A trader who charts on TradingView does not always place the trade there. TradingView is a charting platform and community that brokers integrate with, not a platform a firm runs its book on, so the chart a client stares at and the server that fills the order are often two different products from two different companies. MetaTrader 5, cTrader and eTrader are different: the chart and the order ticket live in the same app, on the same account, at the firm's own server.
This guide compares charting across the four platforms brokers and prop firms ask about most: TradingView, MetaTrader 5, cTrader and eTrader. We build eTrader, so we say where it fits and where it does not. Facts about the other three come from what their makers publish about themselves.
Charting features side by side
| Platform | Made by | Chart types | Timeframes | Depth of market | Custom code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TradingView | TradingView | 14 types, including candles, Heikin-Ashi, Renko, Kagi and point and figure | Wide range, down to the second on paid plans | Not a factor: TradingView is a charting front end, not the platform placing the order | Pine Script |
| MetaTrader 5 | MetaQuotes | Three: line, bar and candlestick | 21, from one minute to one month | Yes, where the broker's feed supports it | MQL5 |
| cTrader | Spotware | Bar, tick, time and volatility based, including Range and Renko | Standard plus custom and pinned favourite timeframes | Level II | cTrader Algo, in C# |
| eTrader | SGHK | Six: candles, Heikin-Ashi, bars, line and area | Seven, plus tick charts | Yes, from the firm's liquidity provider up to the full book | eTrader Code, in Tide |
TradingView: the charting layer many brokers sit behind
TradingView lists 14 chart types on its own support pages: bars, candles, hollow candles, Heikin-Ashi, line, area, baseline, columns, range, Renko, Kagi, point and figure, line break and volume candles. Pine Script is TradingView's own language for indicators and strategies, described by TradingView as lightweight and built to stay easy to read; over 150,000 community scripts exist on the platform, roughly half of them open source. Scripts run on TradingView's own servers, so TradingView limits data requests, execution time and memory per script to keep that shared resource fair.
What TradingView is not, by its own description, is a place a firm runs its trading book. Brokers embed TradingView charts or link out to the TradingView community so clients can chart there, then place the order on the broker's actual platform. A firm comparing charting tools for its clients should treat TradingView as a layer to add on top of a platform, not a replacement for one.
MetaTrader 5: three chart types, 21 timeframes, one order book
MetaTrader 5's own documentation lists three chart types (a broken line, a sequence of bars and Japanese candlesticks) and 21 timeframes running from one minute up to one month, with up to 100 charts open at once. Depth of market shows buy and sell offers at the best available prices and lets a trader place orders straight from that book, where the broker's feed carries it through. MT5 also has the multi-threaded strategy tester and the MQL5 Market's library of indicators built by the community.
The trade-off is fewer chart types than TradingView or eTrader, and no built-in tick chart in the base terminal the way eTrader and cTrader offer one. Traders who want Renko, range or point and figure charts on MetaTrader 5 add a script from the MQL5 Market rather than finding it built in.
cTrader: time, tick and volatility based charts
Spotware's own charting page describes cTrader's charts as split between standard time based intervals and price based types that ignore time. Bar charts show open, high, low and close for each period; Range and Renko bars plot in steps of one to 100 pips regardless of how long that takes; tick based charts build a new bar after a set number of price changes. Traders pin favourite timeframes to the chart toolbar. Depth of market is Level II, showing the order book at multiple price levels, one of cTrader's best known features since launch. Algorithmic trading runs in C# through cTrader Algo, with free cloud execution for cBots.
cTrader's charting is strong on the price based chart types that MetaTrader lacks out of the box. It is mostly used for FX and CFDs, and a firm still builds its CRM, liquidity and risk stack around it separately, the same as with MetaTrader.
eTrader: charting built for trading from the chart
eTrader ships six chart types (candles, Heikin-Ashi, bars, line and area), seven timeframes plus tick charts, and market depth from the firm's liquidity provider up to the full book. Traders place pending orders by clicking a price on the chart, then drag the stop loss, take profit and pending order lines to reprice them, with up to four take-profit levels per position, each one labelled and draggable on its own. Charts run one to four per screen on web and Mac, and a chart detaches into its own window or tab. Built-in indicators cover RSI, MACD and Ichimoku, drawing tools include trend lines, channels, shapes and text, and Fibonacci retracement, extension, fan and time tools are included. Traders write their own indicators in eTrader Code.
