Compare · Orderflow
Bookmap is the best-known name in liquidity heatmaps, and if you're reading this you're probably deciding what to put on your screen for order flow. I build Sharpnel, so read me accordingly — but this page is written to be useful even if you choose them, because the way to choose is the same either way.
A visualization platform delivers one instrument as the product: the heatmap, refined for years, with add-ons around it. A terminal makes the heatmap one layer among the ones that explain it: Sharpnel draws the depth heatmap, the DOM ladder and the footprint on the same screen as the call wall, put wall and gamma flip it computes from the option chain every session, with TPO, the options suite and the macro board beside them. Whether that difference matters is the whole decision: if the wall and the order flow defending it live in one place, you see the defense as it happens instead of reconstructing it across windows.
A native desktop trading terminal (Windows + notarised macOS). Depth heatmap, deep DOM with pull/stack detection, footprint in five modes, TPO, gamma walls on-chart, the options suite, and a primary-source stock research desk. Pro is $125/mo or $1,125/yr paid once; a free Explorer tier runs everything on delayed data.
A specialist heatmap platform has years of refinement in one instrument and an ecosystem around it; if you trade the heatmap alone and trade it well, that focus is worth something. The honest question is how many other windows you keep open to know why a level is being defended — and whether you would rather they were one screen.
How deep the book it draws is; whether the heatmap keeps history, so pulled liquidity is visible and not just resting size; what is on the same screen when a wall is defended; native on your machine or in a browser; and what the data costs on top. Ask these of anyone — the answers explain why two heatmaps of the same session look nothing alike.
Run it live. The Explorer tier is free and runs the terminal on delayed data; put the heatmap and the footprint on your screen for a session next to what you use now. If it doesn't earn the screen space, nothing on this page should convince you.
For the orderflow core, yes: Sharpnel is a native desktop terminal with a depth heatmap, a deep DOM ladder with pull/stack detection, a footprint in five modes, reconstructed time & sales with large-print highlighting and stacked-imbalance signals. Bookmap is a well-known specialist platform built around the liquidity heatmap. The difference is what sits next to the heatmap: in Sharpnel it is the dealer gamma walls, TPO, the options suite and the macro board, on one screen.
Sharpnel Pro is $125/month (or $1,125 for a year, paid once), and the free Explorer tier runs the whole terminal on delayed data, so you can see the heatmap and the footprint on your own screen before paying anything. Whether that is more or less than a specialist platform plus its data depends on what you would stack next to it — the point of a terminal is that the stack is already on the screen.
Five questions: how deep is the book it draws; whether the heatmap keeps history so you can see liquidity that was pulled, not just what is resting; what else is on the same screen when a wall is being defended; whether it runs natively on your machine or in a browser; and what the data costs on top of the software. Then the cheapest test there is: put it on your screen with the free tier during a real session, next to whatever you use now.
If the liquidity heatmap is the one instrument you want to live in and you already have levels, profile and options covered elsewhere, a specialist tool is a fair choice; no terminal beats a specialist at its own single job. Sharpnel is built for the trader who wants the heatmap next to the reason the level matters — the dealer wall, the profile, the correlated market — instead of alt-tabbing between them.
The cheapest way to decide: put the terminal on your screen with the free tier and watch one session with the heatmap and the footprint next to the walls.
Bookmap is a trademark of its owner; it's named here for comparison only. Nothing on this page states Bookmap's prices or features — check theirs with them.
