If you are fascinated by the world of automated crypto trading and everything it offers, you probably came across two popular platforms: Bitsgap and 3Commas.

Bots of these platforms offer great tools to help you trade 24/7; however, they have their own strengths and weaknesses.

In this review, we will explore both of them in detail so you can make the choice that suits you best.

Let's dive in!

Bitsgap is a popular web platform that helps you set up automated bots on top cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Bitfinex, Kraken, and many more.

Bitsgap offers grid and DCA bots and a trading terminal from which you can set up intelligent trades across exchanges. Bitsgap is beginner-friendly, and plenty of online resources can help you set up trading bots on their platform.

If you are looking for a top crypto trading platform that offers excellent reliability and a smooth trading experience, 3commas is a highly recommended choice. It was founded in 2017 to provide crypto traders of all levels with a competitive edge thanks to its complete suite of automated and manual tools. 

3Commas offers excellent trading tools with an intuitive layout and plenty of educational materials, making it an ideal choice for beginner and advanced traders.

The Bitsgap platform offers cloud-based trading bots. The availability of both Grid bots and DCA bots allows users to automate trading strategies in both sideways and trending markets with just a few clicks.

Let's review in more detail the top features:

Grid Bots

Grid bots are a popular feature of Bitsgap and one of the main reasons why the platform is so popular nowadays. Bitsgap has different types of grid trading bots options, depending on whether or not you are using the newest interface:

Legacy options

• Classic grid bot. The Classic bot systematically buys and sells the same quantity of the base currency per transaction. This means that as the price falls, the bot will trade a lower amount of quote currency, and as the price increases, it trades a larger amount of quote currency. This is a great choice for bull markets, as more profit will be generated as the price goes up.
• Sbot. The Sbot buys and sells the same quantity of quote currency per grid level. Under this distribution model, the bot will buy more base per transaction when the price falls. The Sbot is better suited for a sideways market and can be used to accumulate base currency.

New interface options

As of the most recent update, Bitsgap doesn't offer predefined grid bots. Instead, you have full customization power over your grid bots.

Basic settings

You can choose if you want to profit in quote or base currency and fix the grid orders in quote or base currency. You can also adjust the grid step to your liking.

Trailing up and trailing down

The trailing up and trailing down features move the grid to follow the market up or down, respectively. They create additional grids as necessary, up to a certain price that you specify.

These features help you have a more hands-off approach but are not without risks. In my experience, following the market down can be a costly mistake. In fact, Bitsgap disabled this feature for a time due to the large number of users who had lost money. So if you decide to activate it, be mindful of the risk.

Pump protection

Pump protection prevents the bot from executing orders during sudden price increases. 

Stop loss and take profit

There are also Stop Loss and Take Profit features that add an extra layer of protection. It helps you lock in profits when the price reaches a certain level or cut your losses if it starts going against you.

Bitsgap offers trailing stop loss for grid bots, a feature you don't often see elsewhere. When trailing, the stop loss will follow the market upwards.

DCA bots

Bitsgap's DCA bots are a rather new addition to their platform, so they are not as feature-packed as other solutions.

You can choose between starting a deal immediately or indicator signals. For indicator signals, you only have 3 to choose from: RSI, Stochastic, and MACD. It also lacks the ability to start deals based on webhooks. So if you were hoping for any remotely advanced DCA bot, Bitsgap is not your solution.

Buy the dip bots

This special grid bot is optimized to increase base currency accumulation when the price is trending lower. It starts by selling the base currency, then places a grid with a trailing down feature that profits in base currency. 

This bot can be quite valuable for HODLers during bear markets, as they help preserve their portfolio's value.

Intelligent trading terminal

Another of the tools that Bitsgap offers is an intelligent trading terminal to operate in the best cryptocurrency exchanges simultaneously and with additional options than those commonly provided by exchanges.

The types of orders available are:

• Limit: It is possible to buy or sell a cryptocurrency at a price established by the user.
• TWAP (Time-weighted average price): This allows you to optimize the average position of an asset over a set period of time (Dollar Cost Average).
• Scaled: Allows you to place up to 100 Limit orders (either buy or sell) within a grid with a couple of clicks.
• Market: An order to buy or sell immediately at the market price
• Stop Limit: An order establishes a Limit position of buying or selling when the price has reached a good profit.
• Stop: It is an order that establishes a Limit position of buying or selling when the price has gone against expectations to protect capital.

Portfolio Management

Bitsgap includes another helpful tool that allows you to manage your cryptocurrency portfolio in real time and across all your exchanges.

