AI4Finance-Foundation / FinRL

# FinRL: Financial Reinforcement Learning → FinRL-X
> [!IMPORTANT]
> **FinRL-X** is the next-generation evolution of FinRL, designed for AI-native, modular, and production-oriented quantitative trading.
>
> - **This repository (`FinRL`)** preserves the original end-to-end educational and research framework.
> - **For the latest architecture, live trading deployment, and production-focused development, please use `FinRL-X / FinRL-Trading`.**
**FinRL®** is widely recognized as the first open-source framework for financial reinforcement learning.
This repository contains the original FinRL library for education, benchmarking, and research prototyping.
For the next-generation AI-native and production-oriented trading stack, please visit **FinRL-X / FinRL-Trading**.
## FinRL Ecosystem Roadmap
| Generation | Positioning | Target Users | Repository | Description |
|----|----|----|----|----|
| FinRL-Meta | Market Environments | Practitioners | FinRL-Meta | Gym-style financial market environments and benchmarks |
| FinRL | Classic End-to-End Framework | Learners, Developers, Researchers | FinRL | Original train-test-trade pipeline for financial reinforcement learning |
| ElegantRL | Algorithm Layer | Researchers and Experts | ElegantRL | Lightweight and elegant DRL algorithms |
| **FinRL-X** | **Next Generation / Production** | **Professional traders, institutions, hedge funds** | **FinRL-Trading** | **AI-native modular infrastructure for deployment-aware quantitative trading** |
> **Recommended for new users:** Start with **FinRL-X / FinRL-Trading** if you are building modern or production-oriented trading systems.
### 🔄 FinRL-X vs. FinRL: What Changed
| Capability | FinRL (Stage 1.0) | FinRL-X (Stage 3.0) |
|---|---|---|
| **Paradigm** | Deep Reinforcement Learning | AI-Native (ML + DRL + LLM-ready) |
| **Architecture** | Three-layer coupled monolith | Fully decoupled modular layers |
| **Strategies** | DRL agents (A2C, DDPG, PPO, SAC, TD3) | ML selection + DRL timing + extensible base |
| **Data Layer** | 14 manually-wired processors | Auto-select: Yahoo Finance → FMP → WRDS |
| **Backtesting** | Custom hand-rolled evaluation loops | Professional `bt` library engine |
| **Live Trading** | Basic Alpaca support | Full multi-account integration + risk controls |
| **Configuration** | `config.py` + `config_tickers.py` | Type-safe Pydantic + `.env` multi-env |
| **Risk Management** | Gym environment constraints only | Order · portfolio · strategy-level controls |
| **Target Users** | Researchers & students | Quants, institutions, production deployments |
| **Paper** | arXiv:2011.09607 | arXiv:2603.21330 |
FinGPT: an open-source project for financial large language models, designed for research and real-world FinTech applications.
## Outline
 - Overview
 - File Structure
 - Supported Data Sources
 - Installation
 - Status Update
 - Tutorials
 - Publications
 - News
 - Citing FinRL
 - Join and Contribute
 - Contributors
 - Sponsorship
 - LICENSE
## Project Co