# KLineChart

Zero-dependency candle engine with no market-hours rules to switch off for 24/7.

*https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/klinechart · Crypto Charting Platforms & Libraries*

## Also covered on

- [KLineChart on StockMarketStack](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/klinechart.md) — the same library judged against the other JavaScript charting options for equities

## Facts

### At a glance

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Vendor | KLineChart |
| Category | Crypto Charting Platforms & Libraries |
| Job | charting_library |
| Website | https://klinecharts.com |
| Pricing model | open-source |
| Free tier | true |
| Open source | true |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 |
| Self-hosted | true |
| KYC required | false |
| Tested hands-on | false |
| Last updated | 2026-09-19 |

### Coverage

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Asset classes | none |
| Chains | none |
| Venues | none |
| Data latency | none |
| Platforms | library |
| AI features | none |

### Interfaces

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| API | false |
| Webhooks | false |
| Scripting | none |
| MCP server | false |
| Export | none |

### Capabilities

Yes: charting

No: screening, backtesting, automation, live_trading, paper_trading, portfolio_tracking, exchange_import, tax_reporting, alerts, news, onchain_data, wallet_tracking, derivatives_analytics

*Verified: pricing 2026-09-19; capabilities 2026-09-19.*

## What it is

A canvas charting library that does candles and nothing else, which is the point. Version 10.0.3
ships 27 built-in indicators (MA, EMA, SMA, BBI, VOL, MACD, BOLL, KDJ, RSI, BIAS, BRAR, CCI, DMI,
CR, PSY, DMA, TRIX, OBV, VR, WR, MTM, EMV, SAR, AO, ROC, PVT, AVP), 16 overlay templates for
drawing, six candle rendering modes, and zero runtime dependencies — `dependencies` is absent from
`package.json`, not merely short.

There is no UI. The source tree is the engine, the panes, the views and the extension points; no
toolbar, no menus, no indicator picker, no settings dialogs. That is a design decision rather than
an omission, and it is the first thing to understand before choosing it, because the demos you
will have seen are somebody's own chrome around this engine.

Liveness, in dates. Version 10.0.3 was released on 27 August 2026 and published to npm the same
day; 10.0.2 landed on 5 August and 10.0.0 on 10 July. The last commit on `main` was 15 September
2026. The repository is not archived and shows 29 open issues alongside 15 open pull requests —
two numbers worth keeping apart, because GitHub's REST API reports their sum.

The maintainer is one person. The LICENSE file's appendix reads "Copyright lihu", the sponsor page
takes donations, and no company stands behind it. For a dependency you are going to render
somebody's account balance through, that is a fact about risk, not about quality.

## Pricing

Free, Apache-2.0, with nothing for sale. No hosted tier, no paid edition, no key, no account. The
only money page on the site is a sponsorship page that takes donations.

## Data & coverage

The library ships no data and no transport. Integration is three calls — `setSymbol`, `setPeriod`
and `setDataLoader` — where the data loader you pass supplies `getBars` for history and pagination
and `subscribeBar` / `unsubscribeBar` for the live tail. Venues, history depth, granularity and
what the chart shows during an exchange outage are entirely determined by whatever you wire in
behind those callbacks. If you are still choosing the feed, that decision lives in
[market data APIs](https://cryptomarkets.tools/categories/market-data-apis), not here.

Nothing in the library is crypto-specific, and nothing in it is equity-specific either. There are
no session or market-hours rules to disable for a 24/7 market, which happens to make it easier to
use for crypto than for anything with a closing bell.

## Integrations

Plain npm install or a UMD script tag; TypeScript definitions ship in the package. Bundled
localisation is `en-US` and `zh-CN` only — any other language is a locale you register yourself
through the i18n extension point.

The extension model is the reason to pick this over a general plotting package. Indicators and
overlays are registered objects with their own calculation and draw functions, so a funding-rate
pane or a liquidation-cluster overlay is a registration rather than a fork.

