What is MetaTrader, and why does everyone use it?

What it actually is

MetaTrader is a program you install on your computer or your phone. It does three things: it shows prices, it sends your orders, and it shows your account.

And it does no more than that. It does not hold your money, it does not execute the trade itself, and it does not decide the price you get.

Your money is with the broker, not in MetaTrader. The program is a window onto the account; the account is at a company. That distinction is the answer to most of what gets asked here.

Why it is everywhere

MetaTrader comes from MetaQuotes, and brokers license it and offer it to their clients. So a trader learns it once and uses it at almost any broker.

That is where its dominance comes from: not that it is technically the best, but that it is the common one. A broker who does not offer it is asking its clients to learn something new, and most of them will not.

Four or five: which one?

The 5 is not an upgrade of the 4. It is a different program in a different programming language, which is why the 4's add-ons do not run on it - and that alone is why the 4 is still the forex standard eighteen years on.

For a beginner: the difference between them changes nothing about your result. Start with whatever your broker offers. We set the comparison out on the MetaTrader 4 or 5? page.

What to know before you trust what you see in it

The prices you see are your broker's prices, not a world market price. That is why a candle differs slightly between one broker and another, and it is normal.

And the demo account inside the program fills your orders in a perfect environment with no real slippage - so it teaches you the program, not the market.

Any "expert advisor" or indicator you download from the internet runs with full permissions on your account. Do not install what you cannot trace the source of.

In short

• MetaTrader is a program; the broker is a company. Your money is with the second.
• It is everywhere because it is the common one, not because it is superior.
• Its prices are your broker's, and its demo is a perfect environment rather than a real one.

This site itself shows a real account whose data arrives straight from MetaTrader - so what you see on the live account page is what the program itself sees, not a number typed in by hand.