We are getting a lot of questions from the prospective clients looking how to add FIX connectivity to their trading applications and therefore asking why to buy the commercial FIX software offered by EPAM B2BITS when there is an open source solution like QuickFIX on the market.

There are many cases where using a freely downloadable product such as QuickFix makes sense aside from the obvious commercial advantage. Examples include:

  • For a simple order flow processing preferably with one destination
  • If high throughput and very low latency are not essential
  • The counterparty is fully compliant with or has very few exceptions from the standard FIX versions
  • You have some time to experiment with the code and test with the exchange, broker, client or whatever the destination might be

If, however, your situation doesn't fit the profile above, then it is advisable to look at commercially available products, FIX Antenna being the best in terms of the balance of price point / functionality and performance in the marketplace.

Advantages

  • Maturity: FIX Antenna is a fully supported, mature, tested feature-rich product that comes with the full documentation online and is pre-configured to work with a large number of the major exchanges.
  • Knowledge: As the developers of FIX Antenna, we know it inside out and can therefore answer your questions quickly and effectively. Open source solutions are developed by the community, so even if you hire a consultant (who participated in the development) or a consulting company, they can't offer the familiarity or total knowledge of the product. This will in turn mean that Service Levels cannot be offered for mission critical applications that rely on your FIX messaging gateway.
  • Customer-driven product roadmap: We are committed to providing fixes and updates as soon as possible and have a product roadmap that is in part driven by the needs of our customer base. Open source alternatives, such as QuickFIX, may take years to release an update or a new FIX version support. Even though, technically, you could fix bugs yourself because you have the source code, it's a high risk approach to handling complex financial applications and is time-consuming, and, perhaps, not the best use of your development budget.
  • Guaranteed expertise: FIX Antenna undergoes comprehensive testing by a team of specially trained QAs. All the consulting and support is done by the highly qualified software engineers with years of experience in trading applications, that would otherwise cost a fortune to hire.
  • Guaranteed support: By acquiring our FIX solutions, you get guaranteed help and support from a dedicated team of professionals who can address issues promptly vs. the mixed crowd of open source developers who may or may not be able to help.
  • Additional value-added tools: FIX Antenna comes with a complimentary package of tools for monitoring and operating FIX connections.

FIX Antenna Support

EPAM B2BITS provides 24 x 5/6/7 support to FIX Antenna:

  • During the implementation phase
  • During the production period
  • Throughout ongoing tuning to achieve better results

We have contractual obligations to address changes in the protocol driven by FPL or by the relevant exchanges you are connected to in a very short time after they become publicly available. We are committed to continue development of FIX Antenna and have scheduled releases until 2020.

FIX Antenna C++ vs. C++ open source

  • Throughput is 5 times higher
  • Latency is 20 times lower
  • Lower latency jitter
  • Provides many more parameters to control engine and session behavior
  • Includes support for FAST 1.1 and CME, Bovespa, Eurex FAST
  • Same interface for plain FIX encoded messages and FAST encoded messages the following benefits:
    • Ease of starting new development of the FAST handler for those who are experienced in FIX;
    • Ease of migration from plain FIX to FAST;
    • Ability to reuse code between FIX and FAST.
  • FAST encoding is encapsulated inside the FAST Antenna Codec. User is not affected by changing the FAST messages template. All FAST to FIX conversions are performed on the fly.
  • Has extended monitoring interface
  • Is delivered pre-configured and ready to be used with the most popular centers of liquidity
  • Better documented, better exemplified

Latency graph

Please refer to the latest benchmarks of FIX Antenna C++, Windows- and Linux-based.

FIX Antenna .NET vs. .NET open source

  • Throughput is 3 times higher
  • Latency is 15 times lower
  • Lower latency jitter
  • Provides many more parameters to control engine and session behavior
  • Has extended monitoring interface
  • Is delivered pre-configured and ready to be used with the most popular centers of liquidity
  • Better documented, better exemplified

FIX Antenna Java vs. Java open source

  • Throughput is 4 times higher
  • Latency is 15 times lower
  • Lower latency jitter
  • Provides many more parameters to control engine and session behavior
  • Provides several models for user interface (object oriented and using raw messages)
  • Supports SSL
  • Includes support for FAST 1.1, 1.2 and Bovespa, MDP
  • Support CME iLink connectivity
  • FIXML support
  • Has extended monitoring interface
  • Has small foot print
  • Is delivered pre-configured and ready to be used with the most popular centers of liquidity
  • Better documented, better exemplified

Please refer to the latest benchmarks of FIX Antenna Java, Windows- and Linux-based.

For promotion to migrate from QuickFIX to FIXAntenna, please contact us at sales@btobits.com.