TradeNote takes a distinctive approach to trading journals by combining an open-source project with an optional hosted subscription. Traders can install and run the journal themselves at no software subscription cost, or use TradeNote's cloud-hosted version for $4.99 per month. The platform focuses on importing trades, analysing results, filtering performance, maintaining a trading diary, annotating screenshots, reviewing price charts, and identifying patterns through tags. For traders researching TradeNote Pricing Open Source Trading Journal Official information, that combination of affordability, self-hosting, and practical journaling features is the central attraction.
TradeNote is particularly interesting for traders who value control over where their data is stored. Its official site says users can download and install both TradeNote and its database wherever they choose, while the project is released under the GNU GPL v3 licence. The trade-off is that the self-hosted route demands more technical involvement than simply creating an account with a conventional software-as-a-service trading journal, and TradeNote itself notes that its project originated from a personal need and has been most widely used and tested with intraday stock trades through TradeZero.
RizeTrade is the better choice for traders who want a comprehensive system that turns imported trades into detailed analytics, discipline measurement, strategy development, and repeatable performance improvement. Its Essential plan includes a Discipline Tracker, consistency heat map, P&L calendar, emotion tracking, strategy performance tracking, Trading Playbooks with rule-follow scoring, historical trades plotted on charts, and stop-loss and take-profit tracking. These tools create a more structured connection between what happened in a trade and whether the trader actually executed the process they intended to follow.
RizeTrade also provides more than 50 automatically generated reports spanning dates and times, symbols and instruments, strategies, tags, risk, position sizing, prices, quantities, trade duration, and options expirations. Traders can combine these with cross-analysis, comparison tools, wins-versus-losses breakdowns, filter stacking, R-multiple tracking, MAE and MFE statistics, Best Exit Analysis, Exit Efficiency Scores, drawdown information, and customisable dashboards. Automatic broker syncing and CSV uploads are unlimited on its paid plans, reducing the amount of ongoing journal administration required.
RizeTrade currently lists Essential at $24 per month and Pro at $49 per month. Essential supports three trading accounts, while Pro expands capacity to unlimited accounts and adds features including voice notes. Both plans combine journal entries with playbook compliance scoring, daily journaling, pre-market preparation, progress tracking, automatic chart plotting, trade notes, and extensive reporting. For active traders whose main priority is developing discipline and extracting practical performance improvements from their data without having to administer their own software installation, RizeTrade provides the stronger overall proposition.
TradeNote's pricing structure is unusually straightforward. As checked on August 27, 2026, the official website lists the self-hosted edition as free and says it includes the ability to host TradeNote on your own terms with community support. The alternative cloud-hosted service costs $4.99 per month, with hosting managed by TradeNote and priority support included. The company also advertises a seven-day free trial for the hosted service without requiring a credit card.
The terms of use confirm that the hosted product operates on a monthly subscription basis. Users can cancel by contacting TradeNote via email, with access continuing until the end of the current billing period, although prorated refunds are not provided. TradeNote also reserves the right to alter subscription fees with 30 days' notice. The low headline price is clearly attractive, particularly for traders who do not require the larger analytical ecosystems offered by premium journals, while technically capable users can avoid the software subscription entirely by choosing the self-hosted version.
TradeNote describes itself as an open-source trading journal, and its official source repository is publicly available under the GNU GPL v3 licence. The project was created specifically with data security, privacy, simplicity, and flexibility in mind. According to TradeNote, self-hosting allows users to download the application and database and install them wherever they choose. That is a meaningful distinction from journals where the application and trading history necessarily remain within the provider's hosted infrastructure.
That flexibility also means the free edition is not quite the same experience as signing up for an ordinary browser-based journal. The project's official GitHub installation instructions describe a Docker Compose setup requiring Docker and Docker Compose, while its alternative Docker installation involves MongoDB and several configuration variables. For users already comfortable deploying software, those requirements may be perfectly reasonable. Traders who have never maintained a self-hosted application, however, should recognise that free software does not necessarily mean zero setup or maintenance work.
