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cTrader – Quick, Powerful, Advanced Trading

cTrader is an advanced trading platform with a clean, modern design. cTrader is feature-packed with helpful guides, videos, indicators and tools all “out of the box“, to help you get the very most from the financial markets and your trading.

For an instant way to get started using cTrader, you can use their web trader platform within your browser once signing up for a cTrader.

If you want a more immersive experience it is recommended you install cTrader. Let’s look at what makes cTrader a trading platform to consider, review it in full and look at features that can help, you, as a trader.

cTrader Platform Key Features

Platform Feature cTrader Performance
🚀 Responsiveness Fast and responsive for all trading features
📱 Devices Desktop, Mobile, Tablet (PC, Apple, Android)
📈 Charting Advanced charting functionality
🏪 Ease of Use Beginner to Advanced – Clean user interface
📰 News Updates In-app news and event updates
🤖 Automation cTrader Automate (formerly cAlgo)
🗺 Coverage cTrader is available in 14 different languages
🖥 API cTrader Open API – Build bots & apps
💰 Cost Free to download

cTrader Summary

We spent over 32 hours analysing the cTrader platform, reading reviews from expert users and performing detailed hands-on research, trading and putting cTrader through its paces with a range of brokers. In summary, this is what traders think:

8 Reasons To Use cTrader

  • Most traders thought cTrader is intuitive and easy to use, from initial installation
  • A lot of traders thought cTrader is perfect for those getting into trading, the software seems far more “modern” than the competition
  • The detailed trade analysis feature helps you to understand your strengths and weaknesses
  • There’s a large range of available indicators on the platform
  • Detailed order tickets are very useful, including base currency dollar value or pip
  • Traders really like the ability to add multiple take-profit orders on cTrader
  • Traders enjoyed the comprehensive educational videos available within the platform to help make the most of cTrader
  • The design and feel of cTrader replicates an institutional trading environment, including depth of market and feels very professional

1 Reason Not To Use cTrader

  • The retail “industry standard” is MetaTrader, due to the volume of traders using MT4 (and MT5) some traders felt they were missing out using cTrader as an alternative.

cTrader Bottom Line

cTrader is a modern, intuitive, easy-to-use platform with advanced trading capabilities. Traders felt the responsiveness of cTrader allowed for fast entry and execution.

The ability to code in C# and use the open API gives advanced traders the potential to make serious platform customisations. cTrader Automate (formerly cAlgo) is easy to get started with enabling traders to create and edit robots, and indicators.

cTrader is an excellent trading platform making it a solid tool for trading the financial markets.

What Is cTrader? (What Makes It Different)

Put simply, cTrader is a trading software used to trade online.

This trading platform enables direct access to the interbank market and more, such as algorithmic-based trading systems, different pre-sets and detachable charts.

Enhanced charting abilities and order management systems allow for more efficient management of your positions in fast-moving markets.

cTrader provides clients with the edge in the competitive foreign exchange market with advanced charting capabilities and incredibly fast response times.

cTrader on two desktop monitors

cTrader was developed by Spotware to be a world-class trading platform. A relative newcomer to the “trading platform” space, having been released in 2010, the cTrader platform is believed to be one of the most innovative, sophisticated and revolutionary trading platforms available today.

The focus of cTrader is to be an “all-in-one trading platform” that provides access to the Forex market for traders around the world and offer an alternative to the MetaQuotes MetaTrader software.

What makes cTrader stand out is it’s beginner-friendly interface and ease-of-use, but don’t let that put you off if you’re an advanced trader. cTrader is still used by many professional traders. Which trading platform you decide to use, comes down to personal preference.

Why Choose cTrader?

A trader cannot access the Forex market without the necessary bridge.

cTrader serves as one of these essential bridges that connect traders to the FX market.

cTrader is one of the most responsive trading platforms with an easy to use interface, allowing traders of any level to take advantage of the many benefits and features the platform has to offer.

cTrader has been steadily growing in popularity and offers as many benefits as the more popular “MetaTrader 4” and “MetaTrader 5” trading platforms.

cTrader provides ideal trading conditions for startup traders. So if you’re looking to take your trading career to the next stage, then cTrader is a great platform to start trading with.

Since the 2020 Global Pandemic we’ve seen an influx of new traders wanting to take control of their future, their finances and create an extra revenue source, there has been a spike in cTrader popularity.

cTrader Google Trends

cTrader Google Trends search results

cTrader has numerous inbuilt-indicators. It also has an attractive and easy-to-work interface and layout that fits anyone of any skill set, here are the primary features of cTrader:

  • An all-in-one platform for trading and execution
  • About 50 sharing tools and templates
  • More than 70 custom-built indicators for technical analysis
  • Multiple timeframes and zoom levels
  • A trusted algorithm for automated trading
  • Copy-trading features for easier control of funds on different accounts
  • Real-time communication and interactions through cTrader forums
  • Expert Trading Advisors
  • Level II pricing
  • Detachable charts
  • Automated trading through a dedicated platform
  • Next-generation user interface and charting techniques
  • Extensive back-testing facilities

How to Download cTrader

You can download the official cTrader platform (and trade via a free demo account) from www.spotware.com, or you can visit any cTrader broker to download cTrader.

