If you use TWS, NinjaTrader can us it's data to drive charts and analytics. TWS does not support historical tick data thus if you required that you would need Kinetick.
Darth, as Laissez Faire says it depends on your needs. What time frame are you trading? Unless sampled data is not sufficient as you are trading ultra fast or you have calculations that require every tick then the free data feed from IB is fine and you won't need anything else. Take a look at Sierra Charts for chart trading on IB as it rechecks the data every 5 seconds. eSignal can sure choke up in a fast market while IB runs with the move. Again hard to advise when we don't know how you trade but more than likely that will cover your charting and execution needs without using eSignal. Also check out the complaints on ET re. eSig so you are aware of the negatives to determine if that impacts you. Take a free trial of SC and see what you think.
Agree with Xspurt, SC is a better choice, platform is cheaper, and with 5 second rechecked data for accurate bar, and you don't need to pay additional data feed. Also SC is much easier to trade with, but be alert, at the beginning, you will feel overwhelmed, because SC has a lot of customized features.
I am setting up my IB account as it has just been funded. I think I am going to start with button trader and multi charts and like the poster above, I want to use TS for research only. Question though about TS. Do I have to open an account with them to use their research features and if so, how much do I have to open with. Don't have much left after opening the IB account. Also want to know, is it standard practice to use the IB feed for prices? I just want to know what I have to pay extra for with IB. I remember setting up an account years ago and I did pay them for something.....like level 2 pricing or something that sounds like that?