Background, I am a user of Tradovate. It is very much an all-in-one broker + platform. Even live data subscription is pretty straight forward.

Due to recent outages, I have been looking around for backups or alternatives. Have been checking out broker/platform sites like AMP futures, Edgeclear, IronBeam, OptimusFutures, NinjaTrader, SierraChart and so on...

That's where all the CQG, Rithmic terms keep coming up. The more I read the more I get confused lol. eg. this explain what Rithmic does https://optimusfutures.com/img/Rithmic/Rithmic-Infrastructure.png X Trench Run

Can an experienced futures trader explain CQG and Rithmic in simpler terms please? I'm a tick chart scalper if it matters.