MT4 vs TradingView - Which one is a better charting tool?

When comparing MT4 to TradingView, the most important focus would be on the charting tools of these platforms. Naturally, they are both very different from each other as they both have their own design patterns and goals in the FX market.
 
Probably the biggest advantage one can find when using MT4 is that they have direct access to the market. That is right, MetaTrader 4 allows traders to place trades alongside using the charting tools.
 
But, this does not mean that TradingView does not have its advantages over MT4. One of the biggest advantage is the available indicators that traders can use. For example, MT4 has around 40 indicators, with others that can be bought from other traders that made them themselves, while TradingView has hundreds.
 
Other differences for MetaTrader 4 and TradingView include things such as accessibility. MT4 usually requires a person to register with either a broker or the software company that made the platform, while TradingView is freely available online, but it does have a paid version that unlocks new features.
 
Despite these advantages and disadvantages, there is actually no need to make a choice on which one to use. Traders can simply use both MT4 and TradingView together. They could simply do their charting work on TradingView and then place trades over on MT4. In fact, it is one of the most common ways people trade nowadays.
 
But, in order to truly determine the difference between these two platforms, we need to look into tools, design, and performance as well to see what elite traders like about them.

Pros and Cons of both platforms

In this paragraph, we will pin up TradingView vs MetaTrader 4 through the pros and cons of both platforms and discover what each of them has to offer. This could potentially help traders neutrally discover the advantages and disadvantages.

MT4 pros

MetaTrader 4 has quite a lot of advantages when comparing it to TradingView. The first pros that any experienced trader would tell you are:
 

• Direct access to market
• Simplistic but outdated design
• Amazing performance

Let’s try and focus on these three as much as possible and explain them.


 

Direct access to the market

As already mentioned previously, MT4 allows traders to actually place orders on the market which is a great advantage when it comes to saving time. In a sense MT4 compared to TradingView is all about time.
 
The time it takes to take all of your analysis from TradingView and place an order on MT4 could be decisive when it comes to payouts. Forex is extremely volatile, even one second can change the whole direction of the market. Being able to immediately place a trade once the research and analysis are done, is a huge step-up for MT4.

Simplistic design

MetaTrader 4 is one of the very first trading software that was ever available for the community, therefore its design may look a bit outdated. If you want a comparison. Imagine opening software or files in Windows XP, that’s how the design mostly looks like.
 
However, this rustic and “ancient” design is embraced by the community. Due to its age, it is familiar for everybody, which makes it a very easy-to-use platform.
 
However, when we mention TradingView vs MT4 in terms of design, it is very hard to give MT4 the edge due to how more modern TradingView seems.

Amazing performance

MetaTrader4 was first released in 2005 by MetaQuotes, meaning the software is now 15 years old. So why would it have an amazing performance? The answer is MetaQuotes themselves. You see, the company devoted itself to perfecting the platform the moment it was released. Having 15 years to fix all of the bugs and making the software run extremely smoothly is more than enough.
 
One could say that in terms of performance, MT4 is almost flawless. The company did say they were going to stop updating the software after some time, but their website is still sharing notes of patches and fixes they make to it almost every month.

MT4 cons

No matter TradingView or MT4 both have their disadvantages alongside advantages. These are usually what people believe that MT4 lacks or needs to improve.
 

• Lack of indicators
• A limited number of instruments
• Timeframes

Lack of indicators

One major issue that MT4 users usually face is that they have a pretty bad lack of indicators to use for analyzing or planning their next trade. Sure there are around 40 indicators available on MT4, but most of them are for very basic trades. Sure those 40 indicators are more than enough for beginners, but when it comes to experts, they have to rely on buying custom indicators on the MetaQuotes market or just making do with what they have available.
 
When we compare MetaTrader4 and TradingView in terms of indicators, TradingView is obviously the winner due to more advanced indicators available on the platform.

A limited number of instruments

Another disadvantage of MT4 is the number of instruments that one has available for trading. You see, there is no universal MT4 platform. It’s usually tied to the broker you are registered with. If the broker doesn’t have USD/JPY on its platform, then you don’t get to do charts or analyze that pair.
 

Timeframes

So, which is better MT4 or TradingView? Timeframes tell us that TradingView has an advantage in this case. The main reason is that MT4 has only 9 timeframes, which are pretty close to each other as well.
 
Although this has the potential to help with long-term trading. For example, seeing how a similar event affected the market a month ago, it is not as helpful when a trader needs to look a couple years back to see the chart patterns.

TradingView pros

Some of TradingView’s advantages have already been highlighted in the paragraphs above, so let’s try and focus on things that were either not mentioned or slightly mentioned. These include
 

• The community
• No registration
• Almost every instrument

 

The community

One of the, if not the biggest advantage that TradingView has over MT4 is its community. In fact, when pairing up MT4 vs TradingView it is impossible not to mention the community. Think of the platform as social media for traders of sorts. People with lots of experience sometimes make guide posts or just showcase how they conducted research and analyzed the charts. Other traders are then able to see how these plans were made and even if they were correct or not.
 
This gives a very nice opportunity for beginners to interact with the community and see how experts conduct their research and place trades.

No registration

Registration is something like a level-up for TradingView. With MT4 it is something you absolutely have to do to use the platform.
The way registration works on TradingView compared to MT4 is that it unlocks several new features such as additional indicators, chart types, time frames and etc. It also allows people to make posts about their trades, comment on other posts and generally take part in the discussion with the community. The most important part is that it is mostly free. The only thing a paid version does is add even more tools.

Almost every instrument

Another great advantage of TradingView is that it does not have to be associated with a broker. It’s an independent platform that can display charts for any type of asset. Not only does this include almost every currency pair, but also stocks, commodities, bonds, indices, etc.

TradingView cons

In order to make this MT4 and TradingView comparison fair, we need to look at the disadvantages that TradingView has as well. However, almost all of the disadvantages were already highlighted in the MT4 pros section, so a small list is enough. Disadvantages include
 

• No direct access to the market
• Slightly unstable

 
Both of these platforms have their advantages and disadvantages, but this does not mean that you have to choose only one. The beauty of these two is that you can use both at the same time.