Automated Trading - MT4 or MT5?

Hi all,

I use MT4 for automated trading since a time. Very often I heard that the MT5 is better. Has someone experience by MT5?

MT5 backtests are more realistic. and clearly MQ (and brokers) is shifting things toward mt5.
so to have a more futuristic view on stuff, mt5 shouldn’t remain a strange/untested environment to anyone using mt4.

MT4 is better overall and much more reliable. Also the older MQL4 is a better language because of the simplicity.

The only thing missing in MT4 is the real tick data for backtesting. But there are some available “hacks” for this.


Milliseconds timers, tick history, more timeframes, custom symbols, real possition accounting, OpenCL, chart detachment (next release), better chart scaling, more efficient indicator handling, 64bit, multi CPU and cloud testing, dozens of MT4 bugs and shortcomings fixed. All this available with essentially the same language. MT5 is like a better version of MT4.

NO it i s not…

:slight_smile: Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of people who tried to use MT5 since 2010 and in the end they always come back to MT4.

MT5 is simply unpopular and for a good reason.

We already saw multiple polls in many forums (this one included) and the majority of traders (over 60%) clearly prefer MT4.

Fact are facts.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the new features and all “improvements”.

We can only hope that one day MT5 will be as popular as MT4 is today.

But for now…MT4 for the win!

the OP asked which is better , not which is more popular.

there can be many valid reasons, for the majority of users to stick to one version (usually not the latest version of-course) of any program.
this happens everywhere , every time a release hits the popularity chart top rank, and stays there for a while (years), and then many related stuff tune to that version of software (brokers)

then it’s hell of a work to make people understand this : “the reason you think that old release is better , is because YOU (like many others, the majority) got used to it .”
when people try mt5, they learn how it works, and get used to it. just as mt4. but when long-time mt4 users try mt5, many, as you mentioned, jump back to older version.
see this familiar scenario in Photoshop CS3, windows XP, CorelDraw8.0, Clonev1.0 and hundreds of other popular/everyday-use software just as MT4.

MT5 is powerful and weak people get scared from powerful things. And crawl back to what they’re comfortable with.