Please note, I receive no compensation or referral fees for my reviews.
Disclaimer: Sierra Chart can be complicated to set up and configure, so it’s possible I may have incomplete information regarding a feature or functionality. If you catch any errors, please feel free to let me know and I’ll correct them as soon as possible.
Introduction
Sierra Chart is trading software for the Windows operating system. It’s been around for at least two dozen years, and I suspect it initially only offered stock charting, and I’ll elaborate on why I think that later. It’s mostly for trading futures now, although it does support at least one stockbroker, Interactive Brokers, albeit begrudgingly, and one crypto exchange for trading, although that appears to be ending. Forex is only supported by one broker, and they don’t operate in the United States, and they have adamantly stated they will not support Forex moving forward. Thankfully, I mostly trade futures and numerous futures brokers are supported to varying degrees, which I’ll explain in more detail, shortly.
At times, I may compare Sierra Chart to NinjaTrader and Quantower, since I’m most familiar with those.
The User Interface
Upon first load of Sierra Chart, I thought I had stepped back into the 90s. The software looks dated. Old style buttons, menus, icons, etc. But don’t mistake the older look for software that has been ignored by its owners. It’s actively developed with new releases every month or so and smaller ones almost weekly.
The company feels like it is run by the developers, which is a double-edged sword. There is huge focus on memory consumption, CPU use and most importantly, efficiency in trading. Instead of adding polish they would rather improve the application in ways that make trading better. This also means that changing settings and some features aren’t as user-friendly as they could be.
The menus are overwhelming as are the configuration dialogs. It’s a lot of text, and it’s not always easy to interpret what a setting does by its name. Even the online help documents aren’t always clear, or may require some focus to understand, but overall the help is very good and copious. Also, I find ChatGPT very useful for cutting through the verbose documentation and giving step-by-step instructions on how to get something done.
Screenshot of the Trade drop down menu. This is a rather typical drop down menu in Sierra Chart.
I came to Sierra Chart from NinjaTrader, which is modern looking, so my first task was to make the chart look like my one in NinjaTrader. It took about ten Google searches to get that done. This only included changing candlestick colors, widths, adding similar indicators, etc.
Screenshot of the Chart Trade Settings. One of at least six such settings windows. The bracketed text at the top are the “tabs” and the one with an asterisk is the currently selected tab.
I eventually learned the rationale behind this settings dialog. SC previously used typical windows forms with checkboxes and a decent layout, but using these new dialogs saves resources and may allow SC to run on other operating systems, eventually, according to numerous posts on their website. These dialogs aren’t great, but they do offer some advantages for the end user. They are searchable, for example. These settings dialogs hint at much of the philosophy behind Sierra Chart.
Resource Sipper
Sierra Chart can be summed up with one word: Efficiency. It is one of the leanest running programs I’ve ever used. Here is snapshot from my Task Manager, using 0.1% of my CPU and 70MB of memory. In all fairness, I have it using the GPU for drawing the charts. That usually sits around 3%. Without using the GPU, it consumes around 1-2% of the CPU with 2 charts running and 10+ indicators on each chart. Its resource usage is so low, I’m fairly certain there is some black magic involved.
Utmost efficiency guides every aspect of Sierra Chart, from reports, to file formats, to the use of C++ as the underlying language in which it’s written and studies (algo, indicators, etc.) are written. I think this extreme focus on efficiency can be a bit myopic and result in a harder to use application. For example, they don’t use a database to store transactions, since they feel flat files are safer. I’ve seen flat files get corrupted and using a database like SQLite may actually be a safer route, since it’s passed vigorous reliability tests and can be used in airplanes and for other life critical applications. Of course, in NinjaTrader, I’ve corrupted the SQLite database numerous times, but that’s due to bugs in the code, not SQLite. But, I’m digressing. They use flat files and that works and is extremely fast, but means the interface for querying trades or orders, can be a bit awkward and less feature rich.
This efficiency is very beneficial if you have a difficult chart to render with lots of indicators, etc. I’ve never had a slow-down in Sierra Chart and that was a big problem with NinjaTrader, where sometimes there was a pause when placing a trade and bad things can happen when that occurs. Not with Sierra Chart, even with 20 indicators running, it’s smooth as silk. They take efficiency so far, that you end up with complicated settings dialogs and a somewhat less attractive interface. It’s the trade-off.