3Commas offers tools for manual and automated trading. Let's go over the most prominent ones:

Paper Trading

Paper trading is an essential feature not enough bot platforms offer. Paper trading uses fake funds to test bot strategies or manual trades in real time.

Paper trading is a must-have feature, especially for beginners learning the ropes of automatic and manual trading. Demo accounts are not utilized as much as they should be, and it's a mistake that can cost dearly to novice traders. It is a well-known fact that 90% of traders lose money, and the best way to be on the good side of that statistic is by practicing with paper trade.

You can activate your 3Comma's paper trading mode at the top bar of the page where it says, 'paper trading balance" by clicking activate. If it is not there, you will find it in the account settings, where you can toggle the “show paper trading” on the right of the screen to green and then activate the “Paper trading balance.”

3Commas' paper trading is robust. I have personally used it for many months without a hiccup. My only complaint is that you are given only one paper trading account on one "exchange," and it is unclear which particular exchange is emulating. I find it more instructive to mimic certain exchanges and have several paper trading accounts on each, enabling users to replicate their live accounts on paper trading. Nevertheless, 3Commas paper trading covers all the basics, and it's an excellent tool for practicing strategies without risking your hard-earned money.

Smart trading

The Smart Trading feature of 3Commas allows you to execute trades manually across all supported exchanges. The advantages of the smart trade over the native interface are twofold: 1. you don't need to learn and get used to each exchange interface, and 2. you have advanced options that exchanges don't usually provide, such as trailing take profit and stop loss, among others.

One neat feature of smart trading is the ability to split take profit targets, something you don't usually find on the exchange itself.

I found 3Commas's Smart Trading feature quite helpful and one of the most complete solutions for manual trading.

Grid Bot

3Comma's grid bot comes with standard features and a few extra perks. I really like that 

You can fix your grid orders in quote or base and profit in quote or base. Though it is impossible to set the order in base and profit in base, all other combinations are available.

In addition, you can activate the trailing up feature, where the grid bot moves upward with the market creating new grid lines (available when you fix your orders in quote and profit in quote).

Another nice feature is the ability to choose an action when the bot reaches the upper or the lower bound of the grid, allowing you to stop the bot only or stop the bot and buy/sell base.

On the downside, I must mention that I am missing a stop loss and taking profit features. You could argue that the upper stop bot and lower stop bot features could act as take profit and stop loss, respectively. However, they only work when a specific price is reached. You cannot set the stop loss or take profit based on ROI achieved, as you can do in other bot platforms.

I am also a bit disappointed that the upper and lower stop bot only work when you fix your order in base and profit in quote or vice versa. And the trailing up feature is only available when you fix the orders in quote and profit in quote. It is not entirely clear why some options are only available on specific combinations of grid order setting and profit currency.

DCA Bot

The dollar cost averaging (DCA) bots are 3Commas' most popular feature. DCA bots enable you to buy an asset at preset price drop percentages, lowering the average acquisition price of the asset. DCA bots are a great tool to reduce the asset's volatility risk and the entry price over time, which increases the chances of achieving your profit target when the price moves against you.

3Commas' version of DCA bots, specifically price-DCA bots, follow the Martingale strategy. Price-DCA should not be confused with time-DCA (HODL bots, explained in the next section). Price-DCA can be a great strategy under the right market conditions, but it is inherently risky and can quickly turn into losses if not managed properly.

Being 3Commas' most prominent and popular feature, it surprises me that they have not yet released an easy way to backtest their DCA bots. If you created your bot and want to see the results on historical data (and you should, always), then you have no choice but to try your luck with TradingView emulators or other third-party solutions. Alternatively, you can backtest a DCA bot on our platform for free. Even if you are a 3Commas user, you can replicate the bot settings in our platform just for the sake of backtesting it first; we do not charge and will never charge for backtesting.

HODL bot

The HODL bot implements the time-DCA strategy, in which you buy the same dollar amount of an asset periodically, independently of its current price. The HODL bot helps you to trade with much more flexibility by taking funds from your account and investing in your chosen asset, lowering the risk of significant price volatility. The good news is that the HODL bot is a set-and-forget bot, meaning you only need to ensure that you top up the stable coin balance used to fund the bot.

For example, you can set the HODL bot to buy $100 worth of your favorite cryptocurrency weekly. The bot invests the amount specified into the preferred crypto every week on the day and time of your choosing and will continue until you stop the bot.

