While there are many charting platforms available, TradingView and StockCharts stand out by combining a wide range of features with an easy-to-use design. With both platforms, you get access to fully customizable technical charts, stock screens, and more.
So, which charging software is right for you? In this guide, we will compare TradingView vs. StockCharts to help you decide.
About TradingView and StockCharts
TradingView was founded in 2011 as a platform to bring killer style trading tools to the cloud. The company developed advanced charting software, which it now licenses to many trading firms. In addition, TradingView has over 30 million monthly users on its site.
StockCharts is a very old platform, founded in 1999 by a former Microsoft developer who worked on early versions of Windows. At the time, StockCharts was one of the first advanced tools available to retail traders for online stock analysis. Despite its debut, StockCharts is far surpassed by TradingView in terms of its user base – StockCharts sees around 2 million users each month.
TradingView vs. StockCharts: Charting Features
TradingView and StockCharts are designed first and foremost for charting, and each does an excellent job of helping traders analyze price data. Both platforms come preloaded with hundreds of technical indicators, annotation and drawing tools, and multi-panel layouts. Therefore, we will focus more on the features that distinguish these two charting platforms.
TradingView has several important features that you won’t find in StockCharts. First, you can view price data at 1-, 5-, 15-, or 30-second intervals. With StockCharts, the shortest period of price data is 1 minute. In addition, TradingView offers bar replay, so you can easily rewind the chart to see how the technical pattern played out.
More importantly, TradingView offers a code editor that you can use to create your own custom technical indicators. Although the indicators in StockCharts are highly customizable, there is no way to create an indicator that does not exist in the software. TradingView also allows you to import indicators created by other users, making the software more flexible for trying out new strategies.
Where StockCharts excels is in the range of their charts and how flexible they are. You can view not only traditional chart styles such as candlestick and Heikin-Ashi, but also Elder Impulse System bars, points and statistical charts, and performance charts comparing up to 12 symbols. There are also RRG charts to visualize relative momentum and strength across many stocks and seasonal charts that examine how price trends change throughout the year. While not all of these chart patterns are as useful for intraday trading as a 1-second chart might be, they can be very useful in revealing missing stick chart patterns.
TradingView vs. StockCharts: Stock Screener
Both TradingView and StockCharts also offer comprehensive stock analysis tools. You’ll have access to all the same technical indicators for testing as you do on the chart, including any custom indicators you’ve created in TradingView. Both scanners are easy to use, although the user interface of TradingView is decidedly more modern.
Another great advantage the StockCharts screen has is that you can open the code editor to customize your scan and create complex logic statements. While TradingView has a code editor for creating indicators, the software does not allow you to directly edit the stock scan code.
What TradingView does offer, however, are scan results that update in real time. TradingView results can be automatically updated every 10 seconds, which is useful for daily trading in rapidly changing market conditions. StockCharts requires you to manually rerun your scan to update the results.
TradingView vs. StockCharts: Trade Ideas
TradingView and StockCharts each allow you to connect with other traders on the platform, although TradingView has a distinct advantage due to the size of its community.
At TradingView, you’ll find dozens of community-contributed indicators, trading ideas, and discussions posted daily. In fact, the forum has ‘Editor’s Picks’ sections to help you find the best ideas in the community.
On StockCharts, entire weeks can go by without a post on the community boards. However, users are able to share a list of charts and trading ideas as in TradingView.
TradingView vs. StockCharts: Trading
Another key difference between TradingView and StockCharts is in the way they allow trading. TradingView also includes trader accounts for Tradovate, AMP Globa, OANDA, Forex.com, and Gemini, while StockCharts only includes Tradier. Notably, TradingView has limited support for option trading, while StockCharts offers integrated trading options with Tradier.
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TradingView vs. StockCharts: Price options
TradingView is more expensive than StockCharts, especially as you move up the price ladder of the two platforms. Basic paid tiers for both services start at $14.95 per month. In TradingView, that includes five indicators per chart and two charts per window. At StockCharts, you get 20 indicators per chart and there is no limit to the number of charts you can have per window. However, you can only use 1 custom screen per month.
TradingView’s Pro+ tier costs $29.95 per month and the Premium tier costs $59.95 per month. This increases the number of indicators and charts you can view at the same time, and enables indexing of indicators.
At StockCharts, the Extra tier costs $24.95 per month and the Pro tier costs $39.95 per month. The Extra tier opens technical screens and price alerts, while the Pro tier offers price data going back to 1900 and other custom layouts.
TradingView vs. StockCharts: Which Platform Is Better?
For most traders, we think TradingView is the better platform. TradingView and StockCharts both do a great job with any basic to intermediate charting tasks and both platforms are easy to use. However, TradingView offers important features such as 1-second chart intervals and a script editor for creating custom technical indicators. The size of the TradingView community is also impressive as you have access to additional opinions and additional user-generated indicators that you can add to your charts.
That said, there are some situations where StockCharts is the best option. If you’re looking for historical data from before 1980, for example, you’ll need to use StockCharts. The platform’s unusual chart styles can also be useful for long-term investors who want to develop out-of-the-box trading ideas.
Alternatives to TradingView and StockCharts
While TradingView and StockCharts are both powerful platforms, they can be expensive. If you’re on a tight budget, Thinkswim is worth considering. This charting platform offers many charting tools similar to TradingView, including 1-second price intervals and a built-in code editor. However, it is completely free with a TD Ameritrade merchant account.
The downside to Thinkorswim is that it has a steeper learning curve than TradingView or StockCharts. If you want to hit the ground running, this free alternative can be more trouble than it’s worth.
The conclusion
TradingView and StockCharts are two of the leading charting and analysis platforms available to traders today. While there’s a lot to like about both platforms, we think TradingView is the better choice for most traders.
Still want to learn more before making your final decision? If so, check out our full review of TradingView here and our full review of StockCharts here. Now get the charts!
