Help Me Find the Trading Platform that is Right for Me

hello all.

I think this is my first post. but I have had good experience with learning complex things on forums in the past, and I am looking forward to learning with you all.

Anyway.

I currently trade commodities. I am still new to things but have begun to make money. So far I have used thinkorswim to trade and to analyze charts. I want to keep doing that.

In addition, I am very interested in automated trading.

Can anyone recommend an automated trading system that:

a) Trades futures

b) Can work with my existing broker/data feed (thinkorswim)

c) Enables one to custom code strategies that will be automated. I understand that this is always difficult, especially if it is script, but one that is not overly hard would be nice.

d) Is not overly expensive. In fact free would be nice.

e) Faithful backtesting

I would like to use Prodigio which is tos's new product, but despite the fact that they have been developing it for a while, it is still buggy as hell, and still doesnt offer futures trading

Any suggestions?

I suggest switching brokers (Interactive Brokers has been good to me). IB has many 3rd party vendor support like Ninjatrader which meets all requirements except b and d.

I wouldn't bet on finding a decent trading platform for free but you know, $900 or whatever Ninjatrader asks for now is really a small sum for what you get as far as features and profits. I've learned a long time ago that it pays to invest in your business--and trading is a business.