Sierra Chart Review

So before getting into the platform itself, it’s worth knowing: Sierra Chart runs its own data infrastructure, colocated at the CME Aurora data center with a 10Gb connection directly to the CME MDP multicast feeds. That’s not a selling point buried in a brochure. It’s how the platform is actually built.

Now let’s talk about what you’re actually working with.

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Sierra Chart is a Windows-native platform, written entirely in C++, and it shows in how the software behaves. No Java. No .NET. The kind of technical architecture that doesn’t sound exciting until you’ve watched a .NET-based platform choke during a high-volume open. It’s been around for more than a decade, used by both retail traders and clearing firms, and the documentation alone runs to hundreds of pages. This is not a beginner platform. It’s not trying to be.

What the platform covers:

Category	Details
Platform	Windows (native); Mac/Linux in development
Pricing	$26 – $56/month (subscription, varies by package)
Data Feed	Sierra Chart Denali (proprietary), Rithmic, CQG, Interactive Brokers, LMAX, DTN IQ Feed
Data Feed Infrastructure	Colocated at CME Aurora data center; 10Gb connection to CME MDP multicast feeds
Market Depth	Up to 1,400 levels per side (bid/ask) via Denali feed
Sim Mode	Included; server-based simulated trading with real-time or delayed data
Order Types	30+ including Limit Chase, Step Trailing Stop, Bid Ask Quantity Triggered Stop, and more
Studies & Indicators	400+ built-in
Backtesting	Tick-by-tick backtesting supported
Chart Replay	Yes, at speeds from 0.1x to 100,000x

The DOM and Chart Trading

The DOM here is genuinely configurable in ways that matter. You’re not just rearranging colors. You can control which market data columns display (bid/ask depth, recent bid volume, recent ask volume, cumulative last trade size, market depth pulling and stacking), the column order, and whether those data columns appear on the Trade DOM independently of order entry. The Chart DOM works as a full trading DOM overlaid directly on the chart, with limit, stop, stop-limit, and market-if-touched orders directly from the chart interface.

Order types go well beyond the standard set. Limit Chase, Limit Touch Chase, Bid Ask Quantity Triggered Stop, Trade Volume Triggered Stop, Step Trailing Stop, Triggered Step Trailing Stop, Move to Breakeven Stops. All available natively. For anyone who’s built custom order logic around workarounds in other platforms, this list will look different. Whether you use half of it is a different question. But it’s there.

Data Feed: Denali, and Why It Matters

Sierra Chart’s own Denali Exchange Data Feed is the piece that separates how this platform delivers market data from how most other platforms operate. The feed is not broker-dependent. You subscribe to it separately through your Sierra Chart account, and it maps seamlessly to whichever trading service you’re connected to: Rithmic, CQG, Interactive Brokers, or Sierra Chart’s own Teton order routing. When data is coming from the Denali feed, you’ll see an [M] indicator after the symbol on your chart header.

For futures specifically: tick-by-tick data for popular CME contracts goes back to 2011. Historical intraday data for EUREX begins at 2013. The feed provides 100% accurate Bid Volume and Ask Volume for CME and EUREX futures, which is a meaningful spec when you’re running Numbers Bars or detailed volume analysis. Up to 1,400 levels of market depth per side (bid/ask) are available.

There’s a cost structure on top of the Sierra Chart subscription. The Denali feed itself requires one of the Integrated packages (Package 10, 11, or 12), and then you pay exchange fees separately. For non-professional traders with a live funded futures account at a supported trading service, the full CME Group with market depth runs $40.50/month. Without a qualifying trading account (including prop firm evaluation accounts, more on that below), professional exchange fees apply and run substantially higher.

The automatic reconnect behavior when a trading service connection drops is worth noting: if you lose connection to your broker but have the Denali feed active, the charts and DOM continue receiving data from Denali while Sierra Chart attempts to reconnect. Select File >> Disconnect and you’ll cut everything including Denali, so don’t do that during a live drop.

Pricing: Subscription, Multiple Packages, and Data Costs Are Separate

This is where Sierra Chart requires some attention. The pricing isn’t complicated, but there are moving parts.

Five packages are available. The two Base packages ($26 and $36/month) don’t connect to external data or trading services. They’re limited to Sierra Chart’s own included data services and simulated trading. If you want Rithmic, CQG, Interactive Brokers, or the Denali real-time feed, you need one of the three Integrated packages.

Integrated packages:

• Package 10 (Integrated Standard): $36/month: external connectivity, standard features
• Package 11 (Integrated Advanced): $46/month: adds TPO Profile charts, Numbers Bars, Market Depth Historical Graph
• Package 12 (Integrated Advanced with MBO): $56/month: adds Market by Order data on top of Package 11

Exchange fees for the Denali feed are billed separately and in full each calendar month regardless of when in the month they’re activated. That’s a specific thing to understand before activating an exchange near the end of the month. There’s also a one-time CME Group free trial for new Denali users through the end of the month in which it’s first activated.