Smart Bot

The smart bot is the newest addition to the 3Commas bot family. They are based on a combination of QFL 'Quick Fingers Luc' strategy and machine learning, which tries to anticipate and capitalize on price bounces.

Based on my limited experience (2 weeks running) and users' experience in the 3Commas Discord, I can say that these bots aren't the magic solution we have been waiting for. I am yet to see anyone raving about their returns. In fact, I don't think I have heard of anyone being profitable using one of these.

If you decide to give them a shot, test them on your paper trading account for a few weeks. It's still early days for the Smart Bots; perhaps they need more data to live up to their name.

Options Bot

Finally, the option and futures bots are one of the derivative trading instruments in the 3Commas platform. They are simple and convenient bots that allow you to profit from the asset's volatility and reduce your trading risk. The option bot gives one party, either buyer or seller, the option to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price before or at expiration. Of course, all this is subject to payment of premiums.

Bitsgap comes with a user-friendly interface. The interface also has a nifty night mode, ensuring that you won't be setting up teary-eyed trading bots in the middle of the night.

I like that Bitsgap continuously backtests trading pairs with different configurations and shows you the best backtesting results as you set up your bot. This can save you the headache of finding the perfect coin and configuration for yourself.

I find creating a bot straightforward and well-explained, thanks to the tooltips accompanying each configuration option. However, if you get stuck, the knowledge base is an excellent resource with in-depth explanations and examples to help you set up your bots.

3Commas is beginner-friendly, allowing new traders to use it with ease. The ease of use applies to mobile and desktop apps.

The onboarding process can be overwhelming to beginners because several parameters need to be set. If this is your first time setting up these bots, you may not be familiar with the different setting options.

The good news is that the platform has a 3Commas trading school and an active learning community that helps beginners learn how to become successful traders. You learn about cryptocurrencies, technical analysis, and bot trading, and you will have access to practical tools and courses.

Having said that, I find that sometimes 3Commas can better explain the different options with more tooltips and in-depth documentation. 

3Commas support all major exchanges. It is worth mentioning that 3Commas offers special promotions when signing up for certain exchanges, including Binance, OKK, Bittrex, Bitstamp, KuCoin, Huobi Global, Crypto.com, Gemini, Deribit, and ByBit, among others. But this depends on the agreement between the two platforms, so you must look closely at the exchange agreements. 

Bitsgap pricing is as follows:

Honestly, I find Bitsgap on the expensive side compared to similar competitors.

You will need to subscribe to the PRO plan if you want to use the features that set Bitsgap apart, such as the trailing up and take profit for grid bots.

It's also disappointing that you are limited in the number of bots you can create, even on the highest pricing tier.

3Commas has four pricing plans to choose from, which have no hidden charges. The plans are free, starter, advanced and professional. The charges are straightforward:

• Free plan: It costs $0
• Starter plan: It costs $29 monthly, but users get a 50% discount if they pay for the plan annually ($14.50 per month)
• Advanced plan: It costs $49 monthly, but users get a 50% discount if they pay for the plan annually ($24.50 per month)
• Professional plan: It costs $99 monthly, but users get a 50% discount if they pay for the plan annually ($49.50 per month)

The free basic plan has the following:

• Only one DCA (single or multi-pair), grid, and option bot
• One active smart trade
• Trader's diary
• API Access

The rest of the plans vary on the number of active bots and smart trades you can have.

I find 3Commas plans fair priced, as the platform is packed with features. Be sure to look for discounts, which they often release, especially during holidays.

Bitsgap is a web platform; therefore, it is available from any device. However, for a company that has been around since 2018, not having mobile apps is a bit of a letdown.

Bitsgap mobile

The good news is that Bitsgap offers a simplified web version specifically designed for mobile devices. You have the same options as you have with the desktop version with an interface that's easier to navigate on mobile devices.

3Commas can be accessed from anywhere through its web platform, as well as through its android and iPhone mobile apps.

The mobile apps are very well designed and come with all the web version features. As you can see by their ratings, users have nothing but good things to say about them.

Bitsgap has a well-organized Q&A database on its platform, which is helpful for common issues users may encounter. But when users face problems that do not have a specific answer in its help center, they can directly contact a person from the platform's technical support.

All of their packages offer support via chat and email. Bitsgap also provides priority support for users using their basic or pro plan. People can issue support tickets which will be answered accordingly.

Bitsgap support is one of the best I've found. Whenever I had a problem, I was able to fix my issue within a few hours.