Before you download cTrader from a broker, be sure you view our best cTrader brokers list before signing up.

This will ensure you get the most out of your trading experience with a trusted cTrader broker.

Download now

cTrader System Requirements

Recommended System Requirements for a cTrader Installation:
Operating System: Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, Windows 10
Processor: Dual-Core CPU
RAM: 4GB
Internet Connection: 1Mbps or higher, stable connection and network
Monitor: 13-15 inch screen

Getting Started with cTrader (Full Guide)

If you want to install the cTrader platform and get the full cTrader experience, follow our 5 step “Getting Started on cTrader” guide below.

Step 1: Installing cTrader

Installing your cTrader is very easy. Follow these steps, and you should be good to go in no time.

If you are yet to download your cTrader demo, click on the link we provided in the previous section or…
Visit www.spotware.com to download cTrader.
You can also visit any of the cTrader broker websites to get a free cTrader demo, but we’d highly recommend reading our best cTrader broker list first.

On Spotware, click on “Get Demo” and select the cTrader download of your choice. Options include:

  • cTrader download for Desktop
  • cTrader download for Android
  • cTrader download for iOS

After you have downloaded your cTrader demo, go to your download location and find cTrader-spotware-setup.exe.

  • Double click the file, or right-click and “run as administrator”.
  • Allow the program some time to download and install all the necessary files. The file size is about 37MB, so it should only take a few seconds (depending on your connection).
  • A restart might be prompted on your system to complete the installation process. This is not always the case, but should this happen, don’t panic.
  • If a reboot is prompted on your system, cTrader will start automatically on your Desktop after the restart.

Issues installing cTrader?

Do you have any issues installing cTrader? On a rare occasion, it’s possible cTrader doesn’t install properly. When this happens, try the following troubleshooting tips:
Disable any antivirus software. Disconnect the internet and reconnect. Reboot your system
If, this doesn’t solve the problem or the software installs but doesn’t work correctly, make sure you’re running the software as an administrator.

If you’re still not getting cTrader to work, you should contact spotware or perform a clean installation by removing other potential conflicting software on your system.

Step 2: Setting up Your cTrader Demo Account

Upon installing and launching cTrader, the interface will pop up on the screen.

You can proceed to log in from here if you have an existing account.

Otherwise, you will need to click on the signup option.

For your sign up, you will be required to input your email address and your password.

An email from Spotware will be sent to you after your registration. This email will inform you that your cTrader ID account has been successfully created.

The email will contain your cTrader ID, and email address, which you will confirm. You can also use any of the links in the email to perform any of the following actions.

Reset your password
Change your client ID
Change your email
Change your password
What Is the Purpose of the cTrader ID?
A cTrader ID or “cTID” is a set of credentials used for signing in across all cTrader platforms across different brokers by using a single account.

The cTrader ID also allows you to access the premium benefits offered by cTrader, these include:

Sharing ideas and expressing your opinions within a refined community of other cTrader users
Full access to cTrader forums. You can click the link provided in the mail to visit this community
Email alerts on your trading positions. You can also manage these notifications on any of your trading accounts
Cloud Workspaces that will allow you to easily restore your custom workspace when you install a new trading platform from a new broker
Copy-trading options that will enable you to access life-changing strategies in just two clicks
Make Sure to Confirm Your cTrader ID.

Once you’re registered, you need to “Acknowledge and Continue” to accept the cTrader terms and conditions. Take the time to read and review the policy.

If you agree, click on “Acknowledge and Continue”.

cTrader should now display something like this.

This is the interface you’ll be working with on the cTrader. At the top centre of the screen, you will see an option to open a live account.

If you intend to open a live account already, you can click on the icon and proceed with the registration of your live account.

We recommend getting the full benefit of a live account by signing up via our best cTrader broker list, you’ll get additional features and bonuses upon doing so.

You can also click on cTrader beside the three parallel horizontal lines.

Here you will find the options to either open a demo account or open a live account.

To open a demo account, click on open a demo account. An option will pop up on your screen. Here, you can choose the amount you want in your demo account, your preferred currency, as well as the leverage.

You can also select the type of account you want to open. There are two types of account you can open.

Hedging account
Netting account

Step 3: Opening a Live Account on cTrader

If you wish to open a live trading account, an option of brokers will be listed to you. These are some of the best you can find. These brokers include:

IC Markets
Fondex
FX Pro
Pepperstone
RoboForex
OctaFX

You can carry out a bit of research to know more about the different brokers and the benefits of registering your live trading account with any of them. After this, you can proceed with setting up your account.

