Do I need to keep my computer on?
For the webhook platform, no. Your computer can be off, asleep, or on the other side of the planet, and your trades still execute. The platform runs on our servers, not on your machine. The one exception is the legacy Chrome extension, which lives in your browser and only works while that browser is open. Which answer applies to you depends on which Autoview you're running.
The webhook platform runs without you
This is the current product, and it's the reason the old "no, keep it on" answer is out of date. When an alert sender posts to your webhook, the request lands on our infrastructure. Our server receives the POST, checks the webhook, parses the commands, and routes them to the exchange. None of that touches your laptop. The chain runs whether your machine is on or off.
It's also source-agnostic. The webhook accepts a POST from anything that can send one: TradingView, TrendSpider, a Python script, your own cron job, a server you control. TradingView is one possible sender, not the only one. So the question of "is my computer on" is really a question about the sender, not about Autoview. If your alerts come from TradingView's cloud or any always-on service, the whole loop runs around the clock with nothing of yours powered up.
A few things follow from this:
- Your computer can sleep, shut down, or lose Wi-Fi, and resting orders and incoming signals are unaffected.
- You don't need a browser open. You don't need Autoview open in a tab.
- If your alert sender is a desktop app on your machine, then that sender needs the machine on. Autoview's side does not.
The Chrome extension is the exception
The extension is the older, browser-local way to run Autoview, and it's still tied to TradingView alerts. It runs inside Google Chrome on your computer. That means it needs Chrome running and an active internet connection to place orders. Close the browser or shut the machine down, and the extension stops. For round-the-clock execution, use the webhook platform, which runs on Autoview's servers.
If you're on the extension and want it to keep going while you step away, you have two options:
- Keep the browser alive. You can lock the computer and still let Chrome work in the background. If your version of Chrome still offers it, look in Chrome's settings under the system section for a background-apps option and turn it on. Newer Chrome builds have removed this setting, so you may not find it. The machine still has to stay on and online.
- Run it on a VPS. A Virtual Private Server is a remote machine that stays connected around the clock. Install Chrome and the extension there, and it keeps executing even when your own computer is off. People who are committed to the extension's live TradingView link usually go this route.
Both of those are workarounds for a browser-bound tool. The platform skips the problem entirely.
The surface matrix: webhook platform vs. Chrome extension
"Do I need to keep my computer on" is really six smaller questions: who sends the alert, where it gets parsed, where your credentials live, what process has to be running, what happens during an outage, and how you'd notice. Here's how the two surfaces compare on each.
| Surface | Webhook platform | Chrome extension |
|---|---|---|
| Sender | Anything that can POST to your webhook URL: TradingView, TrendSpider, a Python script, a cron job, a server you control. | TradingView only, delivered over a live WebSocket channel the extension opens per alert from inside the browser. |
| Parser | The webhook request lands on Autoview's Cloudflare Worker, which splits and validates the commands server-side before anything is dispatched. | The command text is parsed inside the extension's background script, in your browser, when the alert arrives. |
| Credentials | Stored encrypted in Autoview's database, resolved server-side per account when a webhook fires. | Stored in the extension's own browser storage, on the machine running Chrome. |
| Required process | A Cloudflare Worker (for receiving and parsing) plus an Autoview-operated execution process, neither of which is your computer. | Google Chrome, running, with the extension loaded and an active internet connection. |
| Outage behavior | If your alert sender goes down, its alerts stop; Autoview's own receiving and dispatch keeps running independently of your machine. Autoview logs a failure event for cases it can detect (an invalid webhook, an account with no linked exchange, a dispatch error) so you have a record to check. | If Chrome closes, sleeps, or loses its connection, the extension stops receiving alerts entirely until Chrome is back up and reconnected. There's no server-side queue behind it to catch what was missed. |
| Monitoring | Check your webhook's event log for reported errors, and confirm activity against your exchange's own order history. | Watch for the extension's connection status in the browser, and the same exchange-side check: your order history is the fact, not the extension's state. |
Running the extension on a VPS: what can still go wrong
Moving the extension to a VPS solves the "my laptop is closed" problem, but it trades it for a few narrower ones worth knowing about before you rely on it.
- VPS sleep or restart. Most VPS providers don't sleep the way a laptop does, but they do reboot for maintenance, and a reboot drops whatever Chrome session was running. Until something on the VPS relaunches Chrome (and you're logged back into TradingView, with the extension active), alerts fired during that window are simply missed, not queued for later.
- Chrome profile locking. Chrome only lets one running instance hold a given profile's lock at a time. On a VPS you typically connect over remote desktop to check on things; if a second remote session (or a leftover process from a dropped connection) tries to open the same Chrome profile while the first is still holding it, Chrome will refuse or open a fresh, empty profile instead of the one carrying your logged-in TradingView session and extension state. Worth checking that a stray second session isn't fighting the one that's actually supposed to be running.
- Reconnects. The extension's TradingView connection is a WebSocket, and reconnect is a live, on-by-default behavior on that connection, not something you have to trigger by hand after a network blip. That said, a reconnect still takes a moment, and any alert TradingView tried to deliver in the gap between the drop and the reconnect isn't retried by the socket itself.
- Exchange-side reconciliation. After any outage, whether it's a VPS reboot, a dropped Chrome session, or a webhook sender that was down, the only reliable check is your exchange's own order and position history, not Autoview's logs alone. A missed alert during downtime doesn't execute retroactively once things come back; if you expected a trade and don't see it on the exchange, treat that as the answer, and re-send or place it manually if it's still relevant.
Which one should you use?
If you want trades to fire while your laptop is closed and you'd rather not babysit a browser, the webhook platform is the answer. It's built for exactly that. The extension makes sense if you're tied to its direct, in-browser TradingView connection and you're fine keeping a machine on, or paying for a VPS to do it for you.
You can run the same exchange on either path. The trade-off is uptime versus the extension's browser-local TradingView link. Compare them side by side on the platforms page, then connect your exchange and send a test signal to watch it execute with nothing of yours running.