First, the fair part
TradeZella is one of the best-known journals on the market and it is not a weak product. It has real analytics, a backtesting mode, and since its prop-firm features shipped it does track evaluation accounts, drawdown limits and consistency requirements. Anyone telling you it ignores prop traders has not looked recently.
So this page is not "they are bad". It is a straight answer to a narrower question: if prop firm rules are the reason you want a journal, what do you actually gain by paying?
Side by side
| Propbook | TradeZella | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Yes — free, no card, no account limit | Paid subscription (plans and trial on their site) |
| Use it without an account | Yes — guest mode, data stays on your device | No |
| Prop firm rule presets | Yes — 19 firms, every field editable | Yes |
| Trailing drawdown modelling | Yes — intraday, end-of-day and static, with the lock level | Yes |
| Breach alerts on Telegram | Yes — free, before you cross the limit | — |
| PropSync with a per-account drawdown guard | Yes — beta, free | No |
| Backtesting / replay | No — not what Propbook is for | Yes |
| Fees and resets tracked against payouts | Yes | — |
Compiled from public information in September 2026. Both products change — check TradeZella's current plans on their own site before deciding, and this page carries no affiliate link either way.
Where Propbook is different
It is free, with no card and no account cap. Not a trial, not a trade quota. Add ten funded accounts if you run ten.
It warns you. A journal tells you what happened. Propbook pings you on Telegram while an account is approaching its daily loss or drawdown limit — which is the only moment the information is worth anything.
It can act. PropSync mirrors one account to the others with a size multiplier each, and stops copying into an account that is close to its limit instead of breaching it.
It is narrower on purpose. There is no backtesting engine and no replay. If those are the features you are paying for, that is a real reason to stay where you are.
Pick TradeZella if…
you want backtesting and replay in the same product as your journal, you are happy with a subscription, and your trading is not organised around a set of funded accounts. Those are legitimate reasons, and Propbook does not try to compete with them.
Try it before you decide
Guest mode needs no account and no card — your data stays on your device until you choose otherwise. If it does not fit, you have lost two minutes.
Open Propbook →FAQ
Is Propbook really free?
Yes. Rule tracking, Telegram alerts, the journal, analytics, CSV import and payout readiness are free with no card and no account limit. Paid plans for PropSync and automatic broker sync are planned, and PropSync is free while in beta.
Can I move my TradeZella data over?
Export your trades to CSV and import them — Propbook detects the common broker and platform formats, and reads anything with a date column and a realised P&L column.
Does Propbook do backtesting?
No. It journals, tracks prop firm rules and copies trades. Backtesting is deliberately out of scope.
Is this page affiliated with TradeZella?
No. Propbook is independent, carries no affiliate links, and TradeZella is a trademark of its owner.