order entry protocol aligns conceptually with FIXP goals.

Simple Binary Encoding (SBE) is a high-performance binary message encoding standard designed for ultra-low latency financial systems.

It was created by the FIX Trading Community as a faster alternative to traditional FIX tag=value messages.

Exchanges such as CME and B3 use SBE for market data feeds and order entry. 

Brokers - FIX enables brokers to accept more incoming trades by reducing the time it takes to process each trade.

Exchanges - FIX enables exchange members to contact multiple exchanges via a single process and to send orders more quickly and cheaply. With the performance levels achieved by FIX Antenna, we are ready to enable exchanges to self-distribute quotes using the FIX protocol - possibly over UDP. We can facilitate this at both the distributor and recipient site.

ECNs and Crossing Networks - FIX enables ECNs to come to market with no need to force proprietary communications technology onto clients, reducing barriers to entry and increasing the potential client base, as well as the benefits to all exchanges mentioned above.

Portfolio Managers - use FIX to access more pools of liquidity, get better prices and trade more efficiently. By using FIX, rather than phone or fax, portfolio managers can connect to significantly more brokers and ECNs. FIX also enables brokers to receive real-time market information either to track their existing positions or to receive general market data including news, IOIs, advertisements and quotes.

Using a proprietary electronic trading protocol is like working on a trading floor with 20 people who each speak a different language. Learning 19 languages would be a waste of resources and time, therefore, in that situation, most people would only learn the few languages they absolutely need to conduct their business, while tolerating some inefficiency in their work to avoid up front costs. The better solution is for everyone to learn one common language, like an Esperanto for financial markets. This is the role that the FIX (Financial Information eXchange) Protocol fulfils.

Vision

The FIX protocol provides a common language for electronic trading, but realizing its full value requires an execution layer that is industrial-grade, operationally resilient, and performance-deterministic. A FIX engine is not merely a translator of messages—it is critical market infrastructure.

Historically, many FIX engines have forced firms to choose between:

• high-cost, complex platforms built for only the largest institutions, or
• lower-cost solutions that struggle to meet the demands of continuous trading, high throughput, and operational control.

EPAM B2BITS was built to eliminate this trade-off.

From the outset, B2BITS FIX engines were designed as production-grade infrastructure, capable of supporting:

• high-volume, low-latency trading
• long-running and 24×5 / 24×7 FIX sessions
• deterministic behavior under load
• strong operational controls, persistence, and recovery

This architecture has been battle-tested across FX, futures, equities, and crypto markets, where uninterrupted connectivity, resilience, and transparency are mandatory. 

By combining industrial strength, performance, and control with a pragmatic and accessible commercial model, B2BITS enables firms of all sizes to operate FIX connectivity at a level previously reserved for only the largest global institutions.

Speed

FIX Antenna C++ is the fastest performing engine in the marketplace, achieving 30,000 messages per second on entry-level hardware.

Support

EPAM B2BITS views software without support as incomplete. We do not charge license fees. All our products are sold on the basis of a comprehensive contract which includes:

• A full technical support agreement
• All subsequent improvements to the software, including changes to the FIX protocol and any improvements in functionality
• All improvements made on request by individual clients are passed back to the supported user base unless deemed proprietary by them
• Access to other value-added services such as testing and diagnostic tools

In this way, EPAM B2BITS' single incentive is to provide the best possible service to our clients, as our revenues are dependent on the renewal of these support agreements.

References from our clients are available on request. There are over 90 companies worldwide using our software.

FIX Antenna Java offers outstanding reliability, ease of implementation, and supports transformation between different FIX versions and between FIXML and tag value format.

We have recently released the latest version of FIX Antenna Java, which has resulted in a significant performance improvement. The Java engine is now capable of over 25,000 messages per second on single processor hardware, displaying class-leading performance.

FIX Antenna C++, formerly known as FIX Antenna V12, is the industry leader in performance, benchmarked at 30,000 messages per second on a single processor machine.

FIX Antenna C++ also received the highest user satisfaction rating for a Sell-Side FIX Engine Vendor in the FIX Protocol Committee commissioned report European FIX User Survey. FIX Antenna was rated on three metrics and received 4.5/5 for "technical performance", 4.5/5 for "functional coverage", and 5/5 for "support staff". In the overall ratings, FIX Antenna was at the top with 4.7/5.

FIX Antenna Python has been designed to provide native FIX protocol support for Python applications, enabling fast and easy integration into custom trading systems. It is built as a Python wrapper over the EPAM B2BITS class-leading FIX Antenna C++ engine, combining Python development flexibility with proven FIX performance and reliability. FIX Antenna Python allows developers to focus on business logic while retaining full FIX session management, high throughput, and robustness of the core FIX engine.

FIX Antenna .NET Core allows developers to work with the latest well supported Microsoft framework and help strategically position clients' applications for the future. The FIX Antenna .NET Core API follows the robust, time-tested FIX Antenna Java API (API Reference).