With your account all good and set up now, do you just start trading on cTrader or what exactly is the next step to take?

Step 4: Familiarizing Yourself With the cTrader Interface

Currency Pair
Making selections of currency pairs
You can select currency pairs on your cTrader by going to the left corner of your cTrader screen. You will find a list of options you can choose from.

When you select a currency pair, the chart for that currency pair will be displayed at the centre of the screen.

For example, let’s load up the EURUSD.

You can follow up on the chart EURUSD chart here. You can also load up another chart, and it will appear within the same window.

You can always switch between one chart and another. You can also increase the size of this window by simply toggling your mouse to the edge and dragging out so that you have more space.

That’s if you’re working on a small PC, though.

Now you’ll see why we recommend a 13-15-inch screen as a minimum.

You can keep track of all the variables much better on a widescreen.

Making the Currency Section Disappear
If you don’t have enough space on your screen, you can always make out more space without having to reduce the space occupied by the other boxes. This can be done by temporarily making the currency pairs disappear, so you can focus on a single pair.

To do this, click on the icon with three horizontal parallel lines above the box for currency pairs.

The cTrader Main Menu
The main menu allows you to switch between certain features on your cTrader.

These include:

Copy
Trade
Analyse
Automate
Depositing or Withdrawing funds
Opening your settings.
The Account Bar
The account bar allows you to switch between the trading accounts that are linked to your cTrader ID.

The TradeWatch
The tradeWatch allows you to monitor and control your balance, create and manage new positions and orders, review your transaction, and your trading history.

The MarketWatch
The MarketWatch contains the currency pairs. It allows you to select the charts you want to view, manage your watchlists, as well as view the trades you wish to enter.

To see how the MarketWatch looks like, check out the previous section on how to select your currency pairs.

The CTID Bar
The cTrader ID bar allows you to create your demo account or your live account, switch between trading accounts, access additional material, and manage your workspace and a lot of other functions.

You can also create new orders from here.

Charts
There’s another place you can create orders directly, and this is the charts bar. The charts bar hold your charts of interest- be it currencies, stocks or commodities.

Creating an Order
To create a new order on your cTrader, click on the new order symbol on the CTID bar.

You can also right-click on the symbol you want to trade or the chart. This causes the new order menu to pop up. You can create a new order from there.

Step 5: Place Winning Trades on cTrader

Once you’re familiar with the cTrader, you can begin to work on your account.

You can use a Demo account to practice if you wish to put more time in, but be aware of the psychology of trading with a demo account vs. live is quite different.

Be sure to make use of the tools at your disposal to analyse the market.

When you’re confident enough, you can open a live trading account with your preferred broker and start your trading journey.

Executing Trades on cTrader
You can place trades using many different techniques on your cTrader. These techniques include:

The Market order
The Limit order
The Stop order
The Stop limit order
Using the market order is the fastest way to open a position on cTrader.

The Take Profit and the Stop Loss
You can choose to take your profit on cTrader if you’re not sure the market will continue in your speculated direction. You can also choose to stop your loss when things don’t exactly go in your favour.

Both the take profit and the stop loss are mostly used together in trading. To set up this duo, go to your existing position or order. Go to the Modify order menu and set your stop loss and your take profit according to your calculated pips.

Now that you know just how to create your order enter your trades, and take your profits as well as sell your losses before its too late, let’s take a look at some things that can make your journey on cTrader even smoother.

cTrader Keyboard Shortcuts
cTrader supports a range of keyboard shortcuts, to view them all and print them out in an easy-to-use reference document, visit our cTrader Keyboard Shortcuts page.

cTrader Web Trader (start in seconds)

If you wish to perform a quick test and use cTrader right away, you can launch the web trader version of cTrader to start trading on the spot, without having to download anything to your computer. This simply launches cTrader from within your internet browser:

cTrader Web Trading Platform. This is a version of cTrader that works within your Internet browser.

cTrader Web is still a lightning-fast responsive web interface enabling you access to your cTrader account from any web-browser.

cTrader Webtrader

A key feature of cTrader Web Trader is the emphasis placed on making cTrader Web as close to the cTrader platform as possible.

This means you will have access to most features of the cTrader platform at your fingertips when using cTrader Web.

Keep in mind, this is more of a slimmed-down version of cTrader, as with any web-based trading platform, but it will give you a good idea of what to expect.

Features and Advantages When Using cTrader

Features of cTrader and advantages that come from using the software:

Security

cTrader is globally recognised and certified as one of the best trading platforms in the world. The platform is used by all kinds of traders from several countries around the world. If there’s something you are guaranteed, it’s that once you learn to familiarise yourself with the workings of the platform, you can be sure to grow your trading capital and expand your income base.

