What a platform does
A trading platform shows prices and charts, takes orders and sends them to the broker's server, tracks open positions, margin and profit and loss, and keeps the account history. It runs on a desktop, in a browser, on a phone, or all three. The broker's server behind it does the actual pricing and execution, which is why the same platform can behave differently at two brokers, and why the platform's execution report is only as good as the broker's feed.
MetaTrader 4 and 5
MetaTrader, made by MetaQuotes, is the platform most retail forex trades are placed on. Brokers license it as a white-labelled server and app under their own brand. Its strength is the ecosystem: a scripting language for indicators and automated strategies, called expert advisors, and a marketplace of thousands of them, plus a signals service for copying other traders. MetaTrader 4, from 2005, remains widespread; MetaTrader 5, from 2010, adds more order types, more timeframes, a built-in economic calendar and support for shares and futures, and is the only one MetaQuotes now licenses to new brokers. The interface is dated and it reports nothing about execution quality.
cTrader
cTrader, from Spotware, is the main licensed alternative. It shows the depth of market, the sizes available at each price, and reports fill statistics, and it has its own copy trading service and an automation language in C#. Brokers that market themselves on transparent execution tend to offer it, and it grew quickly among prop trading firms after 2024. Its ecosystem of add-ons is smaller than MetaTrader's.
TradingView and proprietary platforms
TradingView began as a charting website and has become a front end that many brokers connect to, so a trader charts and places orders in TradingView and the broker executes them. Its charts are the best in the retail market and a large share of traders use them anyway; the broker integration removes the need to learn another platform. The largest brokers, such as IG, Saxo, Plus500, eToro and Interactive Brokers, build their own platforms, which integrate their research, education and wider product range and keep the client's activity in house, and which do not run third-party expert advisors.
What to look for
The platform choice is mostly a choice of what the trader wants to do. Automation and indicators point to MetaTrader; execution reporting and copying to cTrader; charting to TradingView; a broad product range to a proprietary platform. Beyond that, check that the mobile app can do everything the desktop can, that the platform shows the swap and margin for each instrument in its specification, that orders can be placed with a stop and target attached, and that the account history can be exported, because that history is how a trader measures the broker. The platform market paper in the research section explains how the industry came to depend on one vendor and what happened when it changed its terms.
Educational content is general information and does not consider your objectives, financial situation or needs. Forex and CFD trading involves significant risk.