I’m Kayla. I track stocks and crypto for work and for fun. Last quarter, during earnings season, I built a small web app for my team. It had live candles, volume, a couple moving averages, and a clean dark theme. I tried a bunch of chart libs. Some made me smile. Some made me groan.
This is what actually worked for me—warts and all.
What I needed from a chart
- Candles or OHLC, with volume below
- Fast pan and zoom on 1-minute bars
- Crosshair that lines up across panes
- Live data over WebSocket
- Dark mode that doesn’t look muddy
- Easy markers for earnings and trades
- Export to PNG for a quick deck slide
Choosing a chart library reminded me of swiping through dating apps—each candidate boasts flashy screenshots, but the real test is day-to-day chemistry. For a lighthearted yet methodical example of evaluating options with a critical eye, check out this detailed Tinder review that dissects features, pricing tiers, and user experience, giving you a framework for separating genuine matches from hype—whether you’re picking a charting tool or a date. If, instead of swipe-based apps, you’re curious about a more classifieds-style approach where listings are laid out like a ticker tape of possibilities, take a look at Backpage Ogden—there you’ll find a no-frills stream of local ads that you can scan quickly and connect with instantly, mirroring the way traders cut through noise to act on the clearest signals.
Simple ask, right? Well, kind of.
TradingView Lightweight Charts — fast and clean
This one felt like butter. No joke. I pushed two years of 1-minute BTC candles, plus volume, and it stayed smooth. Crosshair felt crisp. The time scale did not fight me. It just worked. I did all of this using the TradingView Lightweight Charts™ Library, which packs serious performance into a tiny bundle.
Real use: I ran live BTC/USDT with a WebSocket feed. I stacked two charts (price up top, volume below) and synced the crosshair. It looked like a mini terminal on my second monitor.
What I liked:
- Speed. Big data stayed snappy.
- Nice defaults. Candles look “trader real.”
- Easy updates: series.update() feels natural.
What bugged me:
- No built-in sub-panes in one chart. I had to stack two charts and sync events.
- Not many built-in indicators. MA is easy, but RSI or MACD needs your code.
- Custom tooltips take some elbow grease.
You know what? If you want fast price charts, this is my go-to.
Highcharts Stock — loaded with tools
This one is the Swiss Army knife. Need flags for earnings? Range selectors? A compare line to SPY? It’s all there. The Highcharts Stock documentation walks through each of these features with clear examples.
Real use: I built an earnings view for AAPL. Candles + volume. I added flags at earnings dates, and a 20/50 MA. The built-in navigator made scrubbing through years easy.
What I liked:
- So many features. Annotations, flags, compare, exporting.
- Range selector buttons made demos look good fast.
- Types are solid; docs are clear.
What bugged me:
- License costs for commercial work. Worth it for my job, but still a thing.
- Big datasets (like 300k points) slowed in Firefox on my laptop.
- Bundle size felt heavy for small apps.
If you need “everything,” this is the one. Great for reports and product demos.
ECharts — free, bold, and flexible
ECharts gave me power, for zero dollars. The candlestick series looks sharp. The toolbox and dataZoom are handy. I built a crypto heatmap next to a price chart and kept one theme.
Real use: I charted SPY with 1-minute bars and shaded premarket hours in gray. It looked slick on a TV in the office.
What I liked:
- Huge feature set. Themes, zoom, rich tooltips.
- Handles large data better than I expected.
- It’s free. That helps side projects.
What bugged me:
- Docs can feel dense. I got lost in options sometimes.
- Time zones took fiddling. DST gave me a headache one morning.
- Pinch zoom on my Pixel was a bit jittery.
If you like to shape things your way, and you want free, it’s strong.
For a purpose-built alternative focused on interactive stock charts, take a peek at EJSChart — it slots into a page with just a few lines of code. I documented the full process of dropping it into a tiny trading workflow in this hands-on build guide.
Chart.js (with chartjs-chart-financial) — simple and friendly
For small dashboards, Chart.js is sweet. Add the financial plugin for candles/OHLC. It plays nice with React. Tooltips and legends are clean. If you need to spice things up with non-financial visuals like KPI donuts, check out this walk-through of five JavaScript donut chart patterns that saved me time.
Real use: I built a tiny “watch four tickers” page for a teammate. One week of 5-minute bars, two MAs. It loaded fast and looked fine.
What I liked:
- Low friction. Good docs.
- Great for small, static sets.
- Plugin system is clear.
What bugged me:
- Not made for huge, live sets.
- You’ll write your own RSI, MACD, and the like.
- Zoom/pan needs extra plugins and tuning.
If your data is light and the UI is simple, it’s a nice fit.
ApexCharts — nice dev feel, some quirks
ApexCharts has a comfy API. The toolbar (zoom, pan, reset) is handy out of the box. Candles look clean. I liked the way annotations snap.
Real use: I made a trend view with candles, a 200-day MA, and volume on a second y-axis. Stakeholders liked the look.
What I liked:
- Easy to stand up. Good defaults.
- Annotations are friendly.
- Works well in React and Vue.
What bugged me:
- Huge data sets slowed after long sessions.
- Candle width felt odd while zooming on mobile.
- I hit a tooltip flicker when I had two y-axes.
Good for product screens where the data isn’t massive.
Little real-world bits that tripped me up
- Time zones: My New York clock and the server’s UTC fought. Highcharts was easiest here. In ECharts, I had to format time labels by hand.
- Crosshair sync: Lightweight Charts needed my own event bridge. It wasn’t hard, but it took care.
- Market hours shading: Highcharts and ECharts made this easy. With Lightweight Charts, I drew custom background areas.
- Color choices: A trader on my team is colorblind. I swapped red/green for blue/orange and boosted contrast. Tiny change, big win.
- Mobile pinch zoom: ECharts and ApexCharts were okay. Lightweight Charts felt best under my thumb. Funny how that matters on the train.
Tiny code I used
Lightweight Charts: live candles with a WebSocket:
import { createChart } from 'lightweight-charts';
const chart = createChart(document.getElementById('c'), {
layout: { background: { color: '#0f1115' }, textColor: '#cbd5e1' },
timeScale: { rightOffset: 2, barSpacing: 6 },
grid: { horzLines: { color: '#20232a' }, vertLines: { color: '#20232a' } },
});
const price = chart.addCandlestickSeries();
const vol = chart.addHistogramSeries({ priceFormat: { type: 'volume' }, priceScaleId: '' });
price.setData(seedCandles);
vol.setData(seedVolume);
const ws = new WebSocket('wss://example.com/feed');
ws.onmessage = (m) => {
const { t, o, h, l, c, v } = JSON.parse(m.data);
price.update({ time: t, open: o, high: h, low: l, close: c });
vol.update({ time: t, value: v, color: c >= o ? '#10b981' : '#ef4444' });
};
Highcharts Stock: candles + volume + earnings flags:
“`js
Highcharts.stockChart('container', {
rangeSelector: { selected: 1 },
series: [
{ type: 'candlestick', name: 'AAPL', data: ohlcData },
{ type: 'column', name: 'Volume', data: volumeData, yAxis: 1 },
{ type: 'flags', data: earningsDates.map(d => ({ x: d, title: 'E' })), on