Is MT5 about to replace MT4 platform?
During the past few years, there were lots of rumors about the MetaTrader 5 platform replacing the MetaTrader 4, a platform that we all love so much. This time it seems to be serious after MetaQuotes company announced that MT5 is coming and MetaQuotes will stop supporting the MT4 platform. However, I think MT4 is here to stay for quite a while because many brokers and traders do not like the idea of switching to MT5 and losing all their expensive MT4 trading tools.
Papaevagorou, Head of Sales at MetaQuotes, said “We do not expect to see any developments to come out of MT4 ever again. Given this, MT4 is slowly dying out”.
How will this affect us, EA and indicator users, programmers and signal providers?
Well, first I would like to note that this change is for good. All updates are for good regardless we like them or not.
Yes, I know it can be annoying to update software once and every time, but just think about it. After all, we end up using the best and most popular trading platform out there and this is because MQ did not abandon it and kept updating every month.
So before you start yelling at MQ that they have ruined your day remember that we should be thankful they are improving.
MQ said they will stop supporting the MT4 platform and will not give any updates anymore. But they did not say MT4 will be shut down. This means MT4 will be available for the next few years or so until it will become so old that no one will find it a good choice. By that time we all will be using MT5, or perhaps even MT6, who knows, right? 🙂
However, speaking with other MT4 Apps developers I don’t believe MetaQuotes will stop providing MT4 support because there are hundreds of brokers that have MT4 and paid a huge amount of money for those licenses. I believe brokers even pay monthly fees for the support, so it looks quite silly for MQ to stop these services.
I think if MQ will force brokers to migrate to MT5 they would do a big disservice to everyone including themselves. People do not like MT5 and forcing the switch might create a negative impact on MQ software popularity. Also, imagine how every broker would be forced to invest lots of money and resources into building new software infrastructure with their own custom made system.
So nobody is going to be happy to move to MT5 and see their Expert Advisors and indicators not working there, because they were built to work on MT4 only.
MT4 Apps compatibility with MT5
It is not clear yet if MT4 Apps will become compatible with MT5 or not, but personally, I think there’s a chance that MT4 Apps will not work in MT5 ever and they will need to be re-programmed.
MQL5, a programming language for MT5 is quite different, which means most programmers will treat it as a totally separate software or project. This means if you purchased EA or indicator for MT4 before, you might need to purchase it again for MT5 version if the seller will provide it for MT4 of course.
I would guess not many providers will convert their apps to MT5, which means many EAs and indicators will become obsolete a year or two from now.
Personally, I will be creating an MT5 version of my MT4 Apps, well, at least the most popular ones like MT4 Trade Copier, Signal Magician, Trader On Chart, and MyMT4Book Analyzer.
MT4 vs MT5
MT5 is improved quite significantly in many areas, especially during the last few months, but obviously, there’s quite a big difference between MT4 and MT5.
Here’s a great comparison of MetaTrader 5 and MetaTrader 4.
MT4 and MT5 have different execution modes, different server architecture, and Balance transaction types. MT5 has more Technical Indicators, more time frames, and unlimited Account & Security Groups.
MT5 is a 64-bit application, which makes it more compatible with modern Windows OS systems and allows it to use computer resources more efficiently. For example, MT5 Strategy Tester is fully Multi-threaded, which makes it much faster, and you can also backtest strategies on multiple currencies and using Real ticks.
MT5 also allows trading not only Forex and CFDs but also Futures, Options, Stock, and Bonds.
Obviously, there are much more improvements and differences between MetaTrader 5 and MetaTrader 4 and you can read more about them here.
Conclusion
I think that there’s quite a lot of room for MT5 to improve and MetaQuotes will continue doing that. Until then we will wait and see how fast the demand for MT5 is growing. But I am already preparing for a big demand of programming work like converting MQL4 scripts to MQL5 and building new apps for MT5 that does not exist yet. After all, there are only about 2000 Apps and indicators for MT5 on MQL5.com Market comparing to MT4, which has 6500+.
So what do you think? Do do you plan to switch to MT5? If not, let me know why you do not want to switch to MT5 by posting a comment.
f*** you and your mp5….
I would like to note that it is MT5 (not mp5) and it wasn’t created by me. It’s not mine 🙂
MT5 was created but MetaQuotes.
Yes, it appears that it is time to switch, or at least that time is near. Right now though, there is little chance as very few brokers offer MT5. Perhaps the switch will be to a non-MetaQuotes platform such as NT or something else.
I agree that not many brokers offer MT5 at the moment. This makes it difficult to switch for traders, because they do not feel like going with another broker.
Integration of regular stock market and forex due to different balance calculation and different execution seams to be the highest obstacle to work within one master account.
I would agree that it is best to have multiple MT5 accounts for trading different markets.
Rimantas,
Thank you for you the update on MT5 transition. In your opinion, do you think I will be able to use my MT4 Ea’s, indicators for 2017 at a minimum?
Do you think most brokers will allow a side-by-side of mt4 and mt5 for awhile before a complete switch is made?
And last, when do you think will MT4 will be “no more” and everything MT5?
Hi Shawn, I believe MT4 will still be around for 2017 and possibly 2018 (unless MetaQuotes will kill it). Of course that’s just my guess, but I hardly see MT4 go away fast when so many traders love it.
There should be more brokers offering MT5 and MT4 at the same time, but then in 1-2 years MT4 might disappear from brokers.
