# Lightweight Charts

The chart and nothing else — six series types on canvas, attribution required.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/lightweight-charts · JavaScript Charting Libraries for Finance*

## Also covered on

- [Lightweight Charts on CryptoMarkets.tools](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/tradingview-lightweight-charts.md) — why the Apache-2.0 terms decide it for an open-source or logged-in crypto product

## Facts

### At a glance

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Vendor | TradingView |
| Category | JavaScript Charting Libraries for Finance |
| Job | charting_library |
| Website | https://www.tradingview.com/lightweight-charts/ |
| Pricing model | open-source |
| Free tier | true |
| Open source | true |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 |
| Self-hosted | true |
| Tested hands-on | false |
| Last updated | 2026-09-13 |

### Coverage

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Asset classes | none |
| Markets | none |
| Works outside the US | false |
| Data latency | none |
| Platforms | library |
| AI features | none |

### Interfaces

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| API | false |
| Webhooks | false |
| Scripting | JavaScript/TypeScript |
| Python | false |
| Spreadsheet add-in | false |
| MCP server | false |
| Export | none |

### Capabilities

Yes: charting

No: screening, scanning, backtesting, automation, live_trading, paper_trading, portfolio_tracking, broker_import, tax_reporting, alerts, news, options_analysis

*Verified: pricing 2026-09-13; capabilities 2026-09-13; coverage 2026-09-13.*

## What it is

Lightweight Charts draws financial series onto an HTML5 canvas and does nothing else. You call
`createChart`, add a series, hand it an array of time-value or OHLC objects, and it renders, pans
and zooms them. Version 5.2 has six built-in series types — Area, Bar, Baseline, Candlestick,
Histogram and Line — plus multiple panes, a plugin API for custom series and drawing primitives,
and helpers for markers, watermarks, a yield-curve chart and a price-based options chart.

The repo is alive and not archived: v5.2.1 shipped on 12 August 2026, and the last commit on
`master` landed on 10 September 2026.

Three TradingView products get confused with each other, and picking the wrong one costs a week:

- **Lightweight Charts** — this card. Apache-2.0, source on GitHub, free for anyone including
  personal projects. TradingView's comparison table puts it at 35 KB.
- **[Advanced Charts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/tradingview-advanced-charts)**, formerly the Charting Library —
  proprietary, no source code, 100+ indicators and 110+ drawing tools, listed at 670 KB.
  TradingView calls it free, then says it does not provide it "for personal use, hobbies, studies,
  or testing" and licenses it only to companies. You apply; if approved you get access to a
  private repo.
- **Trading Platform** — Advanced Charts plus order entry and a broker back end, listed at 900 KB.
  Not free: on the same comparison table the "Free" row is a cross for this one, annotated
  "Contact us for further pricing details".

## Pricing

Nothing is for sale. The package is `lightweight-charts` on npm with one runtime dependency, and
there is no pro build, hosted variant, support contract or commercial licence alternative
attached to it. Support is the GitHub issue tracker.

The licence still costs something. Beyond Apache-2.0, the project requires you to display the
attribution notice from its NOTICE file and a link to tradingview.com on a page of your site or
app that users can reach. The `attributionLogo` layout option puts that link on the chart and
satisfies the link half; it defaults to true in 5.2.1, so switching it off means placing the
notice yourself.

## Data & coverage

None, and this is the misunderstanding the name causes. TradingView's own documentation says
neither Advanced Charts nor Lightweight Charts contains any market data and that you should use
your own source or a third-party provider. The library makes no network request at any point, and
renders a temperature series as happily as equities.

## Integrations

npm for bundlers, or a standalone IIFE build from a CDN for a plain `<script>` tag. TradingView
maintains native iOS and Android wrappers in its own GitHub organisation, but both sat on v4.0.0
from September 2023 until a v5.0.0 landed in June 2026 — mobile was three years behind the
JavaScript library. React, Vue and Python wrappers are community projects listed in TradingView's
`awesome-tradingview` repo, not first-party code.

