Zerodha Pi discontinuation and migration

Overview

Zerodha Pi was a Windows-based desktop trading application launched by Zerodha around 2015 as the broker’s primary advanced trading platform. Pi offered a more feature-rich environment than the web-based tools of the time, including integrated charting with advanced technical analysis indicators, strategy testing using AmiBroker integration, multi-window layouts, and direct market access features for more active traders. The platform was positioned as Zerodha’s answer to the institutional-grade desktop terminals used by professional traders, adapted for the retail client.

Pi was discontinued in 2019 as Zerodha concentrated its product development resources on Kite, the browser-based trading platform that had grown rapidly since its launch in 2016 and had come to dominate Zerodha’s client base in terms of daily active usage. The Pi discontinuation reflected a broader industry shift from desktop-installed applications toward browser-based and mobile trading interfaces, a transition driven by changes in client preferences and advances in browser-based technology that eliminated most of the performance advantages that desktop applications had previously enjoyed.

Pi’s capabilities and features

Charting and technical analysis

Pi offered a sophisticated charting module that supported multiple chart types (candlestick, line, bar, Heikin-Ashi, Renko, and others), a wide library of technical analysis indicators (moving averages, Bollinger Bands, RSI, MACD, and many others), drawing tools, and multi-time-frame analysis. The charting module was built on a desktop rendering engine that was faster and more responsive than browser-based charting of the same era.

For traders who relied heavily on technical analysis, Pi’s charting capabilities were a significant advantage over the browser-based tools available in 2015 to 2017.

AmiBroker integration and strategy backtesting

One of Pi’s distinctive features was integration with AmiBroker, a well-established technical analysis and backtesting software. Through this integration, traders could build and backtest trading strategies in AmiBroker and then execute those strategies through Pi’s order management system. This gave retail traders access to a primitive form of systematic or algorithmic trading – not fully automated, but allowing strategy-guided order placement.

The integration also allowed traders to program custom indicators and alerts in AmiBroker’s scripting language (AFL, or AmiBroker Formula Language) and use them in conjunction with Pi’s market data feed.

Spread orders and advanced order types

Pi supported spread order placement (simultaneous entry of related buy and sell orders across different contracts), which was useful for options strategies and futures spreading. The multi-leg order entry capability was more straightforward in Pi’s desktop interface than in the web-based interfaces of the time.

Multi-window layouts

Pi allowed traders to set up customised multi-window layouts with watchlists, charts, and order entry windows arranged to suit their trading style. This desktop-style workspace was familiar to traders accustomed to Bloomberg terminals or other professional desktop platforms and was a preference for active traders who needed multiple data streams visible simultaneously.

Reasons for discontinuation

Rise of Kite

Kite launched in 2016 as a browser-based platform built on modern web technologies. Its clean design, fast performance, and mobile compatibility quickly made it the preferred interface for the majority of Zerodha’s client base. The investment in Kite’s development attracted millions of new retail clients who had no prior experience with desktop trading platforms and who found Kite’s simplicity preferable.

By 2018, Kite was handling the majority of Zerodha’s daily order volume. Maintaining two parallel platforms – Pi for power users and Kite for everyone else – imposed a significant and growing development and maintenance burden on Zerodha’s engineering team.

Technology shift

Browser technology advanced substantially between 2015 and 2019. WebSockets (for real-time data streaming), WebAssembly, and improvements in JavaScript engines eliminated most of the performance gap between browser-based and native desktop applications for trading use cases. Kite’s charting engine (built on a high-performance JavaScript charting library) became competitive with Pi’s charting capabilities in terms of speed and responsiveness.

The argument that a desktop application was necessary for advanced charting or fast order execution became less compelling as browser capabilities improved.

Windows-only limitation

Pi was a Windows-only application, which excluded Zerodha’s growing base of macOS and Linux users and made it inaccessible from mobile devices. Kite’s browser-based architecture made it accessible from any operating system and from any device with a modern browser, which aligned better with the demographic shift toward mobile-first computing.

Maintenance cost

Desktop applications require installation, updates, and compatibility maintenance across different Windows versions. Each Windows update had the potential to break Pi functionality and required testing and patching. Browser-based applications are updated centrally by the broker and require no client-side installation or update management.

Client migration to Kite

Zerodha communicated the Pi discontinuation to clients through Z-Connect blog posts and in-app notifications, providing advance notice and explaining the rationale. Clients were directed to Kite for all trading functions and to Sensibull (an Zerodha partner platform for options analysis) and Streak (a Zerodha partner platform for algorithmic trading) for advanced analysis and strategy features that Pi had offered.

Zerodha’s ecosystem of partner platforms and the Kite Connect API (the developer API for Kite) was positioned as the replacement for Pi’s advanced features. Traders who needed AmiBroker integration could continue to use AmiBroker independently with data feeds from other sources, or use the Kite Connect API to build custom integrations.

For most retail clients, the migration to Kite was seamless, since Kite covered all the core trading functions. For a smaller group of power users who had built complex workflows around Pi’s specific features (particularly AmiBroker integration), the transition required more work to find and implement alternatives.

Legacy

Pi’s legacy in the Indian retail trading landscape is primarily as the platform that demonstrated the viability of advanced technical analysis and strategy testing for retail traders, helping to normalise systematic approaches to trading in the Indian market. The features Pi offered in 2015 – multiple indicators, custom strategies, backtesting – were ahead of what most Indian retail brokers offered at the time and helped Zerodha attract a technically sophisticated client segment.

The subsequent shift to Kite and the Kite Connect API ecosystem continued and extended this mission, providing even more capable tools for sophisticated traders while simultaneously serving the far larger mass market of retail investors.

References

• Zerodha Z-Connect Blog, “Zerodha Pi: what it is and how to get started,” Zerodha.com (archived).
• Zerodha Z-Connect Blog, “Pi is being discontinued,” 2019, Zerodha.com.
• Zerodha Z-Connect Blog, “Kite 3.0: the next generation of Zerodha’s trading platform,” Zerodha.com.
• Kite Connect API documentation, kite.trade.
• Streak platform documentation, streak.tech (Zerodha partner).