The honest gap: eTrader is the newest platform in this comparison, so its third-party indicator library is smaller than MQL5's or cTrader's community add-ons, and its own chart type count is smaller than TradingView's 14. Traders who specifically want Renko or point and figure charts do not have them on eTrader today. Where eTrader is our recommended starting point is trading from the chart itself: dragging an order, a stop or an alert line is a first-order feature in eTrader, not a plugin.
Custom indicators and code, compared
Every platform in this comparison lets a trader write their own analysis, in a different language. Pine Script targets indicators and strategies that run in the browser on TradingView's own servers. MQL5 is MetaQuotes' language for MetaTrader 5 robots and indicators, with the largest existing library behind it. cTrader Algo uses C#, a mainstream language that suits developers with a .NET background. eTrader Code uses Tide, eTrader's own language, so a script written for another platform is rewritten rather than imported; the editor flags mistakes as the trader types and every robot backtests on the firm's own price history before it runs in eTrader's cloud, with no local computer required.
None of these four is the wrong choice for a firm that already has traders attached to one. The decision usually comes down to what those traders already know, and how much of a library a firm wants available on day one versus how much it is willing to build with its own developers.
Choosing a charting setup for your firm
For a firm building client experience around the chart itself, drawing tools, drag to trade, alerts and depth of market matter more than the number of chart types on the page. That is where eTrader and cTrader are close, and where eTrader adds native Mac and mobile apps with the same chart on every device and nothing for the firm to host. For a firm whose traders already depend on a specific MQL5 robot or a TradingView layout they built over years, MetaTrader 5 or a TradingView integration on top of the platform in use is the safer starting point. Most firms end up running one platform for execution and letting clients chart wherever they are comfortable, TradingView included.
Test the charting on a real account before committing. Open the same symbol on each platform's demo, place a pending order from the chart, drag the stop loss and see how the depth of market updates. Book an eTrader demo and compare it side by side with what you already run.
"Charting is the part of a trading platform clients look at all day. We built eTrader so a trader can place an order, move a stop and read the depth of market without leaving the chart."
— The SGHK Team
Key Takeaways
- TradingView is a charting platform and community with Pine Script and 14 chart types; it is not the platform a firm places orders through.
- MetaTrader 5 has three chart types and 21 timeframes with depth of market; cTrader adds Level II depth and price based charts like Range and Renko in C#-driven cTrader Algo.
- eTrader has six chart types, seven timeframes plus tick charts, market depth, and trading straight from the chart with up to four take-profit levels per position.
- eTrader's real gap here: fewer chart types than TradingView, a smaller indicator library than MQL5 or cTrader, and no Renko or point and figure charts yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which platform has the best charts for a trading firm's clients?
It depends what the clients value. TradingView has the most chart types and the largest community of indicator writers through Pine Script, but it is not where the order gets filled. MetaTrader 5 and cTrader chart and trade in the same app, and eTrader does too, with drag to trade, four take-profit levels and market depth built into the base terminal rather than added as a plugin.
Can eTrader clients use TradingView charts as well?
eTrader's own charts are native to the terminal, on web, Mac, iPhone and Android. A firm that wants to also offer TradingView charting to clients can do that alongside eTrader, the same way brokers on MetaTrader and cTrader commonly do, since TradingView is a charting layer rather than a replacement for the trading platform itself.
Does eTrader support custom indicators and Renko or point and figure charts?
Custom indicators are written in eTrader Code, in Tide, and backtest on the firm's own price history before running live. Renko and point and figure charts are not part of eTrader's chart types today, which are candles, Heikin-Ashi, bars, line and area across seven timeframes plus tick charts.
What is the difference between MetaTrader's depth of market and cTrader's Level II?
Both show buy and sell orders at prices near the market rather than just the top price, and both depend on the broker's liquidity feed actually carrying that data through. cTrader has marketed Level II depth of market since its early releases; MetaTrader 5 added depth of market as one of its additions over MetaTrader 4. eTrader shows market depth from the firm's own liquidity provider up to the full book in the same panel on every app.
About SGHK
SGHK is a FinTech company that designs and builds its own software for the trading industry: the eTrader trading platform, Launch your Broker and Launch your Prop Firm. Every product is written, hosted and supported in-house and licensed to trading firms, with the CRMs branded to them, all hosted by us in the cloud, managed by each firm and built to scale across clustered servers as our clients grow. Everything is encrypted, and each firm is the only one with access to its data and its clients' data.