Head-to-Head Comparison Between Tradingview and NinjaTrader in 2024

Author: John Dale on January 6, 2024
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Pro's and Con's of TradingView Vs NinjaTrader

TradingView and NinjaTrader are two different platforms - each with their own pro's and con's. So let's discuss their strengths and weaknesses. We're going to be comparing Tradingview Premium with NinjaTrader 8.

We have broke these down into a few different categories:

Who Uses TradingView vs NinjaTrader?

TradingView

Tradingview is very easy to get started because it's a webpage and its all setup for you - just login. There is no configuring a data feed, you just type in what you're looking for and you can pull up a chart. This is the appeal to a lot of people because they can get up and running fast. TradingView would be great for someone that casually wants to pull up a chart once in a while to do some technical analysis with others in more of a social network type experience.

NinjaTrader

NinjaTrader is going to take a lot more "learning" to get setup but the platform is 1000x more configurable and once you get it setup the way you need it - you'll wonder how you ever traded before. The reason for that - is this platform is more advanced and is used by a more serious group of futures traders and you have a lot more options and really cool things you can do. Eg. With the use of NinjaTrader's ATMs (Advanced Trade Management) you can automate a lot of entry and stop strategies without known any code.

Key Takeaways on Who Uses Which Trading Platform

TL;DR: TradingView is easier to get started because there is nothing to install or setup, NinjaTrader will have an all-in-one solution to all of your futures trading and is so much more configurable and with really nice advanced features.

TradingView provides charts - and because of that they are not a brokerage. This leaves them to be a great way to pull up a quick chart, but means your brokerage will be with someone else and you'll have to deal with integrations to get everything working where you can place a live trade. There are a few select brokers via integrations, but those would be open separately with a different company. The overall experience with NinjaTrader is quite a bit better because they control all aspects of your trading setup - the software, the brokerage, the data feeds. This is a compelling reason to use NinjaTrader as its a much better customer experience as they can support all of it under one umbrella in the same way a company like apple can with their hardware and software.

Cost Showdown: TradingView vs NinjaTrader

This pricing is updated since the release of NinjaTrader 8.1 which changed their pricing structure.

TradingView

Plan Name
Monthly Cost
Annual Cost
Features
Free
$0
N/A
Basic charting, limited indicators, delayed data
Pro
$14.95
$155.40
Real-time data, more indicators, multiple charts, extended trading hours
Pro+
$29.95
$299.40
Everything in Pro, more data sources, customizable intervals
Premium
$59.95
$599.40
Everything in Pro+, server-side alerts, 25 alerts per alert rule
Premium Plus
$119.95
$1,199.40
Everything in Premium, priority support, 400 alerts per alert rule
Pro Exclusive
$249.95
$2,499.40
Everything in Premium Plus, personalized support, 500 alerts per rule

NinjaTrader

NinjaTrader Pricing is Easy To Understand

NinjaTrader's software is free. You can buy a "license" for it, and this lowers your comission rates if you trade through NinjaTrader.
Option 1: Free Software + 0.35/ Micro, or $1.29 / Standard

Option 2: $99/month + 0.25 micro, or $0.99 / Standard

Option 3: $1499 + 0.09 micro, or $0.59 / Standard
Conclusion: TradingView has a monthly cost associated with it where NinjaTrader you can use for free and just pay a slightly higher commission. And if you don't want to pay that higher commission, you just purchase a lifetime license. NinjaTrader wins on pricing.

TradingView Brokers

You'll find below the supported brokers of each platform. Each is broken down by market category. We do not make recommendations on which broker to use but suggest you look over each one to find the one best for you.

TradingView Brokers

Futures:
  • WH-Selfinvest (only Futures/Options Account)
  • AMP Global Clearing
  • Advantage Futures
  • Dorman Trading
  • Global
  • Mirus
  • Phillip Capital
  • RJO'Brien
  • Rosenthal Collins Group LLC
  • Robbins Trading
  • Straits Financial
  • Tradovate
  • Wedbush
  • Modalmais
Stocks
  • Modalmais
  • Alor
Forex:
  • OANDA
  • FOREX.com
  • DirectFX
Crypto
  • Poloniex

NinjaTrader Brokers

Futures:
  • NinjaTrader Brokerage
  • Interactive Brokers
Stocks
  • Interactive Brokers
  • TD Ameritrade
  • WH Selfinvest
Futures:
  • Oanda
  • FOREX.com
  • Cityindex CFD
Crypto
  • Coinbase (Data Only)

Order Types Supported By Platform

Conclusion: NinjaTrader will support more order types and advanced ways of placing orders.

