Best trading journals in 2026, compared

The short answer: if you want a free journal with prop-firm tracking and analytics in R, start with Haunted. If you want every trade pulled in from your broker automatically and do not mind paying $30 or more a month, look at TradeZella, TraderSync, Edgewonk or Tradervue. If you trade in Russian or Ukrainian, Haunted is the only one of the five with an interface in your language. Here is how they compare.

How to choose a trading journal

Six things decide whether a journal fits. Price: what a month costs, and whether you can pay it from where you live. Import: how your history gets in, from a broker, from Excel or from Notion. Prop accounts: whether the journal tracks challenge stages, daily and maximum drawdown limits and payouts. Analytics: whether it shows results in R and by session, pair and model, not just total P/L. Language: whether the interface speaks yours. Privacy: whether you can show one trade to a mentor without opening the whole journal.

Haunted: free, with prop accounts and backtests

Haunted runs in the browser on desktop and phone, with sign-in by email or Google. There is no paid tier, no trial and no card at sign-up. The interface is in English, Russian and Ukrainian. Each trade stores its outcome, risk, R:R, session, model, tags, notes and a screenshot, and one trade can be split across several accounts. Analytics covers win rate, expectancy, profit factor, the equity curve and drawdown, broken down by session, pair, model and account, and a scorecard grades your trading across six dimensions. Prop accounts carry drawdown limits, profit targets, challenge stages and payout history. There is also a backtest journal, ideas, documents and read-only share links for one trade or the whole journal. The main gap: no broker auto-sync and no MT4, MT5 or cTrader import, so trades are logged by hand or imported from CSV and Notion.

TradeZella, TraderSync, Edgewonk and Tradervue

These are the four best-known paid journals, and each has a real strength. TradeZella advertises more than 500 broker and prop-firm integrations and costs from about $35 a month, or roughly $26 a month billed annually. TraderSync has broker sync, trade replay and an AI assistant, with paid plans from about $30 a month and a free plan limited to manual entry, basic charts and a few file imports a month. Edgewonk is known for deep statistics and MetaTrader 4 and 5 auto-sync, at about $197 a year or $35 a month. Tradervue is one of the longest-running journals, with broad broker import: Silver from about $30 and Gold from about $50 a month, and a free plan capped by monthly trade count. Prices are from their own sites as of October 2026 and can change.

Trading in Russian or Ukrainian

None of the four offers a Russian or Ukrainian interface: they are built for English-speaking markets. Payment is a second barrier for traders in Russia. Subscriptions are paid by card, and Russian-issued Visa and Mastercard cards have not worked abroad since March 2022, so they cannot pay directly. Elsewhere in the region a card will go through, but $30 to $50 a month for a journal is a real cost while you are still working through your first challenge. Haunted is made for forex, crypto and prop traders, its interface is in Russian, Ukrainian and English, and there is nothing to pay.

The comparison at a glance

Price: Haunted is free, TradeZella costs from $26 to $35 a month, TraderSync from $30, Edgewonk about $197 a year and Tradervue from $30. Russian and Ukrainian interface: Haunted only. Automatic broker import: TradeZella, TraderSync, Edgewonk and Tradervue have it; Haunted does not and imports CSV and Notion instead. Prop accounts: Haunted tracks challenge stages, drawdown limits and payouts, while TradeZella and Edgewonk pull trades from prop accounts automatically. Backtest journal and scorecard: included free in Haunted.

When another journal is the better choice

Haunted is not for everyone, and it is better to say so plainly. If you take dozens of trades a day, trade stocks or options across several brokers and do not want to type anything, the auto-import in TradeZella, TraderSync or Tradervue will save you hours. If you trade from MetaTrader and want every position to appear in your journal on its own, Edgewonk with MT4 and MT5 sync is worth its price. If you log trades with your reasoning, trade forex, crypto or prop challenges and would rather not pay a monthly fee, Haunted does the job for free.

Getting started with Haunted

Sign-up takes under a minute: email or Google, nothing to install. Old trades can come in from CSV, which covers most Excel and Google Sheets journals, or from Notion, and they appear in the analytics alongside new ones. Then add your accounts, personal and prop, and log each trade with its risk, model, session and a screenshot you paste with ⌘V. Within a few weeks the analytics will show which sessions and models carry your edge and where you are losing money.

FAQ

What is the best free trading journal?

Of the five journals here, Haunted is the only one that is fully free: no tiers, no trial and no card, with analytics in R, prop-firm tracking, a backtest journal and share links included. TraderSync and Tradervue have free plans, but they are limited, and TradeZella and Edgewonk are paid.

Which trading journal is best for prop firm challenges?

It depends on how you trade. Haunted tracks challenge stages, daily and maximum drawdown limits, profit targets and payouts for every account for free, and one trade can be split across several challenges. If your prop accounts run on MetaTrader and you want trades synced automatically, Edgewonk or TradeZella do that for a monthly fee.

Is there a trading journal in Russian or Ukrainian?

Yes. Haunted's interface is available in Russian, Ukrainian and English, and the journal is free. TradeZella, TraderSync, Edgewonk and Tradervue are English only.

Can I import trades from Excel or Notion?

Yes. Haunted imports trades from CSV, which covers most Excel and Google Sheets journals, and from Notion, and the history appears in the analytics with your new trades. It has no broker auto-sync and no MT4, MT5 or cTrader import.