Best Charting Software for Stocks, Day Trading, Crypto & Free

There are a lot of great stock charting platforms out there. What’s the best one for you?

Depends.Before you can figure out the best charting software, you’ve got to figure out a few things — like what kind of trader you are and what features fit best with your strategy.

Once you have an idea of your goals, this article can help make sense of the many options out there. Below, I’ve broken down the key features, strengths, and weaknesses of the 13 best charting software around in 2023. You’ll find options for all sorts of investors, from day traders to long-term investors to crypto traders.

Let’s dive in.

At-a-Glance: Best Stock Charting Software in 2023

You’ll find a more comprehensive list below, but here’s a peek at some of our top picks:

Best overall stock charting software	TradingView
Best broker with free charting tools	TradeStation
Best stock charting software for automation-savvy traders	TrendSpider
Best stock screener/stock charting software	Finviz
Best for news-driven traders	Benzinga Pro
Best visual features	Bookmap
Best for portfolio assessment	StockRover
Best for mobile-focused traders	Webull
Best for powerful desktop charting	Interactive Brokers
Best for very active traders	Lightspeed
Best for long-term investors	Stockcharts
Best free stock charting software	thinkorswim
Best crypto charting software	Coinigy

Best Stock Charting Software in 2023: The Bottom Line

Overall, the best stock charting software is TradingView. I’ve personally been using it for years, and its plans — both free and paid — offer great utility and versatility for the greatest variety of traders.

That said, TradingView isn’t for everyone. For instance, if you’re a high-frequency trader with a large account, Lightspeed might be a better pick. If you’re a visual learner, you might love Bookmap. If you prefer an easy-to-use app on the go, Webull might be your top pick.

Overwhelmed? Don’t worry — we’ll explore all of them in more detail below.

13 Best Charting Software Platforms in 2023

Keep reading to find the right stock charting platform for you.

1. TradingView – Best Stock Charting Software Overall

• Overall rating: 5/5
• Ease of use: 4.5/5
• Cost: Multiple tiers ranging from free to $59.65/month.
• Promos: Free 30-day trial for all tiers + 16 % off with the link below.

TradingView is hugely popular, with tens of millions of users across the globe.

TradingView was built primarily with charting in mind. The breadth of tools it offers at every tier, both free and paid, is pretty amazing:

• More than 20 timeframes
• 14 types of charts
• 100+ indicators
• About 100 drawing tools

It also hosts a vast community which, in turn, offers more than 100,000 community-built indicators that give you a high level of customization that can significantly uplevel your trading.

Despite the many tools, it’s easy to use thanks to a clean and intuitive design. It’s also highly customizable so you can focus solely on the features you want.

Finally, Trading View is integrated with numerous other platforms including Interactive Brokers and TradeStation.

In short: TradingView is a suitable choice for beginners, part-timers, and experienced active traders.

While you can access TradingView for free, it has several premium tiers that unlock additional tools. I think that the Pro+ (coming in at $29.95/month, or $24.95 if you immediately sign up for a year) provides the best value as it enables you to simultaneously use 10 indicators, view 4 charts in each tab, and unlocks some additional customization.

2. TradeStation – Best Broker With Free Charting Tools

• Overall rating: 5/5
• Ease of use:  4/5
• Cost: Free with no commission on trades up to 10,000 shares.

I mentioned earlier that TradeStation can be integrated with TradingView.

But it also features its own charts with several important custom tools. The platform’s desktop software also boasts data going back around 4 decades that can be combined with almost 300 indicators and chart studies.

TradeStation also offers a mobile app. While not as powerful as the desktop version, it features 44 optional indicators, and its charting capability is dynamic and even provides after-hours visibility.

I actually mildly prefer the mobile version due to its drawing tools which support touchscreen styluses.

TradeStation’s standout chart features include:

• RadarScreen: A stock screener equipped with 329 criteria and alerts.
• Chart Analysis: A window where you can perform technical analysis, customize and optimize automation, show positions and orders, and check price data.
• Matrix: A multi-purpose window that boasts an order-entry tool and gives you insight into market depth, as well as buy and sell signals.

In addition to being a powerful charting tool in its own right, TradeStation is a great discount broker.

With its fast execution times, no commissions and fees for orders up to 10,000 shares and $0.005 per share for larger orders. It’s a particularly good fit for day and swing traders.

Considering its low fees and low barrier to entry, TradeStation is well worth considering for both charts and actually executing trades.