No one-time purchase option exists and Sierra Chart says directly that one would never be offered, because the platform includes ongoing data services, order routing, and continuous updates that require recurring costs to maintain.

Studies, Charting, and Replay

Over 400 built-in studies. The Advanced Custom Study Interface lets users build their own, and there’s a community library of custom studies available as well. The spreadsheet functionality (built from scratch, not on Excel) supports Excel/Calc-compatible formulas and can be used to build automated trading systems, create custom studies, or run alerts.

Chart types include everything you’d expect plus TPO Profile (Market Profile), Numbers Bars, Volume by Price, Point and Figure (OHLC and X-O), Kagi, Heikin Ashi, Three Line Break, and Bid Ask Volume Bars. The Continuous Futures Contract feature, which handles rollovers and back-adjustments without requiring additional data downloads, is included.

Replay is worth a specific mention. Charts can be replayed at speeds from 0.1x to 100,000x normal speed, from any point in the available intraday data. Simulated trading runs during replay using all of Sierra Chart’s standard trading functionality. Multiple charts stay synchronized during replay. You don’t need to have previously recorded the data. The replay uses the stored intraday data files.

The multi-monitor setup supports detaching charts from the main window, chart linking (symbol, bar period, scroll position, session times), global cursor/crosshair across all open charts, and an unlimited number of chart windows and chartbooks. Session configurations and workspace layouts save and restore cleanly.

Prop Firm Compatibility and an Important Nuance

Here’s the thing: Sierra Chart’s documentation explicitly names trading evaluator services in the context of exchange data feed qualification. TopStep, Earn2Trade, OneUp Trader, LeeLoo, UProfit, and Apex Trader Funding are referenced directly in the Denali feed documentation, specifically in the context of what they are not for CME exchange fee purposes. Evaluation accounts from these services do not qualify as a “live funded trading account” under CME Group rules, which means you can’t use the reduced non-professional exchange fees via the standard route.

Sierra Chart has a documented solution for this, called the Easy Solution to CME Funded Trading Account Requirement, that allows traders in evaluation accounts to still access the CME data at the lower exchange fees through a specific connection process. The platform is clearly aware that a significant portion of its users are in evaluation setups.

For trading in simulation mode generally: Sierra Chart’s server-based Simulated Trading Service runs with real-time or delayed data, maintains full trading history and statistics, and supports all platform trading functionality. It’s not a stripped-down version of the platform.

How It Compares

The most direct comparison is NinjaTrader, which occupies similar territory for serious futures traders. NinjaTrader has a wider ecosystem of third-party add-ons and a more recognizable UI out of the box. Sierra Chart is harder to set up, has a steeper initial learning curve, and the interface is functional in a way that politely doesn’t care about aesthetics. What Sierra Chart offers that NinjaTrader doesn’t at base pricing is its own proprietary data feed infrastructure: colocated at the exchange, with unfiltered market depth, 100% accurate Bid/Ask volume attribution for CME and EUREX, and historical data going back to 2011 at the tick level. If data quality and order type depth are the criteria, Sierra Chart’s specifications are difficult to match at this price.

Tradovate sits at the other end of the spectrum: browser-based, clean, much lower barrier to entry, and commission-based pricing. Sierra Chart requires Windows, requires setup work, and requires understanding its pricing structure before the first login. The trade-off is a level of configurability and data infrastructure that Tradovate isn’t built for.

Bottom Line

Sierra Chart earns the “professional-grade” label honestly. The C++ architecture, the proprietary Denali data feed with direct CME exchange connectivity, the 30+ order types, the 400+ studies, the tick-by-tick historical data. This is a platform built by people who take the technical side of futures trading seriously, and it shows throughout.

The learning curve is real. The pricing structure has more components than most platforms. The UI is functional, not pretty. Platform compatibility is Windows-first (Mac and Linux support is in development but ongoing). None of that is hidden.

At $46/month for the Integrated Advanced package (before exchange fees), this is one of the more affordable entry points for the level of market data infrastructure and DOM configurability it provides. If you’re trading ES, NQ, CL, or GC with a focus on order flow, volume analysis, and execution, and you’re willing to put in the setup work, Sierra Chart is worth the evaluation period.

One last thing. The website looks like it was built during the dot-com boom, printed out, laminated, and never revisited. Blue underlined hyperlinks. Alternating grey table rows. A font choice that whispers “GeoCities professional edition.” The kind of homepage that a web developer would use as a case study in their 2004 portfolio. Honestly? It fits. A team this committed to building in C++ and not using prebuilt components was never going to spend a weekend on Squarespace. The platform’s priorities are extremely clear, and aesthetic polish is not one of them. If anything, the website is just the features page in different clothing: deeply functional, completely indifferent to whether you find it pretty, and somehow still getting the job done.