The 3Commas customer service is willing to help traders with questions about the platform and trading. They can be contacted via customer support email, [email protected], and payment email, [email protected].

You can also use the website’s contact page, https://3commas.io/about/contacts, and also get to the social media platforms like Twitter, @3commas_io, and Reddit, r/3commasCommunity.

There is also a Discord learning community where traders can discuss and share ideas. However, some Discord users have complained about 3Commas' lack of support on their Discord.

3Commas also uses live chat for communication between users and support team members.

I have used 3Commas' support a handful of times and find them fast and responsive. On a couple of occasions they did not address my queries adequately, but they were able to raise my support ticket to someone more qualified who answered all my questions.

Bitsgap comes with the standard security features for any trading bot service. 

The platform does not have direct access to the funds, but they connect through APIs to the exchanges. Bitsgap allows you to set up IP whitelisting, a good security feature that can prevent you from being a victim of contra-trading attacks.

It also offers the option of configuring the two-factor authenticator (2FA).

These measures ensure that malicious third parties cannot access your funds.

3Commas connects to your exchanges using encrypted API. The 3Commas system communicates with the trader’s exchange to start and close deals, but there is no access to withdrawals or transfers of crypto and fiat currencies.

3Commas uses Cloudflare as a security service provider. CloudFlare provides a web application firewall, SSL/TLS encryption between servers and visitors, and DDOS attack protection.

Traders are also advised to secure their exchange account and 3Commas account with two-factor authentication (2FA) and use a unique and strong password. Keep the 2FA backup keys safe, and do not store the API keys in an accessible document.

Report of 3Commas API leaks

3Commas has recently been at the epicenter of a heated discussion. A group of 3Commas users claims that $22 million have been hacked through unauthorized use of their exchange API, allegedly leaked by 3Commas.

3Commas have reiterated that their security is air-tight and their system has not been compromised, blaming them on phishing attacks performed by hackers trying to pass as 3Commas website.

While the investigation is still ongoing, you can take steps to increase the security of your API keys through IP and coin pair whitelisting. The sad news is that 3Commas still does not support IP whitelisting, which exposes its users to potential attacks.

Bittsgap has been around since 2018, giving the platform time to fix bugs and become more reliable. Therefore, Bitsgap is quite reliable, and this doesn't seem to be a concern for its users.

I have used Bitsgap for many months and found no major issues. I would like to mention that when accessing the platform from a mobile with a poor network connection, the platform can be very slow to respond. I suspect this may be due to the high amount of websocket connections the platform establishes with the exchange. This is not a problem if you are on a fast network, but it can be quite a problem if you are in a slow one.

3Commas was founded in 2017, making it one of the oldest trading platforms available. Hundreds of thousands of users have used the platform, so in terms of reliability, 3Commas is one of the top choices.

There are reports of users who claim that 3Commas is not reliable during peak trading volume. However, those reports mostly happened years ago, and it seems that 3Commas has since taken steps to prevent the issues from happening again.

The platform receives regular updates on the tools available to its users. Bitsgap also pays attention to user feedback, as observed by the much-requested release of the DCA bots.

All in all, the Bitsgap platform receives constant updates so users can rest assured they are using cutting-edge trading tools.

The platform has regular updates to make it more feature-rich and easy to use for users. In recent months, the platform introduced a host of new features to the grid bots as well as improvements to smart trading.

The team at 3Commas is doing a great job of keeping the platform updated.

Bitsgap can be a good fit for you if you:

• Are an active trader
• Your trading strategies are simple
• You need backtesting and paper trading
• You would like to use a good grid bot solution

3Commas is a great choice if you:

• Are an active trader
• Would like to automate all or part of your trading strategy
• Are comfortable with the risks of DCA bots

So the big question is: Bitsgap or 3Commas, which one should you use?

As always, the answer depends on what you are looking for. Bitsgap and 3Commas are popular leading bot platforms with extensive user bases and great features. However, they have different strengths.

Bitsgap's strength is its grid bots, so if you are a grid bot aficionado, Bitsgap is definitely for you.

3Commas' strengths are its DCA bots and the Smart Trade features. So if you prefer manual trading or using DCA bots, 3Commas is the better choice.

It's also worth mentioning that Bitsgap is considerably more expensive than 3Commas. If you are on a budget, the choice is clear.

On the other hand, if you are concerned about security, you may want to keep in mind the news about the 3Commas API leaks and the potential implications.

Lastly, you may want to consider Gainium as a contender. It has grid, DCA, and HODL bots, trading terminal, backtesting, paper trading, and many more features.