Open-source stock market tools

What each licence actually allows — MIT, Apache, AGPL, GPL — and why open-source code almost never comes with open data.

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Open source solves the software, not the data

Every tool on this page ships source you can read, fork and run. None of them ships the market data, and that is the constraint that shapes the whole list.

Exactly one market-data API in the catalogue is open source — yfinance — and it is a client, not a source: it reads endpoints Yahoo publishes for its own website. The code is Apache-2.0; the numbers that come back carry no licence to redistribute at all, which its own maintainer says plainly. Everywhere else the pattern holds: the engine is open, the feed is bought.

The licence is the field to read first

MIT, Apache-2.0 — do what you like, keep the notice. Most of the agent and MCP layer sits here, along with Lightweight Charts and Plotly.js.

AGPL-3.0 — the condition triggers on network use. Run a modified copy as a service other people reach and you owe them the source. Ghostfolio, OpenBB and Backtesting.py are on these terms. Running one for yourself or your household never trips it; building a product on top of one is the case to check.

GPL-3.0, LGPL-3.0Backtrader is GPL, which reaches into anything you link it with. NautilusTrader is LGPL, which does not, provided you link rather than modify.

Split licences wear the label without covering the whole product. TimescaleDB is Apache-2.0 at the core, but compression, continuous aggregates, retention policies and gapfill are under the source-available Timescale License — which is to say the features you would install it for. Its card names the line.

Where the open tools cluster

Two categories are almost entirely open source: backtesting frameworks and algo trading libraries and financial MCP servers and AI agents. Both are categories where the product is the code.

Two are almost entirely closed: charting platforms and screeners and market data APIs. Both are categories where the product is a licence to show you somebody else's prices, and a licence cannot be forked.

The interesting middle is portfolio trackers, where Ghostfolio and Wealthfolio exist because the job — what you hold and what it is worth — is one you may not want on a vendor's server at all.

All 46 of them

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FAQ

Does open source mean free?

The software, yes. The data, almost never. QuantConnect publishes its LEAN engine under Apache-2.0 and charges a subscription for the hosted platform and the data that runs on it; Ghostfolio is AGPL and still needs a market-data provider behind it, most of which are paid. Read the licence for what you may do with the code and the provider's terms for what you may do with the numbers — they are two different questions with two different answers.

Can I use AGPL code inside a commercial product?

You can sell it, and you can modify it. What the AGPL adds over the GPL is that running a modified copy as a network service counts as distribution, so the people using that service can ask you for the source. For a desktop app, a personal server or internal use that condition never fires. For a SaaS product built on someone else's AGPL code it is the clause to take to a lawyer before you write the first line.

What is the difference between open source and self-hosted?

Open source is about the licence on the code; self-hosted is about where the process runs. They overlap heavily but they are not the same list. Every open-source tool in the catalogue can also be self-hosted, while six self-hosted ones are not open source at all — kdb+, Highcharts Stock, QuantRocket, ArcticDB, vectorbt and vectorbt PRO ship binaries or source-available licences you run on your own machine under commercial terms.

Which parts of the market are actually open source?

The parts where the value is in the code rather than in a licence to redistribute somebody else's prices. Backtesting frameworks and the MCP-and-agent layer are almost entirely open source; charting platforms, screeners and data vendors are almost entirely not. That split is not about culture — a screener's product is the feed it is licensed to show you, and a feed cannot be forked.