1. Home
2. Best Day Trading Platforms In 2025

Best cTrader Brokers In 2025

Written By

James Barra

Written By

James Barra

James is an investment writer with a background in financial services. As a former management consultant, he has worked on major operational transformation programmes at prominent European banks. James authors, edits and fact-checks content for a series of investing websites.

» James Barra Profile Page

Edited By

Christian Harris

Edited By

Christian Harris

Christian is an active trader with over 5 years of experience across stocks, futures, forex, and crypto. A former tech journalist, he shifted to finance to pursue his passion for investing, eventually becoming an eToro Popular Investor. With real-world trading knowledge across multiple asset classes, he brings valuable, hands-on insights to the table.

» Christian Harris Profile Page

Fact Checked By

William Berg

Fact Checked By

William Berg

William contributes to several investment websites, leveraging his experience as a consultant for IPOs in the Nordic market and background providing localization for forex trading software. William has worked as a writer and fact-checker for a long row of financial publications.

» William Berg Profile Page

Updated

Nov 12, 2024

Searching for the perfect cTrader broker? Explore DayTrading.com’s selection of the best brokers with cTrader, personally tested and rated by our experts which includes longtime users of the platform.

How Did We Choose The Top cTrader Brokers?

To curate our list of the best brokers that support cTrader, we:

What Is cTrader?

cTrader is an online platform for forex trading and CFD trading which was developed by the Spotware Systems Group.

Since its 2011 debut with FxPro, cTrader has soared in popularity with active traders, now integrating with dozens of brokers worldwide.

In particular, we saw interest spike after MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) were pulled from app stores in September 2022, with Blackbull Markets, FP Markets and Fusion Markets all adding the platform in the months that followed.

Its popularity is largely due to its impressive charting power and straight through processing (STP) and electronic communication network (ECN) capabilities which help ensure fast execution with minimal slippage – crucial for short-term trading strategies.

What Devices Can I Use cTrader on?

Today, cTrader is offered as a downloadable application for Windows, Mac OS or Linux operating systems, plus as a convenient web trader version.

Reflecting the rising number of mobile traders, there’s also a cTrader app, which can be downloaded to all major devices, including Apple and Android.

What Markets Can I Trade On cTrader?

You can trade various assets on cTrader, depending on the instruments available at your chosen brokerages.

From our investigations, this typically includes currency pairs, stocks, indices, commodities, high-risk cryptos and even spread betting at some partner brokers, such as Pepperstone.

Spotware has made notable improvements to its platform over the years. The result is a powerful, user-friendly platform that caters to active traders at every level.

Recent upgrades include the addition of overlay indicators in cTrader desktop and the Market Replay feature in 2023, plus optimization upgrades to cBots and enhanced backtesting performance in 2024.

James Barra

Author

Key Features

Interface

cTrader offers a clean, modern and visually appealing layout, especially compared to alternatives like MetaTrader.

There are different layouts you can choose and you can also detach charts and customize them as needed. Additionally, there’s the option to switch between dark and light themes, which is a nice touch.

I appreciate the user interface on cTrader. It’s clean and intuitive, and it makes navigating through charts, order types, and account settings straightforward. Everything feels well-organized, which makes my trading sessions smoother.

Christian Harris

Contributor

Market Depth Functionality

Contrary to only one kind of market depth offered by MetaTrader 5, cTrader displays three types of market depth and level 2 pricing:

• Standard Depth of Market – Displays the price and amount of liquidity available at that price. Note that standard DoM allows viewing but not trading.

• Price Depth of Market – Allows for precise trading with more details available, including selling and buying volumes. Price DoM is ideal for scalping trading.

• VWAP Depth of Market – Volume-Weighted Average Price allows you to view expected VWAP prices against adjustable volumes. Orders are therefore filled against the full order book. VWAP DoM is ideal for trading large volumes.

Charting

cTrader’s charting features are both intuitive and user-friendly, with excellent customization options to suit different preferences.

• Chart Modes & Colour Schemes – You can choose between single-chart, multi-chart, or free-chart mode, plus resizing options. You can also customize any colours, from the chart background to the colour of your candles: simply right click on the chart window and click ‘Colour Options’, or click on the ‘Colour’ button in the chart toolbar.

• Timeframes & Chart Views – cTrader offers 54 timeframes across 6 different chart types, including Candlesticks, Heiken Ashi, Renko and Bar charts. You can also adjust the zoom level from the main toolbar at the top.

• Technical Analysis – You can use over 70 pre-installed technical indicators, objects and drawing tools directly from the chart. Popular tools include Exponential Moving Average (EMA), Fibonacci Retracements, Bollinger Bands, Pivot Points, support and resistance and volume profile indicators.

Order Types

You can execute four order types: market, limit, stop and stop limit.

