# What to use instead of ChartIQ

ChartIQ is quote-only, owned by S&P Global since 2023, and its key stops the chart when it expires. Which charting libraries cover its job, and what each lacks.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/alternatives/chartiq*

## The subject

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Product | ChartIQ |
| Status | live |
| Website | https://www.chartiq.com |
| Category | JavaScript Charting Libraries for Finance |

A commercial HTML5 financial charting library for broker and fintech front ends, licensed by quote with a domain-locked key, and part of S&P Global Market Intelligence since January 2023.

## Replacements

*Ordered by how much of the original’s job each one covers, closest first. Paid placement does not affect this order.*

1. [TradingView Advanced Charts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/tradingview-advanced-charts.md) — The closest in breadth — 100-plus indicators, 110-plus drawing tools and a datafeed API, free of charge, but only to companies offering it free to the public.
2. [Highcharts Stock](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/highcharts-stock.md) — 48 indicators, a navigator and a published price — 732 dollars a seat a year for one public application, with the source in a public repository.
3. [AnyStock](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/anystock.md) — 36 indicators and 18 drawing tools, priced per product and per registered domain, from 499 dollars a year for a SaaS product with ten developers.
4. [amCharts 5 Stock Chart](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/amcharts-stock-chart.md) — 34 indicators, free in a commercial product if the amCharts link stays on the chart; 224 dollars a seat a year removes it for an app behind a login.
5. [KLineChart](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/klinechart.md) — The open-source route that still has indicators — 27 built in, canvas, no dependencies, Apache-2.0 with a NOTICE file to carry.
6. [SciChart.js](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/scichart-js.md) — If the reason for a commercial library was speed — WebGL and WebAssembly rendering, per-developer licences, and no technical indicators at all.
7. [Lightweight Charts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/lightweight-charts.md) — If the job was only the price chart — TradingView's Apache-2.0 library, six series types, no indicators or drawings, and an attribution link to keep.
8. [Apache ECharts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/echarts.md) — If the chart sits in a wider analytics dashboard — Apache-2.0, a candlestick series among general chart types, and indicators you compute yourself.
9. [Plotly.js](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/plotly-js.md) — If the charts start life in Python notebooks — MIT candlestick and OHLC traces the same in the browser and in Jupyter, drawn in SVG.

## The product

ChartIQ is a JavaScript charting library for financial front ends — the chart a broker, a
research portal or a market-data vendor embeds in its own web and mobile apps. Its documentation,
read on 9 October 2026, covers technical studies and a scripting language for new ones,
ScriptIQ; drawing tools from trendlines to Fibonacci, Gartley and Elliott wave; market depth and
cross-section charts such as yield curves; options analysis; trading from the chart; and,
in the 10.x releases, an AI plugin that drives the chart from a command line or a conversation.
Version 10.5.0 is dated 9 September 2026. Which of those you get depends on the package you
license.

It changed hands at the turn of 2023. S&P Global's press release of 5 January 2023 announced the
acquisition of ChartIQ from Cosaic, signed on 23 December 2022 and closed on 1 January 2023, for
undisclosed terms, to sit inside S&P Global Market Intelligence alongside Capital IQ Pro. The
release said S&P Global would continue to license the charting packages on their own. The old
chartiq.com address now redirects to an S&P Global Market Intelligence page.

The licensing is the reason most people look elsewhere. There is no price list. The library is
not on the public npm registry — the `chartiq` package there is a placeholder that tells you to contact your account
manager — and it is delivered as a zip archive built for one customer. A production key in
`key.js` is locked to your domains, IP addresses or file system and to an expiration date, and
the documentation says plainly that "the library will stop working once the expiration date is
reached". Expiration locks run for a year unless arranged otherwise. A lapsed renewal is not a
missed upgrade; it is a blank chart in production.

## What to use instead

None of these is ChartIQ under another name; each covers part of it. Decide which part you
licensed it for. The licence terms behind every option below are compared in [what a charting
library licence allows](https://stockmarketstack.com/guides/what-a-charting-library-licence-allows), and the whole field is
in [charting libraries](https://stockmarketstack.com/categories/charting-libraries).