Indicators
Sierra Chart comes with a huge amount of indicators. Keep in mind, indicators are called studies, in Sierra Chart. There are hundreds of studies that are indicators. It can be a bit difficult to find the indicator you are looking for as there is no way to search them easily. You may need to search Google for what you want to get the precise study name.
Sierra Chart also has some generic studies/indicators where you can enter simple formulas to create a new custom indicator. This can bridge the gap between having to write your own and using an existing one that doesn’t quite fit your needs. I have found these tend to slow the replay feature, at least when replaying with tick data. Regardless, this is still a very nice addition to the existing indicators.
Custom indicators are written in Sierra Chart Advanced Custom Study Interface and Language (ACSIL), which is C++ with Sierra Chart’s libraries added in. You can even use Microsoft’s compiler to build your studies/indicators. Also, most modern AI can write indicators extremely well for Sierra Chart. Depending on the complexity, you can usually have it build what you what in a few interactions.
Also, I prefer to have my custom indicator code in a different directory than Sierra Chart’s. This allows me to use source control a bit easier. This will require a custom build step to get done, but I recommend it if you will be writing a lot of custom code, be it indicators or trading bots. I use VS Code as an editor and compile the studies directly from there using the custom build step. AI is useful for setting that up.
Chart Centric
As I dove into Sierra Chart more, I realized it’s really just an engine for drawing charts. You might be thinking, wait, aren’t all trading programs? Not exactly. In Sierra Chart, the chart is the engine. This means running multiple charts using the replay mode can get awkward since you are essentially running multiple engines. They have trouble talking with each other. There can be difficulty in setting that up.
This is also noticeable when running algo backtests. Backtests must have a chart running to perform the backtest. This is probably left over from the days when it was only a charting application. This gets complicated if you want your algo to use 3 or 4 different time frames. You’ll need 3-4 charts running. There are no such limitations in NinjaTrader, as it probably has an engine that can run without a chart and handle multiple time frames. You can load multiple time frame charts from within a Sierra Chart study, so backtesting doesn’t have to be an all manual process. I believe there is also a way to turn off all graphics, potentially speeding up backtests.
Algo Trading
I very much like Sierra Chart’s ACSIL, which is their C++ library for extending Sierra Chart.
Unlike NinjaTrader, which has different categories of code: indicators, strategies, notifications, etc. Sierra Chart only has one. This means everything has to run as a study on a chart. This provides less flexibility when writing a Telegram notification bot, for example, or other such things. I suggested adding plugins, but my idea was shot down rather quickly.
I’m a C# programmer by trade and had no trouble picking up ACSIL. While it is C++, there are no pointers involved and a decent string library is available. There are usually decent examples on how to get a task complete, and I generally found it easier to use than NinjaTrader’s language, especially when submitting orders. NinjaTrader has a managed order mode, and it can get in the way. This is less of a problem in Sierra Chart since you have more fine-grained control over disabling the order protections, i.e. they can be disabled independently. I much prefer the Sierra Chart approach.
Placing orders can be challenging, especially for the example above, placing two brackets on the chart at once. You must populate a s_SCNewOrder object with all the prices in the correct fields, and it’s not always clear which prices go where. Their documentation does help, but could be better in spots. There are source code examples of many of the orders, but not all and not the one mentioned above.
The coding design is more old school, in that one s_SCNewOrder class is used for all order types. So, a buy with a trailing stop, or a bracket order, or a sell with a profit target all require specific fields in the s_SCNewOrder object to be populated. This results in complexity. For example, with the dual bracketed order, you have to figure out that Target1Price is the target for the buy order, but Target1Price_2 (not Target2Price) is the target for the sell order. That’s confusing, no? Exactly. A more modern object-oriented design may help, but that won’t be forthcoming, besides every API has its warts.
Such issues are actually common when using libraries for trading, so this isn’t really a problem unique to Sierra Chart. You must learn the nuances and terminology used and this can take time and will result in hair loss. You’ve been warned.
Sierra Chart’s studies are more atomic than NinjaTraders, and similar to Quantower’s. You compile your study into a DLL and that DLL can be loaded into Sierra Chart. NinjaTrader requires you rebuild a project that contains ALL the strategies, indicators and everything else. This will sometimes crash NinjaTrader. Ask me how I know.
Algo stats
Algo Backtesting
One place Sierra Chart is weak is
Customization
Incredible amount of customizition is possible within Sierra Chart.