## Limitations

**The bundle is not the 40 KB the README advertises.** The README and the introduction page both
say "only 40k under gzip compression". Measured on 10.0.3, the minified UMD build is 229 KB raw and
58 KB gzipped. Still small, and still far smaller than the commercial libraries in this category —
but the number in the documentation is a version or two out of date, and this is exactly the field
readers compare on.

**Sixteen drawing tools, and that is the whole list.** Brush, fibonacci line, horizontal and
vertical straight lines, rays and segments, parallel straight line, price channel, price line,
ray, segment, straight line, simple annotation and simple tag. There is no pitchfork, no Gann fan,
no Elliott wave tool, no volume profile. A commercial library in the same category ships forty to
fifty. If your users expect a drawing palette they recognise from a terminal, you are building
most of it.

**KLineChart Pro is effectively dormant.** The ready-made chart product built on top of the engine
was last published to npm as version 0.1.1 on 23 March 2023, and its last commit was 4 May 2023,
while the core moved through two major versions. It is Apache-2.0 like the core, so it is yours to
maintain — which is the realistic reading of taking it.

**Version 10 is a breaking rewrite.** The documentation carries a dedicated v9-to-v10 migration
page, and the data integration API described above is new in 10. Any tutorial, fork or Stack
Overflow answer written before July 2026 is about a different API surface.

**No alerts, no screening, no backtesting, no order entry.** It renders a chart. Everything around
the chart is yours.

## Alternatives

Lightweight Charts occupies the same slot — small, permissively licensed, no UI — and comes from a
vendor with a company behind it; KLineChart answers back with more indicators and drawing tools in
the box. DXcharts Lite is the other free renderer of this shape, under MPL-2.0 rather than
Apache-2.0, which is a different conversation with your legal team. If what you actually want is
the chrome as well as the engine — a working drawing palette, a study dialog, saved layouts — then
none of the three is the answer and you are looking at a commercial library.

## FAQ

### Is the English documentation complete, or a stub of the Chinese original?

Complete, as of 19 September 2026. The English tree at klinecharts.com/en-US carries the same twenty pages as the Chinese one, each within a couple of kilobytes of its Chinese counterpart, and five pages checked at random — introduction, quick start, data integration, indicators and the chart API reference — contained no untranslated Chinese at all. This was a real limitation for years and is no longer one.

### What licence is KLineChart under?

Apache-2.0, read from the LICENSE file at the root of the default branch, which carries the full Apache text with the appendix line "Copyright lihu". The npm metadata and package.json agree. There is no dual licence and no commercial edition.

### Does KLineChart come with a toolbar and an indicator picker?

No. The core is a rendering engine with no UI layer — no toolbar, no menus, no settings dialogs. KLineChart Pro was the ready-made UI built on top of it, and it has not been published since version 0.1.1 in March 2023. If you need chrome around the chart, you are writing it.

### Does it supply any market data?

None. You call setSymbol, setPeriod and setDataLoader, and your own getBars and subscribeBar callbacks do the fetching. Where the candles come from, how far back they go and what happens during an exchange outage are all your problem, not the library's.

## Also worth comparing

- [DXcharts Lite](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/dxcharts-lite.md) — The MPL-2.0 renderer under a broker charting product — candles and axes, no indicators.
- [TradingView Lightweight Charts](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/tradingview-lightweight-charts.md) — Apache-2.0 canvas renderer for candles and lines. No indicators, no drawing tools.
- [ChartIQ](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/chartiq.md) — Heavyweight broker charting SDK, domain-locked, priced by an account manager.
- [DXcharts](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/dxcharts.md) — The paid half of the open core — 100+ indicators, 40+ drawing tools, from $499 a month.
- [Highcharts Stock](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/highcharts-stock.md) — Per-seat commercial charting whose free licence excludes anything you sell.
- [TradingView Advanced Charts](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/tradingview-advanced-charts.md) — The chart engine inside half this market — free with visible attribution, not open source.
