MetaTrader 4 vs MetaTrader 5
MetaTrader is the family of trading terminals made by MetaQuotes: MetaTrader 4 (MT4), built for forex, and MetaTrader 5 (MT5), which adds exchange markets, a netting account mode and more timeframes. Your broker supplies the server, so the broker, not the software, decides what you can trade.
MetaTrader is a pair of trading terminals from MetaQuotes: MetaTrader 4, the older forex platform, and MetaTrader 5, its multi-asset successor. This page compares them line by line from the maker’s own pages, read on 26 September 2026, and then counts what YouTube actually teaches about them.
How it works
MetaTrader is the screen, not the broker. You download a terminal, log in to an account a broker has opened for you, and the terminal talks to that broker’s server. The footer of both the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 sites says the company makes software and “does not provide investment or brokerage services”. Prices, symbols, spreads and the hours you can trade all come from the broker.
The two versions are separate programs, not an old and a new edition of one. Each has its own programming language, its own code library and its own market for add-ons. MQL4 belongs to MetaTrader 4 and MQL5 to MetaTrader 5. Both languages are built on C++ ideas, and MetaQuotes describes each as object-oriented.
The broker also sets the execution rules. MetaTrader 4 lists three execution modes: instant, request and market. MetaTrader 5 adds a fourth, exchange execution, and its own trading page adds a note that the mode is “set by the brokerage company for each financial security”. Two traders on the same version can see different behavior when they click buy.
Both run the same kinds of program. An expert advisor trades by itself, a custom indicator draws on the chart, and a script, in the MQL4 reference’s words, is meant for “a single execution” of some actions. Each version also has a built-in strategy tester for running an expert advisor over past data.
What MetaTrader 5 adds
MetaQuotes publishes its own side-by-side table, and it has 19 rows. In 9 of them MetaTrader 5 has a feature that MetaTrader 4 lacks outright: partial order filling, depth of market, exchange time and sales data, the economic calendar, transfers between accounts, the community chat, Unicode text, netting and exchange trading. No row runs the other way.
The counted rows are where the gap is easiest to see.
| Feature (MetaQuotes table) | MetaTrader 5 | MetaTrader 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Chart timeframes | 21 | 9 |
| Pending order types | 6 | 4 |
| Built-in technical indicators | 38 | 30 |
| Graphical objects | 44 | 31 |
| Symbols | Unlimited | 1,024 |
| Order fill policies | Fill or Kill, Immediate or Cancel, Return | Fill or Kill |
| Strategy tester | Multi-threaded, multi-currency, real ticks | Single thread |
| Supported markets | Forex, futures, options, stocks, bonds | Forex |
The 12 extra timeframes are all in-between periods. The MQL4 reference lists the 9 standard ones: 1, 5, 15 and 30 minutes, 1 and 4 hours, daily, weekly and monthly. The MQL5 list adds 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 12 and 20 minutes, and 2, 3, 6, 8 and 12 hours. Nothing is added at the fast or slow end.
The two extra pending orders are stop-limit orders. A Buy Stop Limit waits for price to reach a stop level and then places a Buy Limit at a second price; the sell version mirrors it. The mechanics are the same as the stop-limit order on a stock platform. The MQL4 reference lists MetaTrader 4’s four pending order types: buy limit, sell limit, buy stop and sell stop.
One count disagrees between the maker’s own pages. The comparison table gives MetaTrader 4 31 graphical objects, while the MetaTrader 4 product page says 23 analytical objects. This page uses the table.
Netting and hedging
MetaTrader 5 supports two ways of keeping positions, and MetaTrader 4 supports one. Under netting you can hold only one position per symbol. A new buy or sell on that symbol makes the existing position larger, smaller, or flips it to the other side. Under hedging, each new deal opens its own position, with its own trailing stop, stop loss and take profit.
The account decides which one you get, and the broker sets it. That is how the MetaTrader 5 help file puts it. The MetaTrader 5 trading page adds that netting is the mode adopted on exchange markets, while hedging is widely used in forex trading. MetaTrader 4 has only the hedging mode.
Closing works differently in each. On a netting account you close by sending an equal trade the other way. On a hedging account you close a specific position from its own menu, and a position cannot be reversed; the help file says the current one is closed and a new one opened for the rest.
This is a bookkeeping choice, not a trading strategy. The word shares a name with hedging as risk control, but here it only means the platform keeps opposite trades apart instead of adding them together.
A worked example
Take a hypothetical EURUSD sequence of three orders, sent one after another: buy 1.00 lot, sell 0.40 lot, then sell 1.00 lot. The market prices do not matter here; only the position sizes change.
On a netting account the platform keeps one running total.
- After the first order: long 1.00 lot.
- After the second: 1.00 minus 0.40 leaves one long position of 0.60 lot.
- After the third: 0.60 minus 1.00 leaves one short position of 0.40 lot. The position has flipped.