Not sure when the full switch will happen,but if MQ will not kill MT4 I suspect it will be there for long.
I hope this push will help broker adapt other trading platforms like Ctrader and Protrader
It could be the case, however I hope they won’t, because my business is built on MetaTrader lol 🙂
This is very bad news, will the new MT5 support hedging? The mayor problem of the MT5 is not the code or the way that most of the eas or indicators work. The issue is with the orders managing. What do you think?
MT5 already supports hedging since April 2016 and order management is the same now with “hedge enabled” accounts. Old MT5 had quite inconvenient order management where if you have two trades open of 0.5 lot size they actually become one trade of 1 lot size in MT5. But now this is updated and works the same way as on MT4.
Hi Rimantas ,
Well, that is a huge strike against mt5 for me. I might want to close the the two 0.5 trades at different times! I don’t mind them changing the architecture and back of house technology, but I’m suspicious when they start mandating the way I trade.
Erron
Erron, actually MT4 already does manage trades the same way as MT4, but for that you need to open “hedging” account.
Rimantas, thanks for that. My recollection is that when MT5 first came out, you could not hedge with it. Good to know that you can now…
Erron
Thank you for the excellent blog and site. As a beginning programmer i will start to code in MQL 5 instead of MQL4. I would love to see a product like Tick data suite in MQL5, because of the multi threading performance benefit. For now with the right literature, an MQL 5 E.A. is in range for newbies in programming. Hopefully the Tick data suite will be MQL 5 compliant in the next couple of yearts.
Yes, we all hope TDS will become available on MT5 too.
As about learning MQL5, I would suggest you learn both, MQL4 and MQL5. It’s because there will be lots of EAs in MQL4 that people will need to convert to MQL5. There is huge potential to earn money converting EAs.
I don’t care about the hedging limitations, and like you said, they allow that now. I originally tried MT5 back in 2011, and I didn’t like it. I’m sure it’s improved by now. When my broker switches to MT5 and kills MT4, I guess I’ll have no choice. Maybe, this will finally be enough for me to finally move to a premium service, e.g., eSignal, TradeStation, NinjaTrader, etc.
Rimantas,
I bought your hedge EA, are you creating an MT5 version of it?
I do have a plan to write it for MT5, but still I do not want to give any false promises and exact date when it’s gonna happen.
It seems to me that it is time to abandon Metaquotes all together.
There lack of consideration for traders is unbelievable.
There are many superior alternatives available that are developing and growing in a way that is helpful to their base of traders.
I suspect Metaquotes arrogance will soon lose them a large share of the business and trader support they take for granted.
Totally disgusted
I am reprogramming my indicators and EAs in Ninja trader.
Rimantas Petrauskas Lot of thanks for sharing so nice blog and news i just come across and also got disappointed Cuz all of of the EA and a majority of the traders are still using mt4 , i have a question here,
is there any possibility to convert ex4 to ex5 and EA works same it was doing on mt4? hope you will answer me, if theres any possibility then i will be not worried at all, but if there is no possibility then its very bad to turn over to mt5.and if your answer is ” only the creator of EA can change that specific EA from mt4 to mt5 ” then its also not good, Cuz many of the creator of successful already gone out of the industry or not working more on the updates. (i am talking about the very old EAs and indicators).
how about you Rimantas Petrauskas? can you change EA of mt4 to mt5? if so then i will contact you and will like to take that service from you…waiting for your reply have a great day
The only way to convert MT4 EA into MT5 EA is if you have .mq4 file of your EA.
There’s no other way.
Here’s the article that explains how to convert old MT4 EA into MT5 format when you have its source code (.mq4).
Bundles of thanks for the kind reply , luckily i got a mq4 file i’ll read that article…have a nice day
Structural differences between MQL4 and MQL5 prevent easy conversion of existing software.
Examples:
a) In MQL4, you have the predefined variables such as Ask and Bid for the price, useful when coding.
These variables were abolished in MQL5, making coding more laborious. A step backwards.
b) In MQL4, there are arrays, containing the properties of the bars (open price high price, low price, etc), that are often used in programming with MQL4.
For example, in a loop with variable i, High[i] returns the high price of the bar that is i bars in the past.
Now in MQL5, the arrays were abolished. Instead you use function calls, a completely different approach.
These two examples illustrate that basic structural differences make it very difficult to transfer
existing software from MQL4 to MQL5.
In my view, MQL5 is much more sophisticated and needs the skills of an educated programmer,
whereas MQL4 was rather easy to learn for those familiar with C++.
My personal view is: MQ should better have extended MQL4 by new features to create a MQL5
that is backward compatible to MQL4, instead of reinvent the wheel, what they did with MQL5.
So far, I did not come across a trading idea that I could not realize with the tools of MQL4.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi,
is Trader on Chart coming for MT5 any time soon?
We are working on it, but there’s no date set for release.
Hi,
is Trader on Chart coming for MT5 any time soon?
We are working on it, but there’s no set date for release.
Hello sir… I have some very useful indicators that I need to convert them from mt4 to Mt5. Thank you very much.
I recommend hiring a coder: https://4xdev.com/?referrer=infoeacoder
i want to request a lite version of equity sentry algorithm for mt5 platform
Kindly contact the support team through this website Contact form and ask to forward your request to Rimantas. He’ll let you know what’s possible.