Order types are limited in TradingView. For example, it was only on Apr 19, 2019 that TradingView started supporting trailing stop losses in Oanda. You would then need to find out from TradingView what order types are supported and what ones are not?

NinjaTrader on the other hand has many order types that are supported and the ones that are not supported on the broker themselves (like MIT orders) can be simulated on the client side for some brokers too. Therefore NinjaTrader will easily win on order types.

Using TradingView vs NinjaTrader

Conclusion: NinjaTrader supports a full programming language - Win for NinjaTrader in this category


Custom Indicators

TradingView uses their own "pine" programming language which is cloud based and your limited on how many resources you can use. Thus your indicators and what you can do are also very limited.

NinjaTrader on the other hand is using local resources and thus you can create whatever you need. TradingView is putting limits on your trading and what you require and forcing you to trade inside a box isn't good and they do it because they are cloud based.

Take something as simple as our free news indicator for ninjatrader. Something like this would be impossible to do in TradingView's pine language. However having news events to warn you about upcoming news can be extremely useful. You might move stops up sooner, or hold off entering a position. A simple tool like this can potentially reduce risk by keeping you informed. It's something you can do with NinjaTrader.

Your Trading Workspace

Conclusion: NinjaTrader will let you use endless amounts of chart windows, tabs and workspaces.

TradingView will really fall apart in this category because they let you see a limited number of charts all at once. At the time of writing this article the max you can see is 8. That's if you're paying top dollar. If you have one of their more basic packages you'll probably only be able to see 1 or 2 of the charts at once.

NinjaTrader on the other hand will let you open as many windows as you want and as many tabs as you want. If you trade multiple markets this will become even more important.

Mobile Platform

Conclusion: Mix bag - No Clear Winner

TradingView has an app but the performance of this app seems to have tanked after reading recent reviews. People are complaining about a sluggish chart and even questioning what they are paying for in their subscription if the app can't be used.

On the other hand NinjaTrader doesn't even support and app and focus their dev cycles on their desktop product. I would actually agree with NinjaTrader on this because they will connect to other brokers. Eg. NinjaTrader doesn't have an app but Interactive Brokers (who NinjaTrader supports) does have an app. NinjaTrader doesn't need create the wheel again by creating an app as that would also take time away from their product development. Let the brokers create apps and do what they do best.

An app for NinjaTrader would probably be a disaster cause it could never be as feature rich as as their main platform so I hope they never try to attempt this path.


Alerts Within The Platform

Conclusion: NinjaTrader wins as they allow for unlimited alerts.

You would think any trading platform would have alerts - and both of these do. However TradingView sets limits on how many you can have. There is really no other reason for them to do this except to get users of theirs to spend more money. Can you imagine if you were only limited to 8 alerts?

Because TradingView is stopping alerts from being used, then you can only image all their other limits to which there are many. Eg, if you want to use range bars, your going to get bumped up a package. If you want to export your chart data, you will get bumped up to another package. This is why in our cost analysis we had to review the 59.95 package as that would give you most of the features.

Learning Curve

There is no real learning curve for TradingView which is why its a widely popular platform. Users head to a website and bamm, everything is there - just very limited.

NinjaTrader on the other hand will have a much bigger learning curve but not to worry, we have a bunch of tutorials to help you out, just keep watching the ones in blue.

Final TradingView vs NinjaTrader Comments

If you're out and about and just need a quick check on quotes, TradingView can be a useful webpage. They have a large social room (which i'm still pretty sure is just a distraction as the conversations are not very insightful) but its a great place to see a chart and check a quote.

NinjaTrader however is more useful as a trading platform and doing what they do best. It will be what you will use 80% of the time and only when you need quick access to a chart will you load up the TradingView website.



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