A trading journal that works
completely offline
Every popular trading journal is a cloud service: your P&L, your losing streaks, your 2 a.m. revenge trades — all uploaded to someone else's server, behind someone else's login, for a monthly fee. TradeHelp is the opposite: a desktop app where everything stays on your machine.
Why offline matters for a journal
- Your edge stays yours. Setups, entry criteria and stats are the product of years of screen time. They shouldn't live in a database you don't control.
- Psychology notes are personal. A real journal contains honest writing about fear, greed and tilt. That's diary-grade data — it deserves diary-grade privacy.
- No vendor lock-in. Trades, notes and screenshots live in a single SQLite file you can copy, back up and open with standard tools. If TradeHelp disappeared tomorrow, your data wouldn't.
- No subscription treadmill. Software you run locally can be sold once. TradeHelp is $50, one time, free updates included.
- It's fast. No spinners, no sync, no session timeouts. Your journal opens instantly, on a plane or in a dead spot.
Even the AI coach is offline
TradeHelp's coach runs on your own hardware through Ollama, the free local model runner. It reads your full journal — trades, written notes, self-grades, playbook, goals and rules — and coaches you on what you actually did, with none of it ever leaving the machine. Attach a chart screenshot and a local vision model reads that too.
Prefer a hosted model? Bring your own API key and it's a two-field switch — with a separate toggle controlling whether written notes are included in what leaves the machine. Your call, either way.
What actually needs the internet
Nothing, for journaling. Three optional extras use the network only if you turn them on: the live price ticker, the economic-events calendar, and update checks. Switch them off and TradeHelp is a fully air-gapped journal.
FAQ
Where exactly is my data stored?
In a single SQLite database file in your user data folder (plus your chart screenshots alongside it). It's yours to copy, back up to a drive or private cloud, and restore by copying back.
Do I need an account?
No. There is nothing to sign up for — download, open, journal. Even the license is just a key you paste in once.
How good is a local AI, really?
Modern small models running through Ollama are genuinely capable coaches when they're fed structured data — and TradeHelp feeds them your full, real journal rather than asking you to describe your trading. Guardrails keep the coach from inventing trades that aren't in your data.
Which platforms?
Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon) and Linux. One $50 key activates up to 2 devices.
Journal like it's nobody's business
Because it isn't. Free 14-day trial, then $50 once.
Download for Windows