Stock charting platforms like TradingView and StockCharts have become essential tools for traders and investors. These platforms provide advanced charting capabilities, market data, and analysis tools to help make informed trading decisions.
But between the two leading options, TradingView and StockCharts, which one is better suited for your needs? In this comprehensive guide, we'll compare TradingView and StockCharts across key factors like features, pricing, data, and more.
Overview of TradingView and StockCharts
TradingView is a cloud-based charting platform launched in 2011. It has over 13 million monthly active users and offers free access to real-time data, charting tools, analysis, and trading from any device.
StockCharts was founded in 1999 and provides web-based financial charts, technical analysis tools, market data, and education for online stock market analysis. It has over 1.5 million monthly visitors.
Both platforms offer robust charting capabilities but have some differences when it comes to features, pricing, and overall focus.
Features Comparison
Chart Types and Customization
TradingView and StockCharts support all the essential chart types including line, OHLC bar, candlestick, area, Renko, Kagi, point & figure and more.
TradingView has more flexibility in customizing chart appearance and colors. It offers over 100 technical indicators and drawing tools out of the box. StockCharts has 80+ indicators and overlays.
TradingView makes it easy to publish and share interactive charts. StockCharts emphasizes backtesting chart strategies.
Overall, TradingView has a slight edge for chart types, visualization and sharing capabilities.
Scanning and Screening
TradingView allows filtering instruments by criteria like technical indicators, fundamentals, events and more. You can scan the entire market and add results to watchlists.
StockCharts provides predefined scanning templates and custom screening based on technical patterns, candlesticks, indicators, fundamentals, etc. Complex filters can be applied to scan for stocks.
For scanning capabilities, StockCharts is more robust with detailed filtering options specifically for stocks.
Strategy Testing and Automation
TradingView supports strategy backtesting for determining the viability of trading strategies. You can automate strategy trading by connecting to brokerage accounts.
StockCharts emphasizes backtesting chart strategies using historical data. It does not directly integrate with brokers for automation.
TradingView has a clear advantage when it comes to testing and automating trading strategies.
Alerts and Notifications
Both TradingView and StockCharts allow setting price, indicator and event-based alerts. Notifications can be received via email, SMS or mobile push.
Additionally, TradingView offers audio/pop-up browser alerts and Telegram integration. Overall, TradingView has more alert customization and flexibility.
Trading Integration
TradingView provides one-click trading integration with major brokers like TD Ameritrade, Oanda, Forex.com and Crypto.com.
StockCharts focuses exclusively on market analysis and does not offer trading from charts. For trading, you need to use your broker's platform.
TradingView is the obvious winner when it comes to integrated trading capabilities.
Mobile Apps
TradingView offers full-featured iOS and Android apps for mobile charting, chart sharing and trading. StockCharts provides basic mobile apps only for chart viewing.
TradingView's mobile apps match most of the functionality available on the desktop platform.
Social Features
Both platforms have community features for sharing charts, ideas and interacting with other traders.
TradingView makes it easy to publish charts and ideas publicly. You can follow and copy other traders' portfolios. StockCharts emphasizes chart sharing and discussion within private groups.
TradingView's public social features are much more prominent.
Cost Comparison
TradingView offers free access to charts, market data, and a limited number of indicators for small portfolios. Paid plans start from $9.95/month for advanced features aimed at day traders.
StockCharts provides limited free access to charts and data. Its paid plans start from $14.95/month for active traders and go up to $59.95/month for institutional offerings.
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TradingView has lower pricing especially for casual investors and traders. StockCharts is cheaper for institutional level features aimed at investment managers.
Data and Exchange Coverage
TradingView covers 85+ global exchanges including stocks, forex, futures, indexes, ETFs, CFDs and cryptocurrencies. Real-time and historical data is available.
StockCharts focuses exclusively on US stock markets covering over 30,000 symbols with NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX stocks and ETFs.
For US stocks, both provide adequate data. For other asset classes like forex and crypto, TradingView has substantially better coverage.
Platform Accessibility and Ease of Use
TradingView works directly in the desktop browser. It also offers full-featured mobile apps on Android and iOS.
StockCharts only works through a desktop web browser. Its mobile apps have limited functionality.
Regarding usability, both platforms are easy to use with a modest learning curve. TradingView has a slight edge with its familiar web-based interface.
Community & Support Resources
TradingView has an extensive community forum for discussing chart ideas, technical analysis and platform features. Documentation and tutorials are available.
StockCharts offers chart school tutorials, videos, weekly articles and a community forum for asking questions. Phone and email support is also provided.
The companies provide comparable community resources and technical support.
Final Verdict: Which Platform is Better for You?
For most active traders and technical analysts, TradingView is the better overall platform with its robust charting capabilities, trading integrations, market coverage, data quality, alerts and mobile apps.
StockCharts is a decent alternative for long-term investors focused exclusively on US stocks looking for powerful scanning tools and a greater emphasis on backtesting.
Here’s a quick recap of some of the key differences:
The bottom line is TradingView is the superior platform for most active traders and technical analysts looking for robust tools across different asset classes and global markets.
However, StockCharts is a good choice for investors focused exclusively on US stocks looking for powerful scanning capabilities and backtesting tools.
Ultimately, your individual needs will determine which platform is the better fit for the type of market analysis you want to perform. Both TradingView and StockCharts offer free trials, so you can easily test them out before committing to a paid subscription.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better StockCharts or TradingView?
Based on features, pricing, market coverage and data quality, TradingView is considered the better platform overall, especially for active traders that require real-time data, charts and trading tools for global markets.
However, StockCharts is a decent choice for US stock investors focused on screening and backtesting.
Is TradingView worth paying for?
The free version of TradingView offers limited features and data quality suited for casual users. The paid plans offer advanced functionality like more indicators, real-time data, alerts, strategy builder, and trading integrations that are very useful for active traders.
Can you make money on TradingView?
You cannot directly make money on TradingView itself. However, by using the platform's advanced charting, analysis tools and trading integrations, you have the potential to profit from trading the markets.
Does TradingView have a mobile app?
Yes, TradingView offers full-featured iOS and Android mobile apps. You can access interactive charts, alerts, trading integrations and strategy automation on-the-go directly from your mobile device.
What is TradingView best for?
TradingView is one of the best platforms for technical analysis and active traders. Its strengths include powerful interactive charts, real-time streaming data, technical indicators, trading from charts, global market coverage, and robust community features.
Is TradingView better than MetaTrader?
For forex traders, TradingView generally has more features, convenience and flexibility compared to MetaTrader. However, MetaTrader 4 remains popular among forex algorithmic traders due to its backtesting capabilities and integration with brokers.
What are the top 3 indicators in TradingView?
Some of the most popular indicators on TradingView include Moving Averages (MA), Bollinger Bands (BB), Relative Strength Index (RSI), Ichimoku Cloud, Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) and Volume.
