Downloading MetaTrader without downloading the wrong thing

Which brokers run which terminal

Which terminal each broker actually supports, from its own platform pages. It decides which version you should download: installing MT5 when your broker runs MT4 leaves you with a working program and nowhere to log in.

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Read from each broker's own platform pages on 23 August 2026. A broker that runs both versions will usually let you pick at account opening; one that runs a single version has made the choice for you.

What the download actually gives you

MetaTrader is a terminal, not an account. The program is written and published by MetaQuotes Software Corp., it is free, and it is the same file for everyone — the difference between your copy and another trader's is which broker's server it connects to. MetaQuotes says the mobile version connects to over 2,000 broker servers, which is the scale of the thing: one program, thousands of brokers behind it.

That is why the download is the easy half. To place a trade you need three things from a broker: a server name, a login number and a password. Without them the terminal opens, draws charts on delayed sample data and does nothing else. MetaQuotes handles this on first launch of the desktop version by offering to open a free demo account, which is enough to see the platform but is not an account with the broker you intend to trade through.

If you only want to look at the platform, you do not need to install anything at all. MetaQuotes runs a web version: “Use the MetaTrader 5 web platform without downloading or installing any application” — a browser, an internet connection and your broker's credentials are the whole requirement.

MT4 or MT5 is not your choice — it is your broker's

MetaTrader 5 is the newer platform and MetaQuotes puts it first everywhere, including at the top of the MetaTrader 4 download page. That does not make it the right download for you: the version you need is whichever one your broker runs servers for.

Among the brokers we track the split is real. ForTrade lists MetaTrader 4 and its own Fortrader platform, with no MT5 at all. Deriv runs its own MT5 build and no MT4. Bybit's CFD account is MT5 only. RoboForex, Alpari, Tickmill, FxPro and LiteFinance run both, and several add a third platform — cTrader at FxPro, LiteFinance and Deriv, R StocksTrader at RoboForex.

Check the table above before you download, or take the download link from your broker's own platform page. A terminal that does not match your broker is not broken; it simply has no server to talk to.

Where to get it, and where not to

There are exactly three trustworthy sources: MetaQuotes' own sites, the official app stores, and your broker's platform page, which usually serves the same installer with its server preconfigured. On mobile the publisher line reads MetaQuotes Software Corp. for both apps — if it says anything else, it is not MetaTrader.

Everything else that ranks for this search is worth avoiding. Searches ending in “apk” are dominated by mirror sites — APKMirror, Malavida and similar — which redistribute a repackaged installer for a program that will hold your trading credentials. There is no version of this trade-off that makes sense: the official file is free, and the mirror's differs from it in ways you cannot inspect.

The one legitimate reason people end up on mirrors is that an app is missing from their country's store. The answer there is the web terminal, which needs no installation, or the broker's own download page — not a repackaged file from a site you have never heard of.

The mobile terminals, in numbers

On Google Play, MetaTrader 5 has passed 50,000,000+ installs with 4.7 from 1.18M reviews; MetaTrader 4 sits at 10,000,000+ installs and 4.6 from 1.02M. On the US App Store the two score 4.78 and 4.79 from around eighty thousand ratings each.

Those numbers describe MetaQuotes' work, not your broker's — which is the useful part. A broker that offers only MetaTrader has handed its mobile experience to a third party, and the quality of that experience is identical whichever broker you choose. Brokers with their own apps can be judged on them; brokers without one cannot.

MetaQuotes lists the mobile feature set plainly: two execution modes and four order types, thirty technical indicators, up to ten open charts, real-time quotes and news. It is the same terminal on a smaller screen rather than a cut-down companion app.

After the install: three fields and one trap

Logging in asks for the server, the login number and the password. The server name is broker-specific and often has several variants — live and demo servers sit next to each other in the same list, and picking the wrong one produces an authorisation failure rather than a useful error.

The trap is the second password. MetaTrader accounts come with a master password and an investor password; the investor password opens the account in read-only mode. It exists so you can show your trading to someone without giving them control, and it is the password to hand over if a signal seller or an account manager asks to “see your account”. Anyone who needs your master password is asking for the ability to trade your money.

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