By Keel Research Team
Updated October 15, 2026If you like how Composer works but want to trade crypto perpetual futures, Keel is the closest match: you describe a strategy, an AI builds it from blocks, you backtest it, and it runs on its own schedule. The differences are the market, the custody model and the costs a perp backtest has to include. Keel runs on Hyperliquid, keeps your money in your own account, and charges funding in every backtest.
This post sets the two side by side for a Composer user who is curious about crypto perps. It is not a ranking. They serve different markets.
What Composer does
Composer is a platform for automated, rule-based investing in US-listed stocks, ETFs and options. From its own site (checked October 2026):
- Strategies are called symphonies. You build them in a visual no-code editor with weighting rules, if-then conditions, and sort and filter steps, or start from pre-built ones.
- An AI-assisted editor builds a symphony from a description of your goals and risk concerns.
- You can backtest a symphony against a benchmark or another strategy, with fees and slippage modelled.
- Composer executes the strategy and rebalances it automatically.
- Composer is a broker-dealer: your assets are held through its clearing firms, not in a wallet you control.
For someone building rotation or momentum portfolios out of ETFs, that is a complete loop, and the editor is the heart of the product.
What Keel does
Keel runs the same loop on Hyperliquid's crypto perpetual futures.
- Build. You describe the idea in plain words in the Keel app, or ask an assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT connected to Keel. The AI builds the strategy from Keel's building blocks: market data, indicators, filters, ranking and position sizing. Keel checks that the blocks fit together before anything runs. The strategy appears on a canvas with its settings showing, and there is a code view if you want it.
- Test. The backtest runs over Hyperliquid price and funding history and charges trading fees and slippage on every trade, plus Hyperliquid's real funding payments on every open position. You get the equity curve, the drawdowns and every trade.
- Paper trade. Paper trading runs the strategy on live prices with simulated money, so you can watch it before real money.
- Run. When you go live, Keel runs the same compiled strategy you tested, on the schedule it was built with. Your money stays in your own Hyperliquid account. Keel can place trades there but can never withdraw, and you can pause a strategy at any time.
The differences that matter
Market. Composer trades US-listed stocks, ETFs and options. Keel trades Hyperliquid's crypto perps, such as BTC, ETH, SOL and HYPE. Stock and index perps on Hyperliquid are HIP-3 markets, and Keel doesn't support them yet. Support is coming soon.
Custody. With Composer your assets sit with a broker. With Keel they sit in your own Hyperliquid account, and Keel holds permission to trade but not to withdraw.
Funding. Stocks and ETFs have no funding. Perps do, every hour on Hyperliquid, and for any strategy that holds overnight it can be a large share of the result. A perp backtest without funding flatters some strategies and punishes others. Keel applies the real rates to every open position.
Leverage and shorting. Perps let a strategy go short or use leverage without borrowing shares. That opens up long/short and market-neutral ideas, and it also means a sizing mistake costs more. Volatility-based sizing is one of the building blocks for that reason.
How you build. Composer's no-code editor is the product. Keel leans on the AI: you describe the change and it edits the blocks, though you can change any setting on the canvas yourself. If you prefer to drag blocks by hand with no AI involved, Composer's editor is the more polished tool.
| Question | Composer | Keel |
|---|---|---|
| What it trades | US-listed stocks, ETFs, options | Hyperliquid crypto perpetual futures |
| Where your money sits | With the broker | In your own Hyperliquid account |
| Funding in the backtest | Not applicable | Real Hyperliquid funding on open positions |
| How strategies are built | Visual editor, with AI help | AI from building blocks, editable on a canvas |
| Trying it without money | Backtests | Backtests and paper trading on live prices |
Examples to start from
The strategy library holds tested strategies with their full backtests, costs included. Two that will feel familiar to a Composer user:
- Funding carry, which earns funding by holding the side of the market that gets paid.
- A regime-gated crypto index, which holds a basket of large coins only while the market trend is up.
You can start from either and ask the AI for changes: a different basket, a slower trend filter, smaller positions.
Who each one suits
Stay with Composer if you invest in US stocks and ETFs, you rebalance weekly or monthly, you want a broker to hold your assets, or you want a visual editor you drive by hand.
Try Keel if you want exposure to crypto perps, you want funding counted in your backtests, you want your money to stay in your own account, or you would rather describe a change than click it together.
The two can sit side by side: Composer for a stock portfolio, Keel for a crypto perps sleeve. They don't overlap.
What Keel does not do
Keel runs your strategy over the dates you choose and keeps every run. It does not run walk-forward optimization or Monte Carlo resampling for you; those are not in the product. Paper trading on live prices is the next check after a backtest.
Getting started
Keel's Free plan lets you build a strategy, backtest it, paper trade it and run one strategy live. See the plans, or build a strategy with AI. If you work from an assistant, the agents page has the setup for each one.