3. TrendSpider – Best Stock Charting Software for Automation

• Overall rating: 4.5/5
• Ease of use: 3/5
• Cost: Free 7-day trial with premium tiers costing between $32 and $179/month.

TrendSpider is primarily built for those of you who like to automate your strategies through the use of Smart Charts. Its stock charting software is no exception. It enables you to automate many of the most tedious aspects of technical analysis.

It also boasts an AI assistance tool that truly shines whenever you are using the backtesting function. This meshes really well with the platform’s automated trendlines as it can flag the ones that achieved the greatest success in testing.

TrendSpider helps reduce your workload in other ways. For instance, its software is equipped to recognize around 40 candlestick chart patterns and features dynamic price alerts that you can add whenever building chart patterns.

While TrendSpider has numerous unique and highly useful functions, it’s a niche software in many ways. There is a significant learning curve and the platform itself is singularly useful only if you are a swing trader or very keen on automation.

TrendSpiders offers a free 7-day trial and has several tiers of subscriptions ranging from $32 to $179 per month. Pricing varies; you can choose to pay annually or monthly and the Elite tier, which offers the best balance of features and cost, is $65 with the former, and $79 with the latter option.

4. Finviz – Best Stock Screener

• Overall rating: 4.5/5
• Ease of use: 4/5
• Cost: Offers a free version, and the Elite plan for $39.50/month

If you’ve been trading for a while, Finviz charts might give you a profound feeling of nostalgia. The platform started operating in 2007 and has hardly changed its visuals since.

I’d personally say that this is because Finviz has been focusing on the important stuff rather than getting a facelift. While you might feel that the charts look dated, the software itself is powerful and very versatile.

Finviz’s charts are clean, clear, and customizable. It truly shines when it comes to stock screening — in that arena, it may be the best stock charting tool available. Here’s why…

It gives you access to nearly 70 fundamental, technical, and descriptive filters enabling you to always find the right assets for your strategy. These filters, and combinations of filters can also be saved for future use by any registered user.

Beyond chart capabilities, the platform also enables you to compare and assess stocks with multiple other tools including heatmaps, fundamental and technical indicators, and more.

Finviz’s charting software is available for free, but premium tiers expand its offerings. The Elite level ($39.50 per month or $24.96 with an annual commitment) gives you access to all of its hallmark features and real-time quotes, intraday and other, more advanced charts, and many other tools.

5. Benzinga Pro – Best for News-Driven Traders

• Overall rating: 4/5
• Ease of use: 4.5/5
• Cost: Very limited free tier with premium plans ranging from $27 to $457/month.

Benzinga’s charts, while providing most of the features you’d expect from charting software, also boast some rather unique tools. These are, as you’d expect based on Benzinga’s reputation, based around integrating the news.

Benzinga’s charts, while providing most of the features you’d expect from charting software, also boast some rather unique tools.

The most notable of these is Benzinga Pro’s newswire with more than 50 pieces published each day and the Squawk feature which gives audio alerts on breaking market news.

Benzinga Pro also provides alerts on tradeable market developments, including:

• Sudden price movements
• Unusual options activity
• Circuit breaker halts
• Gap between yesterday’s close and today’s open

And more.

Circling back to Benzinga Pro’s charting offering more specifically, in addition to its own charts, you can also integrate it with TradingView. This means you can leverage the powerful native newswire offering with one of the best charting tools available.

Benzinga Pro has three different subscription tiers. There’s also a free offering. The lowest paid tier, the Basic Plan, and the free version are, however, severely limited by a 15-minute delay to data update.

The Essential plan makes Benzinga Pro a much better fit for active traders as it removes the delay and is essential if your main strategy is trading on the news it unlocks Squawk and BZ signals. The annual price of the plan is $117/month, and if you subscribe monthly it comes in at $177.

6. StockRover – Best for Portfolio Tracking and Assessing

• Overall rating: 4.5/5
• Ease of use: 4/5
• Cost: $7.99-$27.99/month

If you need a chart for tracking the performance of your portfolio(s), StockRover is a great pick. StockRover offers several subscription plans. Its most extensive offering, the Premium Plus plan, provides more than 650 tracking metrics.

StockRover makes it easy to keep track of how your portfolio is doing through a wide selection of modifications including making customized price charts and comparative performance between several portfolios as well as between your portfolio and benchmarks like the S&P 500.

StockRover also equips you with portfolio rebalancing support, analytics for various positions, price alerts, and automated reports. It also easily integrates with more than 100 brokers making sure that you won’t get a headache setting it up.

