BrokerNotes.co

Guides
- Best Forex Brokers Best High-Frequency Trading Brokers Best MetaTrader 4 Brokers Best Zero Spread Brokers
- Best PayPal Brokers All Guides arrow_right_alt Education arrow_right_alt Help Me Choose arrow_right_alt
Countries
- 🇦🇺 Australia 🇩🇪 Germany 🇮🇳 India 🇳🇬 Nigeria
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🇿🇦 South Africa 🇬🇧 United Kingdom All Country Guides arrow_right_alt
Compare
- CMC Markets vs Exness eToro vs Plus500 FOREX.com vs Plus500 XTB vs IC Markets
- IG vs CMC Markets AvaTrade vs FP Markets City Index vs Saxo All Comparisonsarrow_right_alt
Reviews
- IG Interactive Brokers Octa CMC Markets eToro
- FOREX.com IC Markets AvaTrade XM Group All Reviewsarrow_right_alt
Resources
- About Contact Us How We Make Money How We Test Meet the Team Trust Score Why Trust Us

BrokerNotes.co is committed to the highest ethical standards and reviews services independently. Learn How We Make Money

Home ‣ Guides

Best Forex Expert Advisors of 2024

Written by BrokerNotes.co

October 04, 2024

Trading With Forex Expert Advisors

Expert advisors, also known as forex robots, offer a way to trade the markets in an automated fashion. Expert advisors eliminate the need of sitting in front of the computer all day, poring through charts, figures, setups, indicators, news, etc, it is possible to use software to do all this for you and then execute a trade on your behalf, saving you all the trouble.

These robots can then be used to trade the markets while the user attends to some other business. Many traders are actually day workers who use trading as a second income stream, and this category of market players will benefit from the use of forex robots.

Best Forex Brokers for Expert Advisors (EAs)

Here are the best forex brokers for Expert Advisors.

star 9.9/10 Overall

Summary Review Trading Platforms

Minimum Deposit	£250.00
Tier-1 Licenses	8
Tradeable Symbols (Total)	19537

Year after year, IG has shown itself to be the best broker in the forex industry and a fantastic choice for forex traders. Highly trusted and regulated across the globe, IG delivers a wide variety of rich features, market research, and powerful trading tools. IG also offers seamless integration of trading signals into its web platform. Read full review

Apple iOS App	Yes
Android App	No
Proprietary Platform	Yes
Desktop Platform (Windows)	Yes
Web Platform	Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)	Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)	No

star 9.9/10 Overall

Summary Review Trading Platforms

Minimum Deposit	$0
Tier-1 Licenses	9
Tradeable Symbols (Total)	8500

Interactive Brokers is a highly trusted broker regulated across the globe that delivers access to over 100 markets, including forex and CFDs. Its Trader Workstation (TWS) platform offers a variety of advanced trading tools for experienced traders, and IBKR's web-based platform is great for beginner forex traders. Read full review

Apple iOS App	Yes
Android App	No
Proprietary Platform	Yes
Desktop Platform (Windows)	Yes
Web Platform	Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)	No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)	No

star 9.7/10 Overall

Summary Review Trading Platforms

Minimum Deposit	$0
Tier-1 Licenses	7
Tradeable Symbols (Total)	70000

Saxo is a highly trusted broker that operates multiple banks and is regulated across the globe. Saxo delivers an incredible cross-platform experience alongside powerful research and a vast selection of more than 60,000 symbols across multiple asset classes. It’s worth noting that minimum deposits at Saxo are steep. Read full review

Apple iOS App	Yes
Android App	No
Proprietary Platform	Yes
Desktop Platform (Windows)	Yes
Web Platform	Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)	No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)	No

star 9.6/10 Overall

Summary Review Trading Platforms

Minimum Deposit	$0
Tier-1 Licenses	5
Tradeable Symbols (Total)	11925

CMC Markets is a highly trusted multi-asset broker regulated in multiple Tier-1 jurisdictions. CMC's powerful Next Generation trading platform for web and mobile delivers a huge selection of markets and a fantastic user experience. CMC Markets also ranks highly for its high-quality research and educational content. Read full review

Apple iOS App	Yes
Android App	No
Proprietary Platform	Yes
Desktop Platform (Windows)	Yes
Web Platform	Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)	Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)	No

star 9.4/10 Overall

Summary Review Trading Platforms

Minimum Deposit	$100
Tier-1 Licenses	7
Tradeable Symbols (Total)	5500

FOREX.com is a highly trusted brand with a long history of offering forex in the U.S. and across the globe. FOREX.com offers its own flagship trading platforms for web and desktop, as well as the full MetaTrader suite. Though its pricing is higher than average, FOREX.com is a balanced choice for traders of all experience levels. Read full review

Apple iOS App	Yes
Android App	No
Proprietary Platform	Yes
Desktop Platform (Windows)	Yes
Web Platform	Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)	Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)	Yes

star 9.3/10 Overall

Summary Review Trading Platforms

Minimum Deposit	$0
Tier-1 Licenses	5
Tradeable Symbols (Total)	40000

Charles Schwab is a leader in platform technology and trusted by millions of investors globally with trillions in assets under its brands. Available exclusively to U.S. residents, Charles Schwab's forex offering consists of just over 70 currency pairs, along with powerful research and trading tools. Read full review

Apple iOS App	Yes
Android App	No
Proprietary Platform	Yes
Desktop Platform (Windows)	Yes
Web Platform	Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)	No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)	No

star 9.3/10 Overall

Summary Review Trading Platforms

Minimum Deposit	£100.00
Tier-1 Licenses	7
Tradeable Symbols (Total)	13500

City Index, part of StoneX Group, is an award-winning, highly trusted broker with a long history of offering forex and CFDs across its global offices. City Index delivers a well-designed mobile trading app and a powerful web platform, as well as a large range of tradeable markets (though pricing is just average). Read full review