## Limitations

- **No indicators, no drawing tools.** Not a short list — zero. A trendline layer, Fibonacci
  retracements and a moving average are all yours to build on the plugin API.
- **No symbol search, no watchlists, no datafeed adapter, no order entry.** This is a renderer;
  the trading UI around it is a separate project.
- **The published size figure is stale.** The marketing page says 35 KB, TradingView's own docs
  say 45 KB. The 5.2.1 standalone production bundle is 198 KB minified and 62 KB gzipped, with
  Bundlephobia at 61.6 KB gzipped for the ES module. Still small beside a 670 KB library, but
  budget against the real number.
- **No published performance ceiling.** "Responsive even with thousands of bars" is the vendor's
  phrasing and no figure sits behind it. Version 5.1.0 added opt-in data conflation aimed at
  datasets of tens of thousands of points and up, off by default — behaviour on a long tick
  series is something to measure rather than assume.
- **Accessibility is whatever canvas gives you, which is nothing.** The public type definitions
  contain no ARIA surface and the documentation has no accessibility page.

## Alternatives

[Advanced Charts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/tradingview-advanced-charts) is the in-house upgrade, if you are a
company that can apply for it and can live with source you cannot read.

Outside [TradingView](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/tradingview), [KLineChart](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/klinechart) is the closest
open-source competitor — also Apache-2.0, also canvas, and it ships technical indicators. [Highcharts Stock](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/highcharts-stock) is commercially licensed and arrives
with indicators and annotations. ApexCharts and [Apache ECharts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/echarts) are permissive general-purpose
libraries with candlestick support but little financial scaffolding. uPlot is smaller and barer.

## FAQ

### Is Lightweight Charts the same thing as TradingView's Advanced Charts?

No, and they are not interchangeable. Lightweight Charts is Apache-2.0 open source, anyone may use it, and it has no indicators or drawing tools. Advanced Charts (formerly the Charting Library) is proprietary, ships no source code, and TradingView grants it only to companies for public projects — not for personal use, hobbies, studies or testing. Trading Platform is Advanced Charts plus order entry, on the same terms.

### Do I have to credit TradingView if I ship Lightweight Charts in a commercial product?

Yes. On top of Apache-2.0 the library requires the attribution notice from the repository's NOTICE file plus a link to tradingview.com on a page your users can reach. The `attributionLogo` layout option draws that link on the chart itself and satisfies the link half; it defaults to true, so switching it off means putting the link somewhere else.

### Does Lightweight Charts come with market data?

No. TradingView's own comparison page states that neither Advanced Charts nor Lightweight Charts contains any market data. The library never makes a network request — you feed it arrays from a provider you already pay for.

### Does it have built-in technical indicators?

None at all. The documentation points at a moving-average example and tells you to implement the rest yourself. Indicators and drawing tools are what the proprietary Advanced Charts library is for.

## Also from TradingView

- [TradingView Advanced Charts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/tradingview-advanced-charts.md)
- [TradingView](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/tradingview.md)

## Also worth comparing

- [Apache ECharts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/echarts.md) — Apache-2.0 general-purpose charting with a candlestick series and nothing else financial.
- [KLineChart](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/klinechart.md) — Apache-2.0 canvas candlesticks with 27 indicators built in and zero dependencies.
- [Plotly.js](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/plotly-js.md) — Candlestick and OHLC traces in an MIT library the notebook already has installed.
- [amCharts 5 Stock Chart](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/amcharts-stock-chart.md) — Linkware — free in commercial products as long as the amCharts link stays on the chart.
- [AnyStock](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/anystock.md) — Per-product, per-domain commercial licensing with a watermark until you pay.
- [Highcharts Stock](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/highcharts-stock.md) — Commercial JS financial charting — 48 indicators, a navigator, a per-seat licence.

## Named as a replacement for

- [TradingView](https://stockmarketstack.com/alternatives/tradingview.md)