cTrader Review

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Introduction to this cTrader Review

This cTrader review is aimed at existing traders who are interested in switching from another platform to cTrader. cTrader comes in very strong against the MetaTrader 4 and 5 platforms. What you should bear in mind is that the jargon is different. Don’t just assume that a feature doesn’t exist because it’s not called the same as in MetaTrader or MT5. Don’t just look on the surface. Dig a bit deeper and you could find more than what you expected. A good example of this is cTrader doesn’t have PAMM, but it does have cTrader Copy, which is very similar. Do some research, you may prefer it. Have an open mind.

This cTrader review will also help aspiring forex traders. If you are completely new to forex trading and trying to decide which trading platform to start with, this review of cTrader will help you. Even existing users of cTrader may learn something new.

The Most Complete cTrader Review

In this review of cTrader we will explore not just the platform itself, but the ecosystem as a whole. A good trading platform doesn’t mean a lot if there is no community around it and no support to help you get started and discuss your questions. The company behind the platform must be reliable, have a good reputation and actively maintaining and updating the software. There needs to be a variety of good quality brokers offering the platform, and you need to be able to trade the products you are interested in. In this cTrader review, we go further than any other website or blog. We look at the whole picture.

cTrader Overview

Since 2011 the cTrader platform has undergone many changes. In this cTrader review, we try to focus on the present. Even though the past is important this review will be kept as relevant as possible. Especially as many reviews of cTrader are quite outdated.

cTrader is an STP ECN Platform

cTrader gets a lot of recognition for being the first and only real contender against MetaTrader 4. At the time of cTrader’s release, what really made the platform stand out was it’s STP (straight through processing) capabilities. This is something that MetaTrader was never able to manage itself and traders wanted a true STP or ECN trading platform. This desire came from a huge lack of trust of brokers at that time, particularly while regulation and awareness of the forex market were weak.

cTrader is a Modern Platform

cTrader looks cool and slick. This is massively important for something you stare at for hours at a time. Other platforms especially MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 massive fall short on looking good. In fact, everyone agrees they look abysmal. MetaTrader looks far more complicated than it needs to and this can scare off new traders. A younger generation of traders would not give MetaTrader the time of day. cTrader as a platform is not just modern in appearance but it also follows many best practices. The main one would be the cTrader ID single-account approach. This lets you have a single account that gives you access to your individual accounts at different brokers and save your settings in the cloud.

Caters to All Traders

In order to keep this cTrader review light, we won’t be able to dive into the depths of what cTrader has to offer. Each feature deserves its own article. What we can say is the platform does have all of the features any trader would need. The charts are packed with many timeframes, indicators, objects and chart types including tick charts and Renko charts. Any technical analyst will be satisfied. cTrader also offers a variety of order types, including more uncommon ones like Market Range and Stop Limit Orders. The platform has QuickTrade mode which is ideal for scalpers. Another great tool for scalpers is the Price DoM trading ladder.

cTrader Copy Trading

This cTrader review will not be complete without mentioning cTrader Copy. This feature is cTrader’s answer to PAMM. We’ve gone into cTrader Copy in a lot of detail on the site already so we can keep this section brief. cTrader Copy is a great place to seek and review different forex traders and their trading strategies. Once you find a strategy you are interested in following, you can very easily be allocated funds from your main trading account to a sub account. Then the sub-account will copy the strategy. This is a much safer approach than giving your money to a money manager. The problem with giving your money to a money manager to trade it using PAMM system is you have zero control over your money. With cTrader Copy you can exit at any time. That’s just one of many major advantages.

cTrader Copy offers advantages to money managers as well. The main one would be access to an active audience who are shopping around for profitable strategies.

If you want to read more about cTrader Copy as an investor/copy trader or a strategy provider, check the articles.

cTrader Automated Trading

MetaTrader 4 has ruled the forex robot trading space. We merit this to their proprietary development language which traders use to code their trading robots. This makes it hard for traders to move away, thus trapping them on MetaTrader . cTrader, on the other hand, has an API. On cTrader, you can build your robot in c# and your robot will interface with cTrader via the Automate API. The scope of the API is growing with every release. You will struggle to find something that MetaTrader supports that cTrader doesn’t. The main advantage of this is that you don’t necessarily need a trading expert to build bots for you, this means that you can tap into a larger talent pool of developers. A similar but far better advantage is that if you choose to learn c# to build your cTrader bots, you will gain a transferable skill. Knowing about mainstream programming languages such as c# is invaluable.

The cTrader Community

Many people have it in their mind that cTrader is an underdog when compared to MetaTrader 4. 5 years ago, this may have been true. Today, cTrader is growing in popularity by the hour. The cTrader community is very active. In the forum, traders are discussing all manner of topics. The community supports discussions from cBot developers, strategy providers, long-term cTrader users and newbies. Panagiotis, the cTrader community manager offers a helping hand whenever it’s needed. The forum is the perfect place to initiate dialogue with the company. The community is more than just a forum. There is a jobs board, to offer work to cTrader development specialists. There is a list of verified consultants, which includes Paul Hayes from Click Algo. You can download user-submitted trading robots or custom indicators. And, there is a list of VPS providers verified by Spotware for having a good connection to cTrader. We say cTrader has a strong community behind it.

cTrader Help Resources

When getting started with any new software, you need to know how it works. cTrader has recently re-launched their help site. The new site is very detailed, user-friendly and helpful. It covers all versions of the platform. There is even a separate section for trading on Desktop and Web even though there are only very minor differences between the two platforms. Also, cTrader is a very popular forex trading YouTube channels with almost 20,000 subscribers. Even though the videos are a bit old, the trading fundamentals that they teach are timeless. cTrader could do with getting some fresh videos on their channel. Especially to show the major interface changes that have occurred over the years.

Review of Spotware

Spotware has been around since they first launched the cTrader platform in 2011 with FxPro as the first broker to offer the platform. Since then, they signed up other big names like Pepperstone and IC Markets. The company hasn’t been without trouble, but nothing out of the ordinary for a tech startup. Until recently, the company was managed by its founder Andrey Pavlov. In mid-2018 the company announced a new CEO, Alexander Shulman. Spotware has trademarked the term Traders First and apparently follows the motto as its internal approach to decision making. There is no denying that Spotware has a solid track record of delivering new features. Unlike MetaTrader , the cTrader platform is always being improved. Not only are new features being added, but entire new applications are being built, such as the cTrader Automate section which is now in the Web and Desktop version of cTrader.

Review of cTrader Brokers

There was a time when the number of brokers offering cTrader was scarce. This is no longer the case. Many would argue that many more brokers offer MetaTrader 4, but many of those brokers are far from credible. There are enough brokers offering cTrader for there to be an element of choice and the majority of those brokers are sound. Check our list of cTrader brokers before you get started.

cTrader Review Conclusion

To conclude this review of cTrader, I think we can all agree that cTrader has matured a lot in recent years. While cTrader has the same core values and benefits it had several years ago it offers much more today. If you tried cTrader before but felt it was missing some features, give it another try. Or if you have been trading on MetaTrader 4 for years, have an open mind and investigate some more. If you are totally new to forex trading, don’t bother with any other platform and try cTrader now.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]