All in all, StockRover is a very powerful tool that can help you get an edge with its numerous portfolio-assessing tools whether you are a long-term investor or an active trader.

Additionally, it is relatively cheap. The Essential plan only sets you back $7.99/month; the Premium Plus plan is $27.99. The plans are also discounted if you make an annual subscription with the latter coming in at just over $23/month.

7. Bookmap – Best for Order Flow Traders

• Overall rating: 4.5/5
• Ease of use: 3/5
• Cost: Very limited free tier with premium plans going from $16-$79/month.

Bookmap is a rather unique platform. It was built with active traders in mind, and most of its features are geared toward giving order flow traders a distinct edge.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about Bookmap is its outstanding approach to visualization. Its charting capabilities include several features you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else, such as:

• 40 frames per second: Bookmap’s data gets refreshed 40 times each second giving you an almost instantaneous view of the market. Additionally, whenever you are analyzing the data, you can zoom into timeframes smaller than a second, giving you VERY precise information.
• Volume Bubbles: The platform visualizes volume data in the form of bubbles on the chart. The larger the bubble higher the volume. Similarly, the bubble’s color indicates the kind of pressure – green for buying, red for selling. The color-coding of information to boost readability is a hallmark of Bookamp.
• Heatmaps: Bookmap’s heatmaps help you visualize the liquidity of an asset at different price levels with darker shades indicating higher levels, and brighter lower levels.

In addition to these features, Bookmap also offers most of the tools you’d expect from charting software.

If you have a premium subscription, this platform can also help you level up your paper trading as it offers a Record/Replay function. This enables you to run as many simulations as you want on actual past market action.

All of that being said, there are drawbacks to Bookmap.

First, it can be very visually noisy making it hard to read at first. Second, there isn’t much for you on the platform if you are a longer-term investor.

Finally, Bookmap is pricey. While some of its features are available at the free tier, you really need to get a premium subscription if you really want to take advantage of what the platform is offering. Additionally, the quality of the package is directly correlated with the price, and the most expensive tier ($99 per month) is the best one.

8. Webull – Best Mobile-Focused Charting Software

• Overall rating: 4/5
• Ease of use: 4.5/5
• Cost: Free

Webull is a rather different beast than many others on this list. It is available on all mobile devices and is, indeed, designed for use on a smartphone. I think it’s the best platform for mobile, with 12 charting tools and more than 50 technical indicators.

Additionally, Webull is a commission-free online broker and the app itself is also free. When you sign up, you also get access to NASDAQ TotalView Level 2 Advance quotes for three months.

If you want to retain access to that information after the trial period, the subscription is affordable — just $1.99 per month.

9. Interactive Brokers – Most Powerful and Reliable Desktop Charting Software

• Overall rating: 4/5
• Ease of use: 4/5
• Cost: IBKR Lite is free, IBKR Pro charges minor commissions but offers lower margin rates.

Interactive Brokers is, as the name implies, an online platform that offers extensive access to global markets, zero commission trades, and powerful analysis tools with robust charting capabilities.

It’s perhaps best known for its desktop platform; its Trader Workstation is a workhorse for many investors. It offers more than 120 technical indicators, plus hotkey integration, so you can both find great trading opportunities and execute them with lightning speed.

Another great thing about Interactive Brokers is that it has integrated TradingView meaning you can switch up your charting software while retaining IBKR’s global reach.

It is noteworthy that while Interactive Brokers is pretty famous for its powerful and reliable desktop platform, its mobile offering is slightly worse as it can sometimes be annoyingly buggy.

Overall, Interactive Brokers’ high degree of customizability, high reliability on desktop, and the ability to trade directly from its charts make it a great choice for day traders.

10. Lightspeed – Best for Very Active Traders

• Overall rating: 3.5/5
• Ease of use: 3.5/5
• Cost: $25,000 Account minimum for desktop, $10,000 for mobile/web

Lightspeed is a peculiar entry on this list for two reasons:

1. It supports only a handful of asset classes: stocks, futures, and options.

2. The barrier to entry is rather high.

To use Lightspeed, you’ll have to meet the account minimum of $25,000 for software, or $10,000 for mobile and web. Be mindful, however, that if you are a pattern day trader, the account minimum is always going to be $25,000.

On the other hand, the high buy-in price comes with some neat benefits including a very high degree of security and the fact that all accounts are automatically insured up to $25,500,000.

If you don’t mind the high minimum account balance, there is a lot to love about Lightspeed.