**A full trading chart with indicators and drawings.** [TradingView Advanced
Charts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/tradingview-advanced-charts) is closest in breadth, with 100-plus indicators,
110-plus drawing tools and a datafeed interface you implement, and costs nothing — but its
agreement grants it only to companies offering a free public service, never to a paid,
internal or open-source product. Among libraries with a published price, [Highcharts
Stock](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/highcharts-stock) ships 48 indicators at 732 dollars a seat a year for one public
application, [AnyStock](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/anystock) 36 indicators and 18 drawing tools from 499 dollars a
year for a SaaS product, and [amCharts 5 Stock Chart](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/amcharts-stock-chart) 34 indicators,
free in a commercial product while its branding link stays on the chart.

**Open source.** [KLineChart](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/klinechart) is the open-source library that still has
indicators — 27, under Apache-2.0. [Lightweight Charts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/lightweight-charts) is the plain
price chart with none. [Apache ECharts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/echarts) and [Plotly.js](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/plotly-js) draw
candlesticks inside general-purpose charting, for a dashboard or for charts that begin in Python.
All four leave the indicators, beyond KLineChart's set, to your code.

**Speed.** If the commercial library was bought to draw a lot of ticks quickly,
[SciChart.js](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/scichart-js) is the GPU-rendered option, sold per developer — with no
technical indicators in the package at all.

## What you give up

**The specialist modules.** Options analysis, term structures and cross sections, ScriptIQ, and
trading from the chart are in ChartIQ's documentation and on none of the cards above. Order entry
on a TradingView chart is a separate product, Trading Platform, which its card describes as
quote-only. Expect to build the options and fixed-income views yourself.

**One supplier for the chart and the data.** ChartIQ's documentation describes reference-data
datasets — consensus, financials, guidance — that a licensee can feed onto the chart, and its
owner sells data. Every pick here ships no market data; the feed is a separate contract and a
separate adapter.

**A support contract.** A quote-only licence buys an account manager and a service agreement. The
open-source libraries have issue trackers; the commercial ones sell support by seat or by hours.

## Migration notes

**Move before the key expires, not after.** Read the expiration date in the comments at the top
of `key.js` and plan the cut-over against it. On SciChart.js, by contrast, runtime keys are
perpetual and a lapsed subscription costs you only new versions.

**Rewrite the quotefeed as a datafeed.** ChartIQ pulls bars through its own quotefeed interface.
Advanced Charts, Highcharts and the rest each want their own adapter, and the open-source
libraries mostly want arrays you fetch yourself. The data contract does not change; the code
around it does.

**Indicators will not print the same numbers.** Each library implements RSI, MACD and the rest its
own way — smoothing seeds, warm-up bars, session boundaries. Diff the old and new values on closed
historical bars before you ship, and see [why indicator values
differ](https://stockmarketstack.com/guides/why-indicator-values-differ) for where they part company.

**Saved layouts and drawings stay behind.** ChartIQ serialises chart state in its own format, and
no card here documents an importer for it. Plan to tell users that saved drawings will not carry
over, or write the conversion yourself for the few drawing types you need.

## FAQ

### Who owns ChartIQ?

S&P Global. Its press release of 5 January 2023 says it acquired ChartIQ from Cosaic, in a transaction signed on 23 December 2022 and closed on 1 January 2023, with terms not disclosed. ChartIQ sits in the S&P Global Market Intelligence division, and the release said S&P Global would keep licensing the charting packages on their own as well as inside its integrated products.

### How much does ChartIQ cost?

We found no published price. The ChartIQ package on npm is a placeholder that tells you to contact an account manager, and the React wrapper package points to a follow-up request form at S&P Global Market Intelligence. Any figure you see elsewhere is somebody's quote, not a list price.

### What happens when a ChartIQ licence expires?

The chart stops. ChartIQ's own documentation says a production key can be locked by domain, IP address, file system and expiration date, that the library will stop working once the expiration date is reached, and that expiration locks run for one year unless your account manager arranges otherwise. The date is in the comments at the top of the key.js file in your package.

### Is there a free version of ChartIQ?

No free tier is documented. A trial licence is locked only by an expiration date and runs on any domain for a short time, after which the documentation says to ask your salesperson for an extension. The free alternatives here are Lightweight Charts, KLineChart, ECharts and Plotly.js, which are open source, and TradingView Advanced Charts, which is free only under its own eligibility rules.