Forex Trading Platforms Comparison - MetaTrader 4 vs cTrader vs MetaTrader 5 vs Currenex

Updated 19 September 2021

Warning: If you’re new to forex trading, you should be aware that forex trading is a highly speculative and risky product. Between 70 and 90% of traders lose money. Forex trading is a derivative traded with high leverage, and you can very quickly lose your entire investment. We recommend reading our Forex Trading Guide for more information.

Our guide covers:

• ​White label trading platforms
    - MetaTrader 4
    - cTrader
    - MetaTrader 5
    - Currenex
    - Other white label forex trading platforms
• Trading platform comparison 
• Proprietary trading platforms
• Copy-trading platforms
• Frequently asked questions 

Know This First:

1. ​The forex trading platform you choose is your gateway to the foreign exchange market. It’s important to choose a platform you’re comfortable with and find easy to use.
2. Your broker provides most platforms for free, and most brokers offer demo accounts, also known as paper trading accounts, for practising. You’ll use the trading platform for analysing the markets, placing orders and managing positions.
3. Even if you feel your needs aren’t very demanding, you should still invest the time to assess your options before you begin trading. This guide helps you explore the options available.

Summary

• The most popular trading platform is MetaTrader 4; it’s used by millions of forex traders and offered by hundreds of brokers worldwide. 
• Other popular trading platforms are MetaTrader 5, cTrader, and Currenex. 
• Larger forex brokers develop proprietary trading platforms to provide a unique product experience to their customers, rather than using the same platforms as their competitors.
• Forex brokers usually offer contracts for difference in the same platform, allowing you to trade products like precious metals, oil, indices and other markets alongside forex.
• There are many features to consider before choosing a trading platform, and this guide breaks some of the most important ones down for you.
• Most trading platforms support automated trading functionality allowing users to build and test their automated trading strategies.
• If you find any terms or jargon while reading this guide you’re not familiar with, refer to our investment terms glossary.

​Most forex brokers operate a white label trading platform, meaning they rent or license the software, to provide forex trading services to their customers. The concept is similar to how an e-commerce company might use Shopify to build an online store rather than developing one from scratch.
 
The main advantage for brokers is financial. It’s cheaper to license or rent a platform than to build one from scratch. It can take years and cost several million dollars to build a forex trading platform. The maintenance costs can also be a burden. Only the largest brokers have the resources to build a proprietary trading platform. Therefore, most brokers offer MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader or Currenex.
 
Brokers also benefit from having a platform familiar to traders. However, this can also be a disadvantage as it makes it easier for traders to switch brokers if they offer the same platform.
 
When operating a white label trading platform, brokers can choose the trading instruments listed, connect liquidity and market data providers and set trading conditions. Even though many brokers offer the same platform, it doesn’t mean the experience will be identical. 

MetaTrader 4 is effectively the face of the forex trading industry. Hundreds of brokers offer MT4, and it’s typically the first platform traders are introduced to when they begin their forex trading journey.
 
MetaTrader 4 launched on the 1st of July 2005. The platform was developed by MetaQuotes, an FX charting and trading software vendor. Despite its age and many shortcomings compared to newer trading platforms, MT4 retains its position as the most used platform in the industry.
 
MT4 was the first viable white label forex trading platform, and it was an ideal choice for brokers. At the time, the online trading industry was just emerging, and the regulatory burden was far less developed and almost non-existent in most developed countries, making it incredibly easy to launch a forex broker.
 
The downside of MetaTrader 4 is that the system wasn’t designed to connect to external liquidity, meaning brokers either had to take all the risk of their clients' trades or build plugins to bridge MT4 with external liquidity providers.
 
MT4 is offered by almost 1,000 brokers worldwide, making it by far the most accessible trading platform. You can create a demo account from the MetaTrader 4 website or simply visit one of the brokers supporting the platform, such as BlackBull Markets. MT4 is available as a Windows, macOS and Linux desktop application and a mobile application for Android, iOS and Huawei devices. MetaQuotes developed a web browser-based application, but not until 2015. Meanwhile, many brokers and third-party developers built their own web-based trading platform connected to the MT4 backend. MT4 brokers offer a wide range of web trader applications with different appearances and features. 

