Released in 2010, MT5 is indeed the latest version of the popular trading platform created by MetaQuotes, which undeniably grew into the gold standard of online trading over the years.
It would seem like 2010 was a long time ago though…The truth is however that if you download and install the latest MT5 platform right now, you will have most probably installed its 2018 version and not the one that was released eight years ago.
As MT4’s natural successor, MT5 was obviously intended to improve on various features of the former and that it did, in several ways. Despite that though, the trading community has been slow to adopt MT5 and that holds true to this day: the overwhelming majority of people still seem to prefer MT4 over its seemingly more advanced and younger cousin.
It is also true that MT5 may never have been intended to improve on/eventually replace MT4. It was designed to address some of the things that MT4 could not do. As such, it was apparently aimed at a different market altogether.
How exactly did MT5 try to up the standards so successfully set by MT4 before it?
First of all: it expanded the number of tradable assets, leaving the FX-only approach behind. Through MT5, asset-categories such as commodities and stocks have also become available – and that was indeed quite a major leap forward.
In regards to features that make MT5 its predecessor’s superior, everyone raves about the fact that creating/programming new technical indicators and EAs has been made much easier.
This proclivity for customization has always been one of the major draws of the MT suite, so it did indeed make perfect sense to improve it to make it even more attractive.
The new programming language introduced to this end is called MQL5, and many think that it resembles C++ – much more so than its predecessor, at any rate.
It has to be noted that the most attractive capabilities of the MQL 5 platform have been translated to MQL 4 back in 2014, so this is no longer an “advantage” of any kind for MT5.
The back-testing capabilities of MQL 5 are still vastly superior to anything else out there though.
The client trading terminal was upgraded as well, but it was not made backwards-compatible.
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When all is said and done though, is MT5 better than MT4 or is it not?
Keeping some of the above-presented facts in mind, it may indeed not make much sense to have an MT4 vs MT5 heads-up battle, as it would be a little bit like comparing apples and oranges…
For instance, MT5 was designed with the US “no hedging” rule in mind. What that means is that it automatically aggregates positions, making hedging impossible.
Traders looking to make use of this maneuver are therefore automatically relegated to MT4, which allows them to log and manage every one of their positions individually.
The bottom line is that you need to determine which of the two trading platforms is a better fit for your personal needs.
Here’s a list of brokers that currently support the MT5 trading platform.