Apple iOS App	Yes
Android App	No
Proprietary Platform	Yes
Desktop Platform (Windows)	Yes
Web Platform	Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)	Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)	No

star 9.1/10 Overall

Summary Review Trading Platforms

Minimum Deposit	$0 info
Tier-1 Licenses	2
Tradeable Symbols (Total)	6200

XTB is a highly trusted brand with a proprietary platform (xStation 5) that delivers a rich selection of trading tools. XTB also offers CFDs for a wide range of asset classes, including multiple cryptocurrencies. Beginners will appreciate XTB's excellent educational content and the hundreds of lessons that are available via its Trading Academy. Read full review

Apple iOS App	Yes
Android App	No
Proprietary Platform	Yes
Desktop Platform (Windows)	Yes
Web Platform	Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)	No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)	No

star 8.9/10 Overall

Summary Review Trading Platforms

Minimum Deposit	$50-$10,000
Tier-1 Licenses	3
Tradeable Symbols (Total)	5461

Best known for its copy trading platform suite, eToro is a highly trusted broker offering a large selection of cryptocurrency products, CFDs, shares, forex pairs, and a wide range of powerful trading tools. It’s worth noting that eToro is not a discount broker (though it offers zero-dollar commissions for U.S. stocks). Read full review

Apple iOS App	Yes
Android App	No
Proprietary Platform	Yes
Desktop Platform (Windows)	No
Web Platform	Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)	No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)	No

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Between 51% and 89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

What is an Expert Advisor?

An expert advisor for the forex market is a software system that is built to analyze the currency pairs in the forex market to identify trading opportunities, and then implement buy or sell signals on the forex charts. Usually, trades in forex involve analyzing the market by going through several chart setups, then deciding whether to buy or sell, as well as making a decision on which kind of orders will be used to produce the best trade outcomes. These are all automated when a trading robot is used.

Expert advisors (EAs) have undergone a lot of modifications from the early days in which they were introduced. These expert advisors have moved from simple robots which did analysis and then traded accounts to complex algorithmic trading software which is used today for advanced forex trading. So we will talk about this experience not just from the standpoint of the simple software, but also from the complex ago trading systems that trading robots are today.

Trading with robots is also known as Quantitative Trading. The basis for algorithmic trading or trading with robots is for a computer software system to run analyses on several forex pairs and to generate and ultimately implement buy and sell signals on the forex platforms.

Featured EA Broker: ETX Capital

If you have decided you want to use an expert advisor for your trading strategy and are looking for a broker that supports the use of automated trading with expert advisors, ETX Capital is one of the most popular choices. Some of the why people choose ETX Capital are:

Established broker – over 10 years in business (in business since 2002)
Regulated by the Financial conduct authority (UK) #124721
Tight spreads
Offers Forex, Spread betting, CFDs, Binary, Equities, Commodities and Indices
Wide range of markets

The two types of forex robot algorithmic trading:

High-frequency trading.

Low-frequency trading.

High-frequency trading with expert advisors focuses on creating an edge with speed. The speed of the connection is the main advantage that high-frequency trading robots confer on the trader.

High-frequency trading robots aim to make a profit from arbitrage. In other words, they scan several exchanges or data centers where there are even the smallest of differences between the prices of the same asset.

The high-frequency robots then place a large volume of trades on the lower price (for buy orders) and offload them to other traders in the market at higher prices. For example, a high-frequency expert advisor may buy gold at 1,200.30 from one exchange and re-sell the same to other traders at 1,200.35. The price difference is 0.05, which may look very small. However, the high-frequency forex robot may place 10,000 lots on this trade, which confers on the pip movement a value of $100,000 per pip.

Considering that this trade moved just 5 pips or 0.05 points, the profit made by the high-frequency trading robot would be $100,000 X 5 = $500,000. High-frequency trading robots are mostly used by institutional traders and big banks who trade the forex market. These institutional players have access to very large capital and are able to afford the relevant tools and software which can scan the market for such opportunities and execute the trades within milliseconds. These robots can trade several times in a matter of milliseconds. Retail forex traders in general, do not have access to these systems and therefore have to make do with the second model of algorithmic trading, which is low-frequency trading.

Low-frequency trading is a model which aims to use the soundness of the utilized trading model to gain an advantage. This is not dependent on speed. Therefore, low-frequency trading robots are looking to profit from price movement over time. These price movements are determined by:

Trading fundamentals such as earnings reports and interest rate statements.

Macroeconomic news such as the Non-farm Payrolls report, inflation reports, housing data, etc.

Statistical models e.g. price correlations, mean regressions, etc.

Technical analyses e.g. chart patterns, candlesticks.

Low-frequency trading EAs are developed from several viewpoints. These viewpoints aim to ensure that:

That the idea behind the construction of the robot strategy is sound both economically and technically.

The strategy is based on sound statistical methods.

That the basic principle of using sound models and not speed are what governs our trading robots.

This means that robots must not be used blindly. This is why it is very difficult to make a profitable commercial robot as they cannot be assessed to see if they obey the rules set out above.

How Expert Advisors Work

EAs work with algorithms which are usually programmed with specialised programming languages. The trading platform the trader uses will determine what language will be used to program the forex robot. Here is a list of platforms and the programming languages used in programming the robots:

The MetaQuotes Language 4(MQL4) is used to program expert advisors for MT4.
TradeStation: The Lua programming language is used to code expert advisors for the FXCM platform.
The ActFX programming language is