Three ways to calculate an average

RSI works by averaging recent gains and losses. There are three common approaches:

  • Simple Moving Average (SMA): every period carries equal weight. Stable, but slow to react.
  • Exponential Moving Average (EMA): recent periods receive more weight. Faster, but more sensitive to short-term volatility.
  • Wilder's Smoothing: technically an EMA with α = 1 / period. It reacts more slowly than a standard EMA while remaining smoother than SMA. This is the method originally published by J. Welles Wilder.

Why RSI values differ across platforms

TradingView, Binance, and most professional charting platforms use Wilder's smoothing by default. Some retail apps use EMA instead, while custom-built indicators may rely on SMA.

The result: the same 14-period RSI can display completely different values depending on the platform.

RSI Monitor's approach

RSI Monitor follows Wilder's original smoothing method to stay consistent with TradingView and Wilder's published formula.

If you're curious about the implementation, you can inspect the logic inside Rsi::Calculator.

Why this matters in practice

If you're comparing signals across platforms, confirm that they use the same smoothing method first.

Otherwise, you're not comparing the same indicator — even if both are labeled “RSI 14”.