Spotware built cTrader for brokers who route client orders to external liquidity and want the client to see that. Where MetaTrader shows a single best bid and offer, cTrader shows the book: several price levels on each side with the volume available at each, updating live.
Whether that information changes your trading depends on what you trade and how big you are. What it certainly changes is the argument, because a platform that shows the ladder is harder to run as a pure dealing desk without anyone noticing.
Depth of market comes as standard
There are several views. A standard ladder listing price levels with available volume, a price-based view showing where the liquidity sits relative to the current market, and a volume-weighted view that estimates the average price you would achieve for a given size by consuming successive levels.
That last one is the practically useful one. If your intended size is larger than the volume at the top level, the ladder tells you in advance what the fill will look like rather than after the fact. For a small retail size on a major pair the answer is almost always "you will get the top level", which is why depth matters more to size than to skill. The general mechanics are in depth of market, and the execution models behind it in ECN and STP.
One caveat worth stating: the book you see is the book your broker's aggregated feed shows, not the entire foreign exchange market. There is no central exchange in spot FX, so depth is a view of a specific set of counterparties. It is real information, and it is partial information.
The order types are where the platform earns its keep
cTrader separates orders from positions in a way that makes multi-entry management cleaner, and it adds two order types worth knowing.
The market range order is a market order with a maximum deviation attached. You state how far from your requested price you will accept a fill, and if the market has moved further by the time the order reaches the server it is rejected rather than filled somewhere unpleasant. That is the direct answer to the slippage problem, and it comes with the obvious trade-off: sometimes you are not in the trade at all.
The stop limit order combines both conditions. A stop price triggers the order and a limit price bounds where it may fill, which is useful for breakout entries where being filled late is worse than not being filled. Add partial closes, per-position stop and target editing, and a protection dialog that survives partial fills, and the position management is genuinely better than the MetaTrader equivalent, which is covered in order types.
None of this makes execution better on its own. A rejection instead of a slipped fill is a different outcome, not a superior one, and the quality of the underlying liquidity is set by the broker rather than by the platform showing it to you.
cBots run on C#, not MQL
Automation in cTrader is called cTrader Automate, and strategies are written in C# against a documented API. Indicators use the same stack. For anyone with software experience this is a meaningfully better environment than MQL: proper types, a real standard library, a modern IDE and unit-testable code.
The cost is that nothing crosses over. A MetaTrader Expert Advisor does not run here, and the enormous library of free and paid MQL code is unavailable. Logic can be ported by a developer, the file cannot. The cTrader ecosystem is smaller in absolute terms, which cuts both ways: fewer options, and a lower proportion of the recycled martingale code that fills marketplaces.
Backtesting is built in, with tick data and optimisation. The same warnings apply as anywhere else, and a beautiful optimised curve remains a description of the past rather than a forecast, as set out in backtest overfitting.
Copy trading is part of the platform
cTrader Copy lives inside the platform rather than sitting alongside it as a third-party service. A trader can publish their own account as a strategy, set a performance fee, and be listed. An investor allocates an amount, sees the statistics the platform computed from actual account activity, and can stop at any time.
Having the numbers generated by the platform rather than self-reported removes one class of dishonesty. It removes none of the others: a short track record is still a short track record, a smooth curve still suggests unrealised drawdown, and a strategy that has never traded through a shock has not been tested by one. The questions to ask are in copy trading and evaluating signal services. Copying someone else's trades carries the same high risk of loss as placing them yourself.
Who it fits
It fits traders who care about execution mechanics and size, who want the ladder in front of them, and who either write their own tools or use none. It fits anyone tired of the MetaTrader interface, since the charting, the detachable windows and the account switching through a single cTrader ID across brokers are simply more modern.
It fits less well if your entire toolkit is MQL code you did not write, or if you need a specific broker who does not offer it. Availability is the real constraint: brokers license cTrader, fewer of them do so than offer MetaTrader, and the choice of platform can end up made by the choice of broker rather than the other way round. Firms weighing this from the other side, deciding what to put in front of their own clients, face a different set of trade-offs that we set out in choosing a trading platform.
"The depth ladder is not there to make you a better trader. It is there so you can see what your order is about to walk into, and most people only appreciate that after the first time they trade size."
— Alex Onta, Executive Director, SINGUARD
Key Takeaways
- Level II depth is a default view in cTrader, showing volume at each price level from the broker's aggregated feed rather than a central market.
- Market range orders cap slippage by rejecting a fill outside your stated deviation, and stop limit orders bound where a triggered order may execute.
- cBots are C# programs written against the cTrader Automate API, so no MetaTrader EA or indicator file transfers across.
- cTrader Copy computes provider statistics from real account activity inside the platform, which fixes self-reporting but not short track records.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I run MetaTrader Expert Advisors on cTrader?
No. cTrader automation is written in C# against the cTrader Automate API and compiled as a cBot, while MetaTrader uses MQL4 or MQL5. The logic of a strategy can be ported by a developer, but the file itself will not run and there is no compatibility layer between the two platforms.
What is a market range order in cTrader?
It is a market order with a maximum deviation attached. You specify how far from the requested price you are willing to be filled, and if the market moves beyond that range before execution the order is rejected instead of filled at a worse level. It gives control over slippage on entry at the cost of occasionally not being filled at all.
Does cTrader include copy trading?
Yes. cTrader Copy is part of the platform rather than a third-party add-on. Strategy providers publish from their own account and set a fee, and investors allocate funds and can stop copying at any time. Availability and any additional conditions still depend on the broker offering the account.