​cTrader is a forex & CFD trading platform created by Spotware Systems, a software development company building platforms for trading various financial markets. cTrader is the company’s flagship product and was released in April 2011.
 
FxPro was the first broker to pilot the platform and offered it exclusively for the first year. In 2013, the platform was adopted by a handful of well known Australian brokers. Since then, cTrader has gained popularity but remains the underdog to MT4.
 
Over the years, cTrader has released countless updates based on user feedback and emerging trends. The platform offers a copy trading ecosystem, strategy analysis dashboard and integrated news, technical analysis and signals.
 
cTrader positioned itself as the transparent alternative to MT4, which had earned a questionable reputation as brokers could easily manipulate price feeds and interfere with execution. cTrader is hosted by the platform’s developers, meaning brokers don’t have root access to modify server functionality or database records, drastically limiting the potential to manipulate the trading environment. Unfortunately, this commitment to transparency is one of the factors that inhibited cTrader’s growth in the forex industry. 

MetaTrader 5 was released on the 1st of June 2010. The main difference between MT4 and MT5 is the latter was designed to be a multi-asset class trading platform capable of connecting to stock exchanges to trade exchange-traded products, like stocks. The downside is the platform didn’t support hedging, which is an essential characteristic of forex trading, making MT5 useless to forex brokers and traders.
 
More forex brokers are adding MT5 every month, but not necessarily out of preference. An MT4 license has a fixed capacity of users, and brokers need to buy additional licenses to extend how many users they can support. MetaQuotes ceased selling new MT4 licenses, effectively putting a ceiling on brokers’ capacity. A black market for second-hand MT4 licenses emerged, where brokers paid 50% more to acquire used licenses. It seems brokers have accepted they must migrate to MT5 eventually.
 
The appearance of MT5 is barely different to its predecessor, MT4, as it retains the classic MetaTrader aesthetics. Like MT4, the platform is available on PC, macOS, Linux, iPhone, Android, Huawei and web browsers.

Currenex is a forex trading platform designed for experienced private traders and professional, institutional traders. Currenex was acquired by State Street Corporation in 2007 and operates not just as a trading platform but as a liquidity aggregator and execution venue. Unlike the other platforms listed above, Currenex primarily caters to institutional clients, such as banks, brokers, hedge funds and corporations. The white-label solution Currenex offers to brokers enables them to provide the Currenex trading application to their clients to access the trading venue hosted by Currenex.
 
For the average point-and-click trader, Currenex doesn’t offer much value. The interface lacks anything noteworthy in terms of charting, analysis, order types and other features. High-frequency traders using algorithms or high volume traders placing orders of 1,000,000 or more can achieve better execution as it supports access to more liquidity sources.
 
Although Currenex hosts an exchange venue, you can’t go directly to the company to open an account as a private trader. You still need to go via a broker. Brokers usually reserve this platform for their high-value customers.

Besides the four platforms introduced above, only a handful of other platforms could be used by forex and CFD brokers. However, they aren’t commonly used, so they aren’t described in detail in this guide.
 
Other forex trading platforms you might stumble upon are:

• xStation, developed by XTB Limited
• Sirix, developed by Leverate
• DX Trade, developed by Devexperts
• Protrader, developed by PSOFT LLC
• XW Trader, developed by Forexware
• Fortex, developed by Fortex Inc
• ActTrader, developed by ActTrader Technologies

​This section defines and explores the key features every trading platform should have and compares the similarities and differences between MetaTrader 4, cTrader, MetaTrader 5 and Currenex.

​Some trading platforms aren’t compatible with every operating system. You should consider the device you want to trade using and which platforms are supported. It’s worth noting that although the MetaTrader platforms support the broadest range of operating systems and devices, brokers must subscribe specifically to offer mobile and web applications. 

​Every trading platform is equipped with charts showing historical market data. Depending on their trading strategy, scalpers and day traders may want to zoom in and look at smaller timeframes, whereas swing and position traders want to zoom out and look at larger time frames. Below is an overview of chart properties

​Many traders rely on technical analysis indicators to assess what they think will happen in the market and plan their trades. Technical analysis requires different indicators for determining the presence and direction of a trend, the volatility, momentum and volume of a particular asset.
 
Other tools trading platforms offer are drawings, such as trendlines, channels and Fibonacci retracements. 

