Build your bot.
Own your setup.
Turn trading ideas into strategies you can inspect, test, and run on your own machine. Krellbot gives you the free, open-source engine. Bring your own rules, develop them with AI assistance, or start with our maintained Strategy Packs.
MIT-licensed engine · Local execution · No subscription required for your own strategies
Build on something you can make your own.
Your trading setup should give you room to experiment and the freedom to understand how it works.
Krellbot brings strategy evaluation, backtesting, paper trading, and execution into an open-source engine you run yourself. Inspect the source. Change what you need. Build your own strategies and share improvements with the community.
The engine is free to use under the MIT license. Our business is maintaining strategies worth paying for.
Explore the sourceLet AI help develop the strategy. Keep the rules in view.
Describe an idea to your AI coding assistant. Have it help define the entry conditions, exits, and allocation. Then validate the strategy, run a backtest, and examine the results together.
Krellbot strategies use a documented set of indicators and rules. A pack contains data that the engine interprets, with no executable scripts inside the strategy file.
That gives you a clear workflow: draft, validate, test, review, and paper-trade. The strategy remains available for inspection at every step.
We’re building Krellbot for a future where people and AI agents develop trading systems together. Readable rules and structured results are the foundation.
See how strategies workSee what happened—and what went into the test.
A return percentage leaves a lot unanswered.
Krellbot’s backtest results include the test period, trading costs, drawdown, trade count, and a buy-and-hold comparison. The detailed record also identifies the engine version, strategy, and market data used.
Examine the assumptions. Compare the trade-offs. Use the results to decide what deserves further testing.
Explore a backtest resultBacktests simulate historical performance. They do not establish future returns.
The engine is free. The research is what we sell.
An idea for a trading bot is a starting point. Developing it means defining the rules, testing market history, accounting for costs, and examining where the approach falls short.
Krellbot Strategy Packs give you a researched starting point for that work.
Explore maintained strategies with published historical results. Compare their returns, drawdowns, and trading activity. Choose an approach worth investigating, then test it through the same engine you already control.
Spend more time evaluating strategies and less time assembling every candidate from scratch.
Explore Strategy PacksPublished historical results
Write your own packSelected catalog strategies · historical simulations, not live fills · fees and slippage included
A selection from the maintained catalog, with published historical results. Past results do not guarantee future results.
Start with a strategy. Keep up with the research.
Get access to the maintained catalog and the historical results behind it, with continued research and updates throughout your subscription.
The packs run on your machine. You choose what to test, what to use, and how it fits into your trading setup.
Your subscription supports the strategy research and continued development of Krellbot’s open-source engine.
Explore the catalogMaintained Strategy Packs · $39/month
The planned subscription. Checkout is currently test-only; paid access is not launched.
Your own strategies do not require a subscription.
Your machine runs Krellbot. Your exchange holds your funds.
Krellbot connects locally to your chosen exchange. Your exchange credentials are not sent to krellbot.dev.
Live trading requires explicit setup with trade-only credentials and withdrawals disabled. The source and security documentation are available for you to inspect before connecting an account.
Read the security documentationPut your ideas to work on your machine.
Install the current release, start with a paper-only workflow, and keep the documentation close.
Current release install commands
curl -fsSL https://krellbot.dev/api/install?os=mac | sh
Open Terminal. On a Mac, press Command-Space, type Terminal, and press Return. Paste the command. Press Return. Linux x86_64: use os=linux instead of os=mac.
irm https://krellbot.dev/api/install?os=win | iex
Open PowerShell. Press the Windows key, type PowerShell, and press Enter. Right-click in the window to paste. Press Enter. This command installs the existing public release, not the new Signal workspace preview.
The public installer remains pinned to release v0.9.4; the new Windows Signal preview is not yet available. Downloads are SHA-256 pinned, not code-signed or Authenticode-signed. A checksum checks integrity, not publisher identity. The installer is release-gated: if no valid release is available for your platform, it refuses installation. Review the script before running it. See Getting started and Security.
Start on paper.
The getting-started guide walks through the engine and your first strategy. Live trading requires separate, explicit setup.
Walk through the guideShow quickstart commands
After the install, open a new terminal window. See what is installed
krellbot list
Optional, for maintained packs only: add your activation key. The free engine and your own strategies do not need one.
krellbot setup <activation-key>
Save your exchange key in a text file. Line one is the key. Line two is the secret. Trade stays on. Withdraw stays off.
krellbot keys add kraken --file key.txt
Backtest a pack against cached candles
krellbot backtest pack.json --venue kraken
Arm a pack in paper mode first.
krellbot arm pack.json --venue kraken --mode paper
Install the hourly tick schedule under your OS scheduler
krellbot service install
Open the local dashboard
krellbot ui
Write your own runnable JSON pack in ~/.krellbot/packs/ using schema_version: 1. An id and public_label alone are legacy: not runnable. See Pack format for the full schema.
I’m giving away the engine because I want people to build on it.
My ambition is to make Krellbot the most widely used open-source crypto trading platform—and a foundation for the way people will build with AI.
That takes useful software, dependable engineering, and a community that can help shape it.
Use Krellbot to explore an idea, build your own system, or contribute something the next person can use. If you never buy a Strategy Pack, you’re still someone I’m building this for.
For people who want maintained strategies and the research behind them, that’s what the subscription provides. It’s how I intend to build a sustainable business around a platform everyone can use.
— Founder & Lead Engineer, Krellbot