Historical Data Included
A few years ago, after being disillusioned with unreliable data providers, Sierra Chart set about creating their own data provider, called Denali. Denali is free (i.e. included with your monthly subscription) and provides historical data, delayed data. Real-time data is available for an extra fee (charged by the exchanges).
Providing historical data isn’t particularly radical, NinjaTrader does it, but it is unusual for a non-brokerage to provide it (NinjaTrader is also a brokerage). For the several months I’ve been using it, I’ve been very pleased. I have alerts to go off whenever I lose a connection, and it hasn’t happened a single time. NinjaTrader disconnected for seconds at a time weekly and usually daily.
Another aspect of Denali that is much appreciated is their depth of historical data. I can pull tick data for decades back. This makes for realistic replaying.
Replaying
Sierra Charts replaying is the best I have seen from a broker or software provider. The depth of the data and the ability to fast-forward by time frame or bars makes for the most realistic replaying I’ve seen.
My only complaint is that it’s tedious to set up for much older contracts. You have to go into the chart settings and specify the range of dates you want to load. Then wait for every tick to load from the earliest date till now. And every time you stop the replay you have to wait again for the tick data to load.
This is a bit ridiculous. You can tell it was designed by developers. Developer approach UI and software design from a technical aspect, not from a users perspective and what would make it easiest for the end user. Why not just let me specify the date I want to replay and automatically set a reasonable default range of dates and load only those? But, instead you have to turn dials and flip switches to make the magic happen.
Order Routing Included
Sierra Chart offers their own order routing, called Teton. What exactly does this mean, you ask? Most trading software needs to connect to a broker who then routes their trades through CQG or Rithmic (or others) who then submits your trades to the exchange. You are usually charged by the executing entity, anywhere from $0.10 to $0.25 per trade. This means you will save money on all your trades you execute using Teton. Teton submits directly to the exchange, skipping the middle man. It may be quicker and more reliable, but I have no way to test that, objectively, even though I’ve had very good experiences with it.
So using Teton is worth it, beyond just the savings. It’s impressive they offer this and for free. It’s a substantial selling point and helps justify the monthly subscription. They are providing an added benefit at no additional cost. In fact, my monthly subscription to Sierra Chart is usually covered by the savings in commissions i receive from using Teton.
One final note: Not all brokers support Teton, since it bypasses their own routing, however many discount brokers and mid level ones seem to support it, including Amp Futures, Edge Clear, IronBeam, Optimus Futures, Stage 5 Trading, Cannon Trading and Trade Pro.
90’s Website
Sierra Chart’s website is mostly text based with some instructional videos and extensive, but protracted documentation. It has a simple account management section for making payments, selecting the level of service you want, etc. They also provide a forum where questions are answered by staff and other users. While the website could use a refresh, I respect its functionality. I don’t need flashy videos or graphics. I’m usually on the site for something specific and this makes it easier to find. So while it does resemble something from the 90’s, it’s simple and very effective.
Responsive Support
Sierra Chart only offers support via their forum. They are usually responsive but sometimes the responses aren’t what you are exacting and they can be direct and blunt. I’ve seen someone suggest a change for Sierra Chart and within a week or so it was deployed in the next version. I don’t know of any other software package that is that responsive. Of course, this is the exception. It’s hit or miss that your suggestion will be implemented, but this is true of all software.
Forum
Sierra Chart has a very active forum. It’s not well organized, however. Important information from SIerra Chart is pinned at the top. This could be outage related, upcoming updates to the software, etc.
After that, it’s a free for all. There are no grouping of messages. Many of the messages are due to the confusing options
Signing up
Even signing up for service with Sierra Chart poses a challenge. There are many subscription levels and it can be daunting learning which to sign up for. 99% of traders will want service package 10, 11 or 12. Most traders will want 10, which is everything except some of the volume related charts.
Pros & Cons
In summary, Sierra Chart has some huge advantages.
- Reasonable cost
- Application responsiveness
- Huge library of historical data, included
- Direct to exchange routing, included
- Wordy, yet copious documentation
- Active forum
Disadvantages
- Difficult to configure
- Mostly works with futures
- Support is only via a forum
- Algo testing is challenging
- Lack of a plugin system
Neutral
- Interesting political opinions
- Interesting thoughts on AI
Summary
Sierra Chart makes a compelling