A lightweight NinjaTrader Market Replay alternative for XAUUSD

NinjaTrader 8's Market Replay is one of the more capable replay environments out there, especially for futures traders. It replays historical tick-by-tick data through the platform as if it were a live feed, so strategies and discretionary practice both run against the real intra-bar sequence rather than aggregated bars.

If you have tick data with depth-of-market history, you can also replay the order book and study how the DOM behaved through a specific event. For order-flow and futures practice, that is a genuine advantage.

Candlune is not a futures platform and is not trying to be one. It runs in the browser, focuses on candle-based discretionary practice on XAUUSD, and does not replay tick streams or the order book. There is no DOM, no strategy engine, and no integrated broker connection.

What it does instead is keep the workflow tight: open a replay, take simulated trades, let the journal entries form themselves, and watch the dashboard fill in over repeated sessions.

• Browser-based with nothing to install or configure.
• Candle-level XAUUSD practice rather than tick-level futures replay.
• No DOM, no strategy engine, no broker integration.
• Built-in journal and analytics for repeated practice.

NinjaTrader is built around a desktop trading platform with replay as one feature inside it. The strength is that the same environment you practice in is close to the one you execute in. The cost is setup time, data management, and learning curve.

Candlune does one thing. It assumes you already trade somewhere else and just want a clean, focused place to practice and review XAUUSD. That makes it lighter, but also less suitable if your actual trading is in futures and order flow.

The hardest part of manual backtesting is rarely the replay itself. It is keeping a record honest enough to learn from, week after week. Candlune is shaped around that problem.

Each simulated trade lands in the journal automatically, with entry, exit, and outcome already filled in. You add the notes that matter, and the dashboard aggregates the patterns. For a XAUUSD-focused trader, that loop is the point.

Starter and Pro include a three-day trial after Stripe payment setup, then renew monthly unless canceled. Ultimate does not include a trial, and Candlune does not offer a permanent free tier. NinjaTrader Market Replay is free with the platform, but the platform itself is the commitment.

If you trade or want to trade futures with order flow, NinjaTrader's replay is hard to beat. If your practice is XAUUSD candles and you want the journal and review in the same place, Candlune is the lighter fit.