A backtest replays history: it tells you how a rule would have done on the last few hundred or thousand candles. It is fast, and Crypteller runs one automatically for every signal strategy while you edit it.
Paper trading runs forward in time on the live market. It shows how your bot behaves on candles it has never seen — the fairest test of whether a setup was tuned to the past or actually works.
The best habit is to use both: shape the idea with a backtest, then let it run on paper for a while before going live.
What paper trading can't tell you
- Simulated fills assume your order is filled at the price shown; real orders can fill partially or a little away from it.
- Fees on paper are estimated from a fee rate; live bots record the commission Binance actually charges.
- A few days of results are a sample, not a promise. Markets change.