Forex Charting from Esignal to Metatrader

I mentioned last week that I was ridding myself of Esignal due to price, performance, and features. Esignal was costing me about $160 per month and yet I found that it was very slow and the features they offered just weren't anything special. I compare Esignal to Microsoft. The development process is very slow probably due to bloated code and new features make their way into the application once every two years.

I've found the alternatives out there just flat out better than esignal and cheaper. I hear a lot about Xtick because it's cheaper, $85 a month and features are added when requested. The downside is that there isn't any backtesting functionality and no way to develop custom indicators.

I've found Metatrader to be unbelievable. First, it's free. Second, they have backtesting functionality, and third, a language to develop experts and indicators. It is also very fast. But at the expense of speed, there is a downside. There are no 10 minute charts and no 180 minute charts. In fact, you can only select from 1 min, 5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour, 4 hour, daily, weekly, and monthly. Their database probably contains data specific to each time period and therefore you cannot just select an arbitrary time period. This is still sufficient for most people though and like I said, since it's free, you just cannot beat it.

One thing that I've heard from many people is that it is very beneficial to use charting software that has a feed from the broker you make trades with especially if you are trading the shorter term charts. If I am trading short-term, I use FXCM Power Charts because they are very good "web" charts and the feed is directly from FXCM (my broker.)