The platform has some of the fastest execution times on the market due to its specially-designed proprietary algorithms. It has great customer support available from 8:00 AM to 11:00 PM EST every day of the week.

Lightspeed boasts a wealth of analysis tools including more than 150 technical indicators, a powerful stock screener, and an extensive learning library.

But we’re here to talk about charts. Lightspeed also has great charting capabilities. Its charts are highly customizable, provide both real-time and historical data, and, despite being feature-packed, are quite intuitive.

While the initial costs are high, Lighspeed’s commissions are, actually, comparable to its peers. It is also a great platform for very active traders as it rewards you for meeting its monthly trading volume thresholds with discounts that can make the per-share rates as low as $0.001.

11. Stockcharts – Best Charting Software for Long-Term Investors

• Overall rating: 4/5
• Ease of use: 4/5
• Cost: From free to $49.95/month

The first thing you should know about Stockcharts? Real-time charts are not available with the Stockcharts free plan. To gain access to them, you’ll have to invest $14.95 for the Basic plan.

But with that out of the way, Stockcharts is a pretty powerful platform geared toward long-term investors that features more than 10 types of charts.

Some of the more interesting ones?

• Point & Figure Charts: An old-school type of chart with Xs and Os that makes spotting macro trends easy.
• Seasonability Charts: Made for analyzing trends over a period of your choosing.

The platform is highly customizable, offers extensive historical data, and is fairly easy to use. So if you like to make very precise, highly deliberate investments, it is a great platform for you.

Stockcharts also enables you to trade directly from its charts thanks to its partnership with the Tradier brokerage.

Limiting factors for Stockcharts?

• Its charts, while very readable, refresh with a 5-15 second delay.
• There’s no Stockcharts mobile app making it difficult to make highly time-sensitive traders while on the go.

While you do have to get one of the premium plans to really take advantage of Stockcharts’ capabilities, the good news is that all the plans offer decent value. The Basic plan ($14.95) gives you access to the real-time chart, and 25 technical indicators and overlays.

Extra and Pro tiers go up to $39.95 per month and unlock even more tools like additional scanning and charting customizability.

12. Thinkorswim – Best Free Technical Analysis Charting Software

• Overall rating: 4.5/5
• Ease of use: 3/5
• Cost: Free

Thinkorswim is a feature-packed and powerful charting platform from TD Ameritrade. It has a long history compared to many of the other platforms as it dates back to the 90s.

Its interface may look a bit dated but don’t be fooled as it boasts every bit of functionality you might expect from premium software — and it’s free.

Thinkorswim’s charts offer numerous screening indicators and countless technical analysis tools. You can also view up to 28 charts at the same time pretty much in any configuration you choose as the platform is endlessly customizable.

Thinkorswim also enables you to place orders, create a personalized watchlist, practice with paper trading, build algorithms with its “thinkScript” and much, much more. It also offers paper trading.

On the flip side, the raw power and the endless parade of options that comes with thinkorswim make it pretty complex and somewhat inaccessible. For this reason, I’d mostly recommend it to at least moderately experienced traders.

13. Coinigy – Best Crypto Charting Software

• Overall rating: 4/5
• Ease of use: 4/5
• Cost: $18.66 for Pro Trader, $99.99 for API Dev Pro

Coinigy is widely considered the best crypto charting software. Here’s why. Along with its easy-to-use and information-packed charts, it offers wider utility by offering various technical analysis, portfolio tracking, and market trend tracking tools.

It also gives you the option to set up custom SMS alerts which can be invaluable in the fast-moving and volatile world of crypto.

It is also great for veteran traders seeking to make their entry into crypto as Coinigy’s platform is built on top of TradingView. This means that the interface itself, as well as many of the tools available, will feel familiar.

Coinigy also uses information from dozens of crypto exchanges for its data feeds ensuring you’ll always have access to the most accurate and up-to-date information possible.

The main drawback of Coinigy is that it doesn’t offer a free plan. (Coinigy does, however, offer a free 7-day trial.) It offers subscription tiers: Pro Trader for $18.66 per month which should cover most crypto trading needs; it also has an API Dev Pro for advanced users for $99.99/month.

Final Word: Best Charting Software

All things considered, I believe TradingView is the best charting software for most traders and investors. It simply is that versatile, and the fact that it is integrated with a large number of brokers means that you’ll often feel at home even on separate platforms.

However, it may not fit the bill for specialized use. But as you’ve seen in this article, there are plenty of charting software platforms that will — like Lightspeed for day traders or Bookmap for nifty visual features.

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