The FIX Antenna .NET Core benefits include the ability to generate structured messages and manipulate message content via API. It is specifically designed to improve the productivity of .NET programmers even if they are novice FIX users.

FAST Antenna Codec is specifically designed to deliver a high performance. It has been benchmarked to decode, on average, more than 100,000 FIX messages per second and to encode more than 100,000 FIX messages per second, 900,000 entries per second and 10,000,000 fields per second. This level of performance makes it an ideal solution for exchanges and sophisticated trading algos consuming market data. The FAST Antenna Codec is currently being used in some of the most demanding environments in the world.

FIXEdge is a server application that provides FIX connectivity for standalone client applications. Client applications communicate with FIXEdge through one of multiple transport protocols (e.g. Simple Sockets, TIBCO, CORBA) employing transport adaptors. It is designed to be as easy as possible to install, configure, administer and monitor trading information flows. It is written in C++ and has a performance profile suitable for the needs of all clients up to and including large sell-side institutions and large volume traders.

The FIXEdge project was started with Sun Microsystems to be marketed as a package that included two Sun servers configured in an HA cluster with the FIX Antenna C++ Sun edition pre-installed and configured (refer to Sun B2BITS FIXEdge data sheet). Eventually, the project grew into an autonomous selling product with a wide range of features that were not included in the original package. The FIXEdge product has been endorsed by companies as a preferred connection mechanism.

FIX Antenna C++, our flagship product, is the fastest engine currently available in today's market place. It can deliver over 60,000 messages per second on a single CPU and has been benchmarked at 30,000 messages per second across 200 sessions. This level of performance means it is an ideal solution for exchanges, sell sides and program trading operations. The FIX Antenna C++ FIX engine is currently deployed in some of the most demanding environments in the world.

The FIX Antenna family of engines supports all asset classes specified within the FIX protocol. This includes: Equities, Foreign Exchange, Futures, Options, Crypto and Fixed Income.

All of our commercial engines (C++, Java, .NET Core, Python) support FIX versions 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 5.0, 5.0 SP1, 5.0 SP2, Latest and FAST 1.1. As part of the support and upgrade package that all our Clients have, we supply upgrades to newer versions of the protocol at no extra charge. This ensures your implementation stays abreast of new developments as they occur, without any extra cost.

FIX Antenna C++:

• Windows, Linux

FIX Antenna Java:

• Any platform with a JVM (Java Virtual Machine) available

FIX Antenna Python:

• Windows

FIX Antenna .NET Core:

• Windows, Linux

FIXEdge:

• Windows, Linux

EPAM B2BITS offers a variety of APIs and integration paths to its FIX Engines in addition to the engine's native API. You may select a single API integration path or multiple API or integration paths. There is no additional charge for delivering or supporting the interface.

The following interfaces are available:

• Camel
• Kafka
• IBM MQ
• TIBCO RV
• JMS
• RabbitMQ
• REST
• Java (Universal)
• SMTP
• Solace
• WebSockets

EPAM B2BITS operates an annuity model for its software. The license fee is included with the annual support, upgrade and maintenance fee.  The fee starts as low as $5,000 per production machine*. We also offer licensing models with extended support, OEM licensing models, as well as discounts based on number of purchased licenses. We do not charge additional fees for the number of messages or the number of sessions. Backup, development and testing licenses can be purchased at 50% of the production license cost.

For more details on software licensing options contact us at sales@b2bits.com or call +1 (888) 378-0666.

*Price is given for "Basic package" with basic functionality and limited support.

EPAM B2BITS offers on-demand licensed software source code escrow as an additional means of your business risk mitigation. To guarantee software availability for supporting our customers' critical business operations, in 2009 we entered into cooperation with NCC Group, one of the world's leading software escrow providers by depositing the source code for our proprietary solution - FIXEdge application server. Later on we also added the source code of our flagship FIX engines - FIX Antenna C++ and FIX Antenna Java - to the deposit storage provided by NCC.

The FIX Antenna® Certification and Testing Service enables trading parties who use the FIX protocol to substantially reduce the time and cost of compatibility testing. FACTS 2.0 allows sell-side and buy-side firms to quickly and easily detect and mend a full range of problems related to violations of the FIX protocol specification and of application level conventions.

FACTS 2.0 is a script-based testing service that can be customized to mirror the FIX implementation of any sell side or exchange. It tests both session-level and application-level messages. It is interactive and offers an immediate diagnosis of any problems discovered.

FACTS 2.0 is ideal for testing compliance to the FIX Protocol Ltd 'expected behaviours' specification. It was designed in conjunction with Kevin Houstoun at SSB-CitiGroup. Kevin sits on the European Steering Committee of the FIX Protocol organization.

FIX Eye and FIX Grep are new generation forensic tools for working with FIX logs. These utilities are the result of many years of experience in FIX support. They are also the next generation of log browsers, which go beyond traditional parsers and are equipped with full knowledge of FIX objects and their state management.