​The standard order types you’d expect to find in a trading platform are market orders executed at the best available price and pending stop & limit orders. There are various configurations of these order types, such as stop-loss & take-profit orders. A stop-loss is simply a stop order that closes a position, and a take-profit is a limit order that closes a position.
 
Some platforms have more advanced order functionality, such as OCO orders, which lets you place two orders, and if one is triggered, the other is cancelled. Or a limit range order, which lets you combine a market order with a limit order to prevent slippage. Below you can see the order types supported by each platform.

​Besides the order types for placing orders and entering positions, you should consider the functions available for managing your positions after they’re open. For example, one of the biggest drawbacks of MT4 is that brokers can impose restrictions on how close to the market price you can place pending orders. 

​Unlike a regular stop-loss set at a fixed price, a trailing stop-loss follows the market price by a set distance and automatically adjusts whenever the price moves in your favour but stays put when the price moves back. Trailing stop losses can be useful to some trading strategies. Some platforms execute trailing stop-losses in the platform, requiring the application for the trailing stop loss to function. In contrast, others offer server-side trailing stop losses meaning you can close the application. 

​Depth of market, also known as the order book or market depth, is a window into the liquidity available in the market. Platforms designed for market execution, like cTrader and Currenex, use volume-weighted average prices (VWAP) when executing orders. VWAP execution means if there is not enough liquidity to fill an order at one price, it will sweep multiple layers from the order book to fill the entire order. Therefore, cTrader and Currenex show a depth of market indicator.

​If you’re tech-savvy, you might be curious about the automated trading development capabilities these platforms offer. Many traders find automating their trading strategies is very practical for bypassing the emotional toll trading plays. cTrader and MetaTrader have built-in integrated development environments for coding and testing trading robots.

​It’s not just charting tools and order types that make a trading platform practical. There are many other tools and features that can make all the difference. Here’s a list of various features worth knowing.

You want a trading platform that is well documented and explains the features and settings clearly. Here are links to the user guides for MT4, MT5, cTrader and Currenex:

• MetaTrader 4 Help
• MetaTrader 5 Help
• cTrader Help
• The Currenex documentation is not publicly available 

Well established brokers normally follow the path of building their own trading platforms. Some build platforms simply because their company predates any viable white label solutions or distinguishes themselves from the competition. In general, if a broker is publicly listed, they have likely built a platform; otherwise, the company would essentially not have any intellectual property and is at the mercy of a third party. For example, Plus500, CMC Markets, IG Markets and Interactive Brokers are all publicly listed companies and operate proprietary trading platforms.
 
Learn more about the proprietary trading platforms offered by different brokers:

• Blackbull Markets Review
  
• IG Markets Review
  
• CMC Markets Review
• Interactive Brokers Review
• Plus500 Review

​Copy-trading is essentially an arrangement where presumably successful traders publish their trading strategies on a copy-trading platform for others to copy in their trading accounts. The trader providing the strategy earns a fee or percentage of the profits for sharing their strategy. Copy-trading platforms let followers allocate funds to copy strategies. Copy-trading platforms are essentially a library of strategies where investors can search and evaluate different strategies.
 
Copy-trading has become a popular alternative investment for the average person. The solution is typically marketed to new and inexperienced traders or time-strapped individuals without the time to learn how to trade.
 
Many people will be aware of the brand eToro. The company has raised a lot of awareness of this niche by investing significantly to get mainstream attention through PR, sports sponsorship deals and clever advertising campaigns.
 
Copy-trading is a familiar concept in the forex industry, with many brokers offering some degree of social, mirror or copy trading. Other popular copy-trading platforms are:

• ZuluTrade
  
• Mirror Trader
• Myfxbook AutoTrade
• cTrader Copy

 
And many brokers provide their own copy-trading solutions. 

Yes. The only broker in New Zealand offering cTrader is Jarden. However, New Zealanders can open accounts with overseas brokers to access the cTrader platform. Remember that the Financial Markets Authority has no oversight or enforcement over foreign companies and makes you vulnerable to investment scams targeting New Zealanders. A selection of cTrader brokers are listed on the cTrader community website, or you can find a complete list of cTrader brokers on a trading blog dedicated to the platform.​