For each one, a window will appear where you can adjust your parameters, set price alerts, choose the market range and expiry dates. You will then need to utilize the risk management parameters and set the stop loss and take profit levels.

You can edit or cancel a open pending order by clicking on the ‘Modify’ button next to the instrument in your TradeWatch panel. Here you can edit the entry price, expiry date, stop loss and take profit, as well as trailing stop.

TradeWatch

Located at the bottom of your screen, the TradeWatch panel allows you to enter or leave trades, view and modify positions, and manage transactions. You can also set advanced take profit and stop loss levels for a position, by clicking on the ‘Advanced Protection’ settings.

Advanced take profit will automatically initiate a partial close on a position when it reaches the desired profit level. The advanced stop-loss allows for more precise control over pip movements at the stop loss point.

cTrader Automate

cTrader Automate (formerly known as cAlgo) allows traders to build their own automated trading robots (cBots) and custom indicators using the C# programming language on the cTrader open API.

The integrated solution supports manual backtesting in replay mode against historical data, an in-built code editor and a deal map.

The main advantage of cBots is that trades can be entered more precisely and quickly than a human can process manually. Indicators can be used for manual trading but can also be integrated into cBots to indicate trends and provide signals. Some popular cBots include the scalping or moving average bot, as well as the TradingView charting package bot.

To create and run a cBot or indicator, click on ‘New’ from inside the ‘cBots’ or ‘Indicator’ tab where a new template will be created with a default code. The user guide online contains instructions on how to optimise the codes, as well as other sample codes.

Copy Trading

cTrader Copy is fully integrated within the platform and allows for a variety of copy trading strategies.

You can access the feature by clicking on the ‘Copy’ tab in the main left-hand window. This allows you to check available strategies, compare history and fees, and start copying in just a few clicks.

You can easily search Strategy Providers and filter by age, fee amount, number of trade copiers, or the capital amount. Once you have chosen a provider, click on their cTrader ID to expand additional information such as average profit and total own funds.

Note that you can copy any strategy with a demo account if the strategy provider has selected ‘allow copying for Demo.’ The strategy provider can also ‘allow copying for Live’ (real money) copiers.

Once you have selected a provider, your allocated funds will be converted into a copy trading account and all the open positions of the strategy are opened for you with the current market rates. You can stop copying and restart again at any time by going into the copy trading account settings.

If you’re unsure whether copy trading is for you, there are a number of online reviews you can check out. It’s also worth comparing the copy trading function against other popular services such as eToro or ZuluTrade.

cTrader’s copy trading and automated features are really impressive. They’ve allowed me to test automated strategies and even follow other traders’ strategies, which has been a great learning tool and a simple way to diversify.

Christian Harris

Contributor

Mobile App

Available for smartphones and tablets, including Apple iOS and Google Android devices, the cTrader mobile app features fluid and responsive charts on an attractive and customizable design.

As with the desktop version, you can switch between dark or light mode to suit your preferences. There are also intuitive mobile-adapted features to make trading on-the-go easy and seamless, such as zoom and scroll functionality and QuickTrade mode.

The app supports 5 chart rendering types (bar, candlestick, dots, line and area charts) plus 4 chart types (standard, tick, Renko and range).

Impressively, cTrader Mobile also comes with all 65 technical indicators and 8 drawing tools, as well as a news feed, live market sentiment, price alerts and trade statistics.

You can also fully manage your account transactions and settings straight from the easy-to-navigate dashboard, plus configure your own push and email notifications.

Yet while I love the desktop version, the mobile app can sometimes be frustrating. It sometimes lags, especially when I’m checking trades or trying to make adjustments on the go. It’s reliable enough but could use some improvement on stability.

Christian Harris

Contributor

cTrader Mobile is available in 22 languages and you can download it in seconds from the App Store for iOS devices, or Google Play for Android phones.

Additional Features

Other impressive features that you will find include:

• QuickTrade – Allows traders to respond quickly to the markets by opening, closing and modifying orders within one or two clicks from every platform section. You can also hover over the red and green bars to view the live market sentiment indicator.
• Hotkeys & Keyboard Shortcuts – Traders can create handy shortcuts from within the settings panel for speed, comfort and convenience when trading.
• cTrader Automate – Formerly known as cAlgo, cTrader Automate is the platform’s algorithmic trading solution, where you can build robots and customise indicators such as the Hull Moving Average or Harmonic Pattern indicator.
• Copy Trading – cTrader Copy allows strategy providers to earn through multiple fee types, including performance, management, and volume-based fees. Investors can automatically replicate the trades of strategy providers by paying fees set by the strategy provider, ranging from 0 to 30%.
• Economic Calendar & News – Accessible from the Active Symbol Panel (ASP), the economic calendar displays significant market events, whilst the news tab offers the latest developments from a range of top sources.
• cTrader Store – Includes thousands of developers offering custom bots, tools, heatmaps and indicators. For example, you can download a session indicator, a risk-reward tool, indicator alerts, or even a lot, position or risk size calculator.
• Community – The platform offers an active community forum, plus a library of tools shared by fellow traders, a help centre and automated trading consultants.
• ChartShots – Individuals can share ideas and strategies with other traders, with options to share to social media platforms or embed into their own web pages.
• Chart Templates – Up to 50 chart templates can be saved for future use, which can accommodate a variety of strategies, timeframes or chart types.
• Autochartist – Integrated into the TradeWatch panel, Autochartist is a third-party market-scanning tool designed to highlight the best trading opportunities in real-time.
• Trading Central – Trading Central, a third-party real-time market scanner integrated into the TradeWatch panel, automatically detects potential trading entries and exits (‘Targets’) across multiple instruments.
• Export data – You can export historical data in Excel or HTML format, straight from the TradeWatch window.

