Ask a firm why it picked cTrader over DXtrade, or the other way round, and the real answer is rarely a feature. It is a branding decision made once, early, that is expensive to reverse: does the firm want traders who already know a named platform, or a terminal carrying only the firm's own name from the first screen a client sees?
cTrader, from Spotware, is a standalone platform with its own trader community, its own app on five platforms and its own login, the cTrader ID. DXtrade, from Devexperts, is sold as a white-label platform: a firm licenses it and brands it fully as its own, with no Spotware or cTrader name visible to the trader. Neither model is wrong. They are answers to two different questions.
Two questions, not one comparison
Before comparing cTrader vs DXtrade feature by feature, a firm should answer two questions about itself. First: does its marketing lean on being on a platform traders already trust by name, or on its own brand alone? Second: does it already have, or is it building, the traffic and reputation to make a fully firm-branded terminal worth the extra branding work? A firm answering "recognisable platform" to the first question and "not yet" to the second usually leans cTrader. A firm answering "our own brand" and "yes" usually leans DXtrade.
cTrader: a platform with its own name and its own crowd
cTrader ships as itself. Traders download the cTrader app, on Windows, Mac, the web, iOS or Android, and pick the firm's server the way they would pick a broker on MetaTrader. The cTrader ID is a personal login for the platform's own services, similar in role to an MQL5.community account: it is not the client's trading account, but a separate identity for logging into cTrader-wide features. Traders get Level II depth of market on every account, algorithmic trading in C# through cTrader Algo, and cTrader Copy for copy trading built into the platform itself.
The advantage for a firm is that some traders arrive already knowing how to use it. A trader who has run cTrader at a previous broker or prop firm needs no onboarding to open an account with a new one. The cost is that the firm's brand sits inside someone else's app: the terminal says cTrader first, and the firm's name shows only where cTrader displays the broker list.
DXtrade: the terminal a firm brands as its own
Devexperts sells DXtrade specifically as a white-label platform, meaning the firm's name, logo and colours are what a trader sees, with no visible Devexperts branding in the client-facing product. That is a real advantage for a firm whose whole pitch is its own identity, and it is a big part of why DXtrade became popular with prop firms that wanted a terminal indistinguishable from an in-house build. A firm that has spent years and marketing budget building its own name gets to put that name on the platform itself, beyond the CRM and the storefront around it.
The trade-off is community and ecosystem size. DXtrade's trader base and automation ecosystem are smaller than MetaTrader's, so a firm cannot lean on "traders already know this platform" the way it can with cTrader or MetaTrader. Every trader who joins is learning the firm's terminal for the first time, whatever the firm calls it, because no prior audience arrives pre-trained on DXtrade specifically the way some traders arrive pre-trained on cTrader.
What actually changes day to day
| cTrader | DXtrade | |
|---|---|---|
| Made by | Spotware | Devexperts |
| Client sees | The cTrader app and name, with the firm's server inside it | The firm's own brand throughout, white-labelled |
| Trader familiarity | Some traders already know cTrader from other firms | No platform-level familiarity; every trader learns the firm's terminal fresh |
| Automation | cTrader Algo in C#, cTrader Copy built in | Automation ecosystem is smaller than MetaTrader's |
| Depth of market | Level II on every account | Set by the firm's own liquidity and risk configuration |
| Apps | Windows, Mac, web, iOS, Android, under the cTrader name | Branded entirely to the firm, across the apps DXtrade offers |
| What the firm still builds | CRM, feed, risk tooling around cTrader | CRM, feed, risk tooling around DXtrade, plus its own branding work |
The part both platforms leave to the firm
Neither cTrader nor DXtrade arrives with a CRM, a price feed or risk management built in. A firm on either platform still sources its own liquidity, connects its own bridge, and runs a separate CRM to open accounts, take deposits and manage clients. The white-label decision covers what the trading terminal looks like. It says nothing about the CRM, the payments stack, the KYC provider or the price feed sitting behind it, all of which the firm assembles separately regardless of which of the two it picks.
Where eTrader fits
There is a third model between the two: a shared terminal like cTrader, but where each firm gets its own servers inside it shown under its own name and logo, plus a bundled price feed, dealing desk, native MAM / PAMM and copytrading that neither cTrader nor DXtrade includes on its own. That is eTrader. It is not a white-label terminal in the DXtrade sense; the app itself is eTrader, the way the app is cTrader on Spotware's platform, so a firm branding its own name on the terminal screen the way DXtrade allows is not what eTrader offers. What it adds instead is a bundle: the feed, the dealing desk with hybrid routing, MAM / PAMM and copytrading arrive already built, so a firm is not assembling that layer on top of the platform the way it would with either cTrader or DXtrade. The trade-offs are real too: eTrader is the newest of the three, its third-party robot library is smaller, and strategies are written in Tide rather than C# or MQL5.
A plain recommendation
If the firm's growth plan depends on traders who already trust a named platform, or on affiliates who market "we run cTrader" as a selling point, cTrader is the better fit and the branding trade-off is worth accepting. If the firm's brand is the product, and its marketing budget already goes into building that name rather than borrowing someone else's, DXtrade lets that budget show up on the terminal itself. Either way, budget separately for the CRM, the feed and the risk tooling neither platform includes, and test both in a live demo with your own liquidity connected before signing a contract.
"The platform name a trader sees on day one is a branding decision a firm only gets to make once. Everything else, the CRM, the feed, the risk desk, gets built the same way no matter which name is on the login screen."
— The SGHK Team
Key Takeaways
- cTrader is a standalone platform with its own name, app and trader community; DXtrade is sold as a white-label terminal a firm brands fully as its own.
- cTrader traders arrive with some platform familiarity from other firms; DXtrade traders learn the firm's terminal fresh, whatever name is on it.
- Neither platform includes a CRM, a price feed or risk tooling; both leave that layer for the firm to build separately.
- eTrader sits between the two models: a shared terminal like cTrader, but with the firm's own server name and a bundled feed, dealing desk, MAM / PAMM and copytrading DXtrade and cTrader do not include natively.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is DXtrade cheaper than cTrader?
Licensing terms for both platforms are set by their vendors and can change, so ask Spotware and Devexperts directly for current terms. Cost differences in practice usually show up more in the branding and integration work than in a headline licence fee.
Can traders bring their cTrader ID between firms?
The cTrader ID is a personal login for cTrader's own services, not a shared client database, and it does not carry a trading account or balance between firms. A trader still needs a new trading account with each firm's own server.
Does DXtrade include its own CRM?
No. DXtrade is the trading terminal itself; a firm running DXtrade still sources or builds its own CRM, price feed and risk management separately, the same way a firm on cTrader does.
How does eTrader compare on branding?
eTrader works like cTrader in structure: traders install the eTrader app and pick the firm's server, shown under the firm's own name and logo, rather than a fully white-labelled app the way DXtrade offers. What the firm brands is its server, its client portal, its storefront and its website. What it gets in return is a feed, dealing desk, MAM / PAMM and copytrading bundled with the platform, which cTrader and DXtrade both leave for the firm to source separately.
About SGHK
SGHK is a FinTech company that designs and builds its own software for the trading industry: the eTrader trading platform, Launch your Broker and Launch your Prop Firm. Every product is written, hosted and supported in-house and licensed to trading firms, with the CRMs branded to them, all hosted by us in the cloud, managed by each firm and built to scale across clustered servers as our clients grow. Everything is encrypted, and each firm is the only one with access to its data and its clients' data.