Should you consider MT5 for your next big expert advisor?

Hi Traders,

Plenty of opinion on the 7 year old discussion on which one - mql4 or 5? My situation is interesting and I would appreciate your views.

I have developed a fairly complex but working EA but to scale up I need to do some serious surgery to adjust the EA to run in concurrent time frames with some sophisticated arbitration expectancy based prioritisation and need to rebuild the core framework that puts this logic together.

I am considering upgrading to mql5 as there seem to be plenty of technical reasons and it certainly simplifies some technical challenges:

  1. One of the system concepts is based on different market cycles and the system continuously adjusts various MAs accordingly. Using mql5 I can have the EA update and draw these on the page (not essential but would be nice for monitoring purposes).

  2. I also adjust/correlate risk across the majors.

  3. I am looking to import news date/time via XML/RSS.

Just reading all the many mql5 opinions, I am somewhat concerned about the future of mlq5 - it seems that mql4 and mql5 are coming closer together whilst other recent statement suggest mql4 development has now officially ceased!!?

  • There appears to be an increased uptake of mql5 but seems to be plateau-ing (personal impression only) - I could not find any stats on the number of EA trades comparing trading volumes between mql4/5 (anyone?)

  • It has been out since 2010 and would appear to be reasonably mature - low technical risk. Especially as it is supported.

My question to the audience (and in particular I would especially value whroeder1 's opinion/assessment) - would you risk the transition to mql5 or am I better to continue with mql4 and let time solve my dilemma as mql4/5 morph into one?

Many thanks in advance,

If the strategy is valuable, you might consider using both until the future of MT4 is certain. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, it sounds like you have quite an investment and your decision may be costly if you select the wrong one.

Hi - thanks for responding. You are right - it has been quite an investment and a distraction from my normal trading. At present I am leaning towards MT5 given the technical capabilities and reduced development effort with the option to downgrade to MT4 (maybe even use commercial services if required). And of course I may will have to change brokers as neither support MT5 and they appear to be sitting on the sideline. They have plans but no dates …

I do like your angle - it is not the end of the world and may just cost a few conversion bucks if worst comes to worst. So thanks for taking the time to respond. MT5 will help automate and refine the system concepts.

I was in same boat. Went with the MT5 option and learned after all my efforts to switch that all the brokers available to me were terrible live. Now I know where the two cross over and develop libraries that mostly work on both. Testing and optimizing happen on MT5 and trading in mt4

Yikes!! That is a new angle and very useful information Thank you. I have made the decision to develop for MT5 - purely because of the technical capability - it really is head and shoulders above MT4 - but your experience is troubling. What this a recent event or is there a chance the broker community has since stepped up and started to take MT5 more seriously? Hopefully Meta Quotes is providing incentives for this to happen.

Anyone have any recommendations on outstanding MT5 brokers? My current “main” does not yet do MT5 and sadly they seem to be uncommitted (i.e. no time frame, just a “we’re looking at it” (and have been for 6 years) - so time for an additional broker.

PS When you say terrible - what happened for you to assess your experience so badly? Bad spreads? Slow fills? Other limitations?

My MT4 ECN broker charges $2 round-trip per 100,000 with 0-0.3 spreads on pairs like UJ. The closest I could find (for US clients) on MT5 was $7 round-trip and 0.5-1.0 spreads and execution/confirmation times about 10-15x longer. I also HATE how MT5 hides the commissions column in the trade window.