Choosing the terminal, not the broker
Forex trading platforms, compared
Four platforms cover almost every forex account. MetaTrader 4 and 5 come from MetaQuotes and are run by seven of the nine brokers we track; cTrader comes from cTrader Ltd and by three; TradingView connects to four; and every broker also pushes its own terminal. MT5 has 50 million Google Play installs against cTrader's one million.
Conditions checked against each broker's own pages
The platforms themselves
Ordered by how many of the brokers we track actually run each platform. Installs and ratings are store figures read on 24 August 2026, and they describe the platform's publisher rather than any broker.
| Platform | Published by | Brokers running it | Reach | What it suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MetaTrader 5 | MetaQuotes Software Corp. | 7 of 9 — Deriv, RoboForex, Bybit, Alpari, Tickmill, FxPro, LiteFinance | 50,000,000+ installs on Google Play, 4.7 from 1.18M reviews | The default. Hedging and netting, the widest broker coverage, and the platform most Expert Advisors are now written for |
| MetaTrader 4 | MetaQuotes Software Corp. | 6 of 9 — RoboForex, ForTrade, Alpari, Tickmill, FxPro, LiteFinance | 10,000,000+ installs, 4.6 from 1.02M reviews | Legacy strategies. Older, narrower and no longer the one MetaQuotes leads with — but the MQL4 robot you already own runs here and nowhere else |
| cTrader | cTrader Ltd — the Google Play listing is published by Spotware | 3 of 9 — Deriv, FxPro, LiteFinance | 1,000,000+ installs, 4.4 from 28.7K reviews; 4.76 on the US App Store | Order-book depth, built-in copy trading, and cTrader Algo instead of MQL. A smaller ecosystem with fewer brokers behind it |
| TradingView | TradingView Inc. | 4 of 9 — Deriv, Tickmill, FxPro, Bybit | Charting used far beyond broker accounts; connection is per broker | Analysis first, execution attached. Not a place to run Expert Advisors, and at Tickmill it costs $3.5 per lot per side against $3 on MetaTrader |
| The broker's own terminal | Each broker | Most of them — Deriv Trader, Libertex, Fortrader, R StocksTrader, Tickmill Trader, the Alpari and FxPro apps, the LiteFinance platform | Installs vary by broker; the figures are on our trading apps page | Getting started. Simpler than MetaTrader, tied to one broker, and the only place some products exist — Deriv's Derived Indices among them |
Scroll the table sideways →
Broker coverage is counted from the platform lists each broker publishes; install counts and ratings are Google Play and App Store figures read on 24 August 2026. Both move — the ratings weekly, the broker lists whenever a broker adds a terminal.
Two of these platforms are not written by brokers
MetaTrader 4 and 5 come from MetaQuotes Software Corp.; cTrader comes from cTrader Ltd, publishing on Google Play as Spotware. A broker licenses them, runs servers for them and sets the account terms behind them — it cannot change how they work, fix a bug in them, or make its version faster than another broker's.
That has a practical consequence when comparing brokers. Two brokers offering MetaTrader 5 are offering the identical program, so any comparison of them on “platform quality” is comparing the same software with itself. What differs is the account: spread, commission, leverage, execution and whether robots are allowed.
It cuts the other way for proprietary terminals. Deriv Trader, the Libertex platform, Fortrader, R StocksTrader and the rest are the broker's own work, so their quality is a fact about that broker — and their weaknesses cannot be escaped by installing something else.
The size gap between them
MetaTrader 5 has passed 50,000,000+ installs on Google Play with 1.18M reviews; MetaTrader 4 sits at 10,000,000+ with 1.02M; cTrader at 1,000,000+ with 28.7K. In ratings they are close — 4.7, 4.6 and 4.4 — so the gap is reach rather than quality.
Reach is worth something specific: indicators, robots, tutorials and forum answers accumulate around the platform with the most users, and most of that material is written for MetaTrader. Anyone learning from other people's material will find more of it there, and anyone buying a ready-made robot will find it written in MQL rather than for cTrader.
The counterweight is that a smaller ecosystem is often the better-built one. cTrader carries market depth and its own copy trading in the platform itself, where MetaTrader leaves both to the broker.
Which one to pick, in order
If you already have a robot, the platform is decided: MQL4 code runs on MT4, MQL5 on MT5, cTrader Algo on cTrader, and none of them ports. Everything below matters only when you have nothing to carry over.
If you are learning, take the platform your broker leads with, and take the broker on its account terms. A terminal you can use badly is worse than a plain one you understand, and the cost difference between accounts is permanent while the interface stops mattering after a fortnight.
If you analyse on TradingView already, check whether your broker connects to it — four of the nine do — and check the price of the route. At Tickmill the TradingView account costs $3.5 per lot per side against $3 on its MetaTrader Raw account, which is real money on volume.
If a product only exists on one terminal, that settles it. Deriv's Derived Indices trade 24/7 and exist only inside Deriv, which makes its own platform the only way to trade them.
What this page is deliberately not about
Stock brokerage platforms. Search “best trading platform” without the word forex and the answer is Fidelity, E*TRADE, Schwab and Robinhood — US equity brokers whose platforms do not trade currency pairs at all. It is a different industry with different regulation, and half a million monthly searches sit in it.
Nor is this a definition page. “What is a trading platform” is answered by Wikipedia and by glossaries, and a comparison has nothing useful to add to that.
Questions people ask
What is the best forex trading platform?
For most people, MetaTrader 5: seven of the nine brokers we track run it, it has 50 million Google Play installs, and nearly all third-party robots and indicators target it. cTrader is the better-built alternative with fewer brokers behind it, and TradingView is for people who analyse there already.
Is MetaTrader 5 better than MetaTrader 4?
It is newer, broader and the one MetaQuotes leads with, including at the top of the MT4 download page. It is not better for you if you own an MQL4 robot: that code does not run on MT5, and the accounts are separate.
What is cTrader and who offers it?
A trading platform from cTrader Ltd, published on Google Play by Spotware, with market depth and copy trading built in. Of the brokers we track, FxPro, LiteFinance and Deriv run it. It has around a million installs against MetaTrader 5's fifty million.
Do all brokers offer the same MetaTrader?
Yes — the program is identical, because MetaQuotes writes it. What differs between brokers is everything the terminal displays: quotes, spread, commission, leverage, instruments and execution, all of which come from the broker's server.
Should I use a broker's own platform?
It is usually simpler to start on, and sometimes it is the only option — Deriv's Derived Indices exist nowhere else. The trade-off is that a proprietary terminal ties you to one broker, and the skills do not transfer if you move.
Does the platform affect trading costs?
It can. Tickmill prices its TradingView account at $3.5 per lot per side against $3 on its MetaTrader Raw account. Elsewhere the platform is free and the account terms are identical whichever terminal you pick — but it is worth checking rather than assuming.
Once the terminal is decided, the broker behind it is the real choice: brokers running MetaTrader, brokers connected to TradingView and what a trade costs at each. The three brokers running cTrader are listed separately. To get the program itself, see downloading MetaTrader.
Platforms that copy someone else's trades are compared separately on copy trading platforms.