On a hedging account the same three orders leave three positions open: long 1.00, short 0.40 and short 1.00. That is 2.40 lots of open positions in total, even though the net exposure is the same short 0.40 lot. Each carries its own exit levels, and each has to be closed on its own.
The difference shows up in the orders you send next. A trader who expects the second order to “close part of the trade” gets exactly that on netting, and a new opposite trade on hedging. The lot size page covers what 1.00 and 0.40 lot mean in units of currency.
Moving code from MQL4 to MQL5
MetaQuotes calls MQL5 “maximally compatible” with MQL4, then lists the differences. The reference page for programmers moving across starts with the entry points. MQL4 programs run through three functions: start(), init() and deinit(). MQL5 has none of them. An expert advisor’s start() becomes OnTick(), an indicator’s becomes OnCalculate(), and only a script keeps a direct match in OnStart().
The price data is reached differently too. MQL5 has no ready-made Ask, Bid or Bars variables, and no built-in Open[], High[], Low[] or Close[] arrays; a program asks for history through functions instead. Indicator buffers, capped at 8 in MQL4, have no fixed limit, and drawing styles go from 6 to 18.
The practical result: an MT4 expert advisor is a rewrite, not a copy. If you run one you did not write, ask the seller whether a separate MQL5 build exists before you change platforms.
The original data
117 videos in this site’s 24,971-video study name MetaTrader in the title, from 87 channels. Their median is 5,448 views, about half the study-wide median of 10,684. Of those, 78 name MT5 and 38 name MT4, and 5 titles sit in both counts because they name both. Another 6 just say MetaTrader. The counts use whole-word title matches, with each video counted once.
The newer platform has more videos, but the older one earns more views per video. The 33 titles naming only MT4 have a median of 15,518 views. The 73 naming only MT5 sit at 5,133. The five titles naming both are indicator, tool or setup videos with a median of 414. None of the 117 pits MT4 against MT5.
What MetaTrader videos teach is mostly how to use it. 80 of the 117 titles are how-to, tutorial, guide, beginner or setup videos, with a median of 15,319 views. The 18 that mention the mobile app, a phone, Android or iPhone sit at 16,641. The 28 with “indicator” in the title have a median of just 352.
The comparison with other platforms needs one caution. The study was built from 1,409 YouTube searches. Only one named MetaTrader and only one named NinjaTrader, while 29 named TradingView. So the 1,044 TradingView titles reflect how the study searched as much as how much gets made. Medians are the fairer read: 5,104 views for TradingView, 5,957 for NinjaTrader and 5,448 for MetaTrader.
The study also cannot show a trend. Its upload-date field is empty on every row, so there is no way to say from this file whether MT4 videos are fading or MT5 videos are rising. The split above is a snapshot.
The overlap with TradingView runs both ways. Of the 117 MetaTrader titles, 8 also name TradingView. The biggest, at 963,439 views, is about placing trades on TradingView and says goodbye to Metatrader 4 in its title. Two others, at 91,924 and 66,562 views, show TradingView signals driving trades on MT5.
Both tables are published: the video counts as platform title demand and the full 19-row MetaQuotes table as MT5 vs MT4 official features.
When it fails
The platform is right and the account is wrong. MetaTrader 5 on a netting account will fold a new order into the position you already hold. A trader who meant to open a second, separate trade finds one bigger position with one set of exits, or a flipped position.
Check the account type in the terminal before the first live order.
A trailing stop that stops trailing. The MetaTrader 5 help file says a trailing stop runs in the terminal, not on the server like a stop loss. Close the terminal and the level stops moving; only the stop loss it last set will still trigger. A fixed stop loss sent with the order stays with the broker either way.
An old program on a new platform. An MQL4 expert advisor has to be adapted before MetaTrader 5 can run it. A quick port can compile and still read history backward: by default an MQL5 indicator buffer puts the oldest bar at index 0, the reverse of the MQL4 habit.
Test before trusting a port. Test the MQL5 version in the strategy tester before trusting it with money, and read backtesting first if the test report is new to you.
A timeframe that only one version has. A setup built on a 2-hour or 12-minute chart on MetaTrader 5 has no matching live chart on MetaTrader 4, whose reference keeps those periods for offline charts only. The same idea shown on other chart software may use a period neither one offers.
Assuming the platform decides what you can trade. MetaTrader 5 can show stocks and futures, but only if the broker offers them on that account. The software’s list of markets is a ceiling, not a promise.
Related
The programs MetaTrader runs are covered on the expert advisor page, and the tool that tests them on the strategy tester page. Most MetaTrader accounts trade currencies, so forex explains the market underneath, and pip the unit its prices move in.
For charting with a different tool, TradingView covers the platform that shares many of these videos, and algo trading covers automation beyond any one terminal. Choosing who supplies the server is on the broker choice page.
Before I add a second order on a symbol in MetaTrader, I check whether the account nets or hedges. The same click either shrinks the position you already hold or opens a new one beside it, and the platform does not ask which you meant.
— Michael Whitman
This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.