cTrader Vs MetaTrader 4

If you’re wondering whether to choose cTrader or MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and how the platforms compare, we’ve weighed up the key criteria:

• Interface & Ease of Use – We love cTrader for its modern and uncluttered design, with light and dark themes and detachable windows. MetaTrader 4 is more outdated, though is arguably more familiar to experienced traders. Beginners may therefore prefer cTrader, though it is entirely down to personal preference.
• Technical Analysis – cTrader includes over 70 built-in indicators and drawing tools, whilst MetaTrader 4 offers over 50. For this reason, cTrader does have the edge over MT4 in terms of the manual trading capabilities.
• Charts – There are 9 timeframes available in MetaTrader 4, whereas cTrader offers over 50 across 9 chart types. cTrader also offers an additional chart type compared to MT4 (the dot chart) plus a chart-linking feature and detachable windows.
• Automated Trading – cTrader uses the C# programming language for cBots, whereas MetaTrader 4 uses the native MQL4 language for Expert Advisors (EAs). Overall, MetaTrader 4 is still the favourite for the wider range of automated tools and the more established online community.
• Market Depth – cTrader’s DoM is available in three types: standard depth, price depth and VWAP depth, which is an excellent and sought-after feature. The basic version of MT4, however, does not support depth of market.
• Order Types – With cTrader, you can place pending orders even when the market is closed, which is not allowed in MetaTrader 4. cTrader also offers advanced take profit and stop loss and also displays more detailed order tickets, compared to MT4.

cTrader Vs MetaTrader 5

If you’re choosing between cTrader or MetaTrader 5 (MT5), consider the following:

• Interface & Ease of Use – Whilst MetaTrader 5 did include some cosmetic updates, it does still follow the old-school design that many traders are used to.  Again, it is entirely down to personal preference, but some newbies are likely to find the cTrader interface more attractive and easy to navigate.
• Technical Analysis – Both cTrader and MetaTrader 5 have an almost equal number of indicators, though MT5 offers a few more objects, such as Gann and Channel tools. Overall, the two platforms perform well in this area.
• Charts – cTrader has chart-linking and detachable charts, which allows traders more flexibility to spread charts across multiple monitors. MT5, on the other hand, does not offer this feature. Furthermore, cTrader boasts over double the number of time frames than MT5, which has 21.
• Automated Trading – When it comes to algorithmic trading, both platforms are very different, with cTrader using the common C# coding language and MetaTrader 5 using MQL5. Nonetheless, MT5 was not received as well as MT4, which already offered the core functionalities that traders need. For this reason, cTrader is a favourable choice over MT5 in this area.
• Market Depth – MT5 only offers one type of market depth, whilst cTrader offers three. cTrader’s highly sophisticated DoM tool responds to many short-term traders’ desires to view the full depth of bids and offers at each price. For day traders who deal in large volumes, cTrader is the better choice for market depth functionality.
• Order Types – Apart from the ability to place pending orders when the market is closed in cTrader, there is not a great deal of difference between the two platforms when it comes to order types. Nonetheless, cTrader does make it easier to optimise order protection settings before entering the market, showing clear risk and reward figures, for example.

One limitation is that not as many brokers support cTrader as they do MetaTrader. I’ve had to search for brokers that offer it, sometimes restricting my choice of finding the best trading conditions.

Christian Harris

Contributor

Bottom Line

cTrader is no doubt a strong contender against industry giant, MetaTrader 4, with a vast range of technical indicators, Depth of Market options, and competitive web integrations.

Novices may be drawn to the attractive design and automated trading capabilities, though MT4 is likely to remain the overall favourite for experienced traders already familiar with MetaQuotes software.

To get started, use DayTrading.com’s pick of the top cTrader brokers.

FAQ

Which Is The Best cTrader Broker?

This will depend on your specific needs. But see our choice of the best brokers with cTrader, updated for 2025, to see our favorite picks following extensive tests and analysis.

Recommended Reading