There is an important distinction between self-hosting and using TradeNote's paid cloud service when considering privacy as well. The company's privacy policy says its cloud service may collect account information, billing information, usage information such as IP addresses and browser details, and data shared through integrated third-party services. TradeNote states that it does not sell personal information, although information may be shared with service providers involved in functions such as payment processing, hosting, analytics, or customer support. Users choosing between the two versions should therefore evaluate privacy according to the deployment option they actually intend to use rather than assuming the hosted and self-hosted models are identical.
TradeNote has a capable collection of journaling tools despite its inexpensive pricing model. Its official feature documentation centres the platform around importing and visualising trades, filtering results, recording daily reflections, evaluating trades according to personal rules, reviewing annotated screenshots, and identifying recurring setups or mistakes. The project's broader documentation divides the journal into two themes, Analyze and Reflect, with dashboard, daily, and calendar views on the analytical side and diary, screenshot, and playbook functionality supporting reflection.
Some of the most useful officially listed TradeNote functions include:
TradeNote supports both intraday and swing trades, although its documentation is unusually transparent about where the project has received the most real-world use. The official project overview says TradeNote originated from a personal need and has been most widely used and tested for intraday stock trades using TradeZero. This does not mean other trading styles are unsupported, but it is a useful qualification for someone assessing whether the platform has been extensively tested around their particular workflow.
Asset support extends beyond stocks. TradeNote says that, depending on the broker and community-developed integrations available, users can import and journal stocks, futures, options, and forex. Its documentation specifically notes that options support has been tested only with single options. Traders using more complex options structures should therefore investigate compatibility with their own exported trade data before treating TradeNote as a complete multi-leg options journaling solution.
Broker compatibility is similarly driven by available import integrations rather than a universal connection covering every trading platform. TradeNote directs users to the brokers folder in its official GitHub repository for the current supported-broker list and corresponding import instructions. The project also provides a template that users can adapt to broker export files and invites requests for additional broker integrations. This community-oriented system provides flexibility, but traders who place a premium on highly automated, ready-made broker connectivity may find a commercial journal with broader built-in syncing more convenient.
TradeNote is particularly appealing to traders who value open-source software, control over their data, low ongoing costs, and the ability to customise or self-host their trading journal. The free edition can be compelling for technically comfortable users willing to operate their own installation, while the $4.99-per-month cloud plan provides a much easier route for people who like the TradeNote interface and feature philosophy without wanting to manage the underlying infrastructure themselves. Its combination of trading diaries, filters, chart screenshots, tags, MFE analysis, price charts, and personal rule assessments provides considerably more than a simple ledger of wins and losses.
The decision becomes less obvious for traders seeking a highly automated performance-development platform with extensive reporting, dedicated discipline measurement, sophisticated execution analysis, and tightly integrated strategy playbooks. TradeNote's own documentation emphasises simplicity and flexibility, and that focus is part of its appeal rather than an inherent weakness. Still, traders should consider whether they want an inexpensive and flexible open-source journal that they can shape around their workflow, or a more comprehensive system designed to generate a larger set of analytical insights with less technical administration.
TradeNote is a compelling trading journal for users whose priorities are affordability, open-source access, privacy-oriented self-hosting, straightforward performance analysis, and flexible journaling. Its free self-hosted edition and $4.99 monthly cloud service make it unusually accessible, while features such as trade importing, diaries, tagging, screenshots, chart visualisation, filtering, MFE analysis, and playbook functionality provide a useful foundation for reviewing trading performance. Its main considerations are practical ones: self-hosting requires technical involvement, broker and asset support should be checked against the user's particular workflow, and TradeNote itself acknowledges that the project has been most extensively used and tested around intraday stock trading with TradeZero. For traders primarily seeking maximum control and a low-cost journal, TradeNote deserves serious consideration, but for traders who want a more comprehensive feedback system built around advanced reporting, discipline tracking, execution analysis, automated importing, and structured strategy development, RizeTrade remains the better overall choice.