On-The-Go Trading

cTrader allows you to make trades on-the-go even after you step away from your computer. The software has an android version that is available for download on www.spotware.com. There’s also an iOS option available for your iPhones and iPads.

With this option, there’s never a moment away from the market. Even if you are not planning on placing any trades on your mobile, you could use them to plan your next trading session.

cTrader Mobile App

With native applications for both Apple iOS and Andriod, cTrader Mobile is accessible from any iOS or Android device.

The cTrader Mobile application enables exceptionally responsive trading conditions straight from your mobile phone.

Emphasising trading “on-the-go”, cTrader Mobile provides an interface that can be used to execute orders, close orders, modify orders, and manage accounts.

cTrader Mobile

Download cTrader Mobile for iOS

Download cTrader Mobile for Android

Fast Market Entries

cTrader allows you to execute your trades on the market instantly. There are no lags or delays on opening and closing positions on real-time on your demo and your real accounts. This helps a lot of traders around the world to rake in even more profit by placing only the most profitable trades on the platform.

Easy to Manoeuvre

cTrader software is easy to launch and use. Thanks to hundreds of cTrader in-house specialists, you can easily connect to several providers, integrate, and adjust the functioning of the platform to suit your taste.

Also, as a trader, you can work on developing different algorithms using any desired tool. These tools can be, eventually, connected to the market via the cTrader FIX API.

Height of Privacy

Whatever algorithms you create as a trader can be used without having to disclose to the public. You don’t have to run it on any commercial platform. You can just set it up right there- directly on your computer.

Multi-Channeling

Traders are at liberty to connect with multiple brokers at the same time. This is made possible by a custom interface. This application, therefore, extends your spans of opportunities and options.

Copy Trading Options

cTrader offers a unique and simple copy trading service called the cTrader Copy. You can get this in the side menu. With the cTrader Copy, it is possible to replicate trades from several trading accounts that you’re entirely confident in and guarantee that your account stays in the green every time.

Multiple Language Options

cTrader is available in 14 different languages. This allows players from even some remote countries of the world to come on board the software. Supported languages include; English, Chinese, Russian, Korean, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese, Turkish, Polish, Hungarian, Japanese, German.

Majority of the world’s population understand these languages, meaning cTrader can reach more than 70% of the world’s population.

cTrader Automate (Formerly cAlgo)

cTrader utilises something called the cAlgo. This algorithm allows cTrader to be able to simulate and recreate past market behaviour to test them on the market.

Formerly “cAlgo” not cTrader Automate. cTrader Automate is a key component of the cTrader suite, cAlgo is designed to be an extremely powerful platform for creating and trading with robots and indicators developed in C#. With intuitive built-in back-testing functionality, users can choose from a wide range of C# resources to help them write their own algorithms.

With intuitive built-in back-testing functionality, users can choose from a wide range of C# resources to help them write their own algorithms.

Download cTrader Automate

A key component of the cTrader suite, cTrader Automate (formerly cTrader Algo) is a platform for creating and trading with robots and indicators developed in C#.

Other cTrader Apps

cTrader
cTrader WebTrader
cTrader Mobile
cTrader custom technical indicators and robots

cTrader Awards

cTrader was recognised as one of the best Forex Trading Platforms in 2020*

It has, since its inception, raised the standards for the online trading industry, and it appears that the platform will continue to set the pace for other trading software in the FX market.

cTrader Awards

  • 2020, *Best Forex Trading Platform, AtoZ Markets
  • 2018, Best FX Trading Platform, FMLS18
  • 2018, Quality Assurance Conference Awards, Information Security Management
  • 2017, Best Mobile Trading Platform, China Forex Expo
  • 2015, Best FX Platform, Forex Bonus Lab
  • 2013, Best Trading Technology Provider, Arabcom Group
  • 2013, Best Retail Platform, FX Week e-FX awards
  • 2012, Forex Person of the Year (Andrey Pavlov, CEO of Spotware), FXStreet

cTrader FAQ

Your broker controls this aspect of trading. The minimum deposit amount depends on the broker you’re trading with. So, you might want to add that to your list of questions you wish to ask your broker, alternatively, you can view our broker review list and see very quickly each brokers minimum deposit amount.

If you wish to pick the best cTrader brokers available in your region, visit here.

The broker controls the money on the real account, so if you want more information on how to withdraw your funds from cTrader, contact your broker.

cTrader provides you with a unique ID and login. You’ll receive this in a separate email, which you should file for your own records. When you log into cTrader, make sure to use your specific cTrader ID. Any questions around cTrader logins can be sent to spotware.

Yes, your account is accessible on another computer.

As long as you have your correct cTrader credentials, you can place your trades on multiple devices, all at the same time.