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I don't pay for customer service really, because I rarely use it -- I pay for a superior product. But, when I need service, I post to their forums, and within hours, always, I receive a response. Sometimes the response is, "we will implement this" and sometime it's "we do not support this and won't." Either way, their response is clear, and straightforward, and if you don't like it, you can get on with your life -- they don't mislead you into thinking they're going to do something when they have no intention of doing so.
SC has what I need:
* fast
* feature-filled DOM
* easy-to-draw profiles
* stable -- it never crashes, ever (really, ever)
* outstanding documentation
* great features that are the direct result of customer feedback (several features are present which I personally requested)
* wide range of brokers/data connectivity
* incredibly affordable, the cheapest I can think of, actually
SC is actually used by some professional traders, in some actual prop firms (ones that trade futures, not so for equity-first firms). Traders are generally concerned first with the performance of their platform, and that it lets them do what they need to do. Usability is important, but once you know how to use your platform, and can customize what you need to, you are over the learning curve.
The irony of your complaint is that they actually listen to their customers. The platform has evolved over the years in large part to the SC team listening to customer feedback. They have not increased their prices, and they come in significantly cheaper than most any other software. SC uses a standard windows UI toolkit. It's not the best, but it's quite usable. Basically, it's a non-issue, when you actually use the software to trade, rather than admire how beautiful your setup is.
I will share some screen shots -- do you not think they're pretty enough?
1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?
4 months
2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?
Immense functionality... if I have an idea, SC is capable.
3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?
numbers bars, order flow analysis, volume profile, TPO profile
4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?
both
5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?
discretionary, SC is algo capable tho and look forward to dabbling in it... only limitation is me right now
6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?
fairly hard... need to be computer literate and spend a lot of time in their online docs and combing the internet for how-to's
7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?
no phone support... all online docs & support board. Can tend to be not customer friendly.
8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?
very
9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?
info is out there if you search hard enough
I totally agree with Josh. I have subscribed with Sierra Chart for their awesome platform and I rarely use their customer service. It takes seconds to start the platform and get connected to the data feed in my relatively old computer that has i7 6700k, 16gb RAM. The plethora of features available makes this platform superb for the price you pay.
1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?
More than 1 year.
2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?
light loading on PC.
3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without? Interactive brokers integration.
4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?
both
5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?
discretionary but learning algo.
6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?
Thanks to youtube, and helpful users such as Tomglib, otherwise I would give up long ago. They could organize a set of starter videos for beginners if they have not done so already.
7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?
They are too emotional whenever I mentioned IB, otherwise it is a 50/50 chance to get a solution if you ask for help. Good news is it teaches us to find answers on our own. If you cannot do that you should not be trading.
8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?
getting more expensive. Might be a good thing to breed new competitors though.
9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?
Without community support and youtube, I see the impossibility in using SC for normal users.
I have to disagree, Sierrachart support is awesome. They are not diplomatic, but they are good at what they are doing, including support. If anyone is interested in knowing more about this communication posted by MecJnk, you can check this thread https://www.sierrachart.com/SupportBoard.php?ThreadID=46740
lol judging a platform by how good its free trial is.. well bookmap is definitely out of consideration as well then, as well as most platforms if you want free data with the trial.
I for one am happy that Sierra uses an "outdated GUI"... it's written in C++, which means that the platform is not going to have performance issues the way that .NET platforms can (I know some people have not experienced this, but when you do.. it's the worst thing as it hits .NET platforms when there is a lot of volatility.. not during the quiet times when you can have more time to deal with the issue)... there is a reason games are written in C++ not .NET
I'll tell you one "feature" that Sierra does not have that platforms like Ninjatrader and ATAS do... I've never seen Sierra open new positions in the opposite direction when trying to close positions. This has happened to me on both ninja and ATAS... on ninja it actually opened several shorts because I hit the chart trader close button multiple times on a long. Ninjatrader has a nice long page explaining why this happens.
Also, I know most people don't need this but I'll take Sierra's ACSIL over ninjatrader's ninjascript any day... and I can program.. but still I'd rather do it the easier way. Still it's no TradeStation EasyLanguage or TradingView Pinescript.. those are the absolute easiest ways to program platforms...
The big problem with Sierra chart going forward is the removal of Rithmic support and I wouldn't be surprised if CQG is eventually dropped as well...
Interesting that there's been so much written in response to a dissatisfied user's complaints about issues with setting up a free trial, and I guess I'll toss in my thoughts too.
Of course, I have no way to judge this individual case, since I wasn't there. I'm not saying anything for or against the position of the user nor of Sierra Chart, and the user's experience is the user's experience, not mine to judge.
But, based just on my own experience over several years now:
- I have seen SC support getting short-tempered and dismissive of other users before, although not as often as their reputation suggests.
- I have never had a bad experience with their support myself. I do try to check the documentation, which is not always as easy to use as I would like, but which does always have what I am looking for, when I find it.
- I never had trouble setting up SC initially when I was first looking it over. I have had to work at understanding everything it does. It does take an effort to get there.
- I never had difficulty understanding anything about pricing, which is very clear. I also knew when I came in what the CME rules about free trial data are, and did not expect anything other than what I found with SC.
- I have been around this block before, and I know by now what to expect coming in, in terms of needing to understand a new system. I do not think that I should be sending requests for help to support unless I have tried every reasonable alternative, and, to repeat, have read the documentation. I think there may be others with real problems they need resolved, possibly relating to real trades, and I don't want to clog the queue with my newbie questions.
- On the very few occasions when I have found a real, reproducible software bug (I think twice, maybe three times), they jumped on it, fixed it, and released a new version within a day or two. I think I had one business issue with them (something about money, I don't recall now), and they resolved it professionally and quickly.
I could go on, but I hope the point has been made. It can be tough to learn. The learning curve is steep sometimes. Perhaps the platform is not for everyone. Perhaps the customer service, which is obviously done by technically-minded people who get impatient quickly, is not for everyone either. Certainly not for people who never read the directions first.
But it's a great trading platform that will do just about anything I have ever asked it to do. And it's fast, and doesn't get bogged down if it has to do a lot of things at once -- it just does them. And it is absolutely stable. All of which is what I was looking for.
As with everything else, not everyone will like it, and if it doesn't fit well with someone, they should move on. But if fits me fine.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
If you open an account with AMP Futures, you can get Sierra Charts Level 3 (missing some orderflow tools) for free ($25/month for full) and if you choose to only look at the top bid/ask with CQG for 1 exchange (CME for example which provides ES/NQ and FX) your monthly data fee would be $2 dollars.. which is pretty much unbeatable.
The reason why I switched from Ninjatrader (I bought the lifetime license) to Sierra Charts is because the support on Ninjatrader is non-existent and advanced tool require you to purchase a license form a third party vendor whereas Sierra Charts basically comes with it all out of the box. It's a pain in the ass to setup, but once you learn their the idiosyncrasies of the platform it's unbeatable in terms of out of the box functionality and performance in my opinion. To simplify the setup process, it's good to start with templates (chartbooks) that others have created and then use that as a foundation to learn the platform... as the default appearance is hideous.
edit:
So it appears that you pay for what you get. Sierracharts was supplementing CQG's data with their own, but moving forward they will cease to do that meaning you'll only get intraday data for the current contract month. You will however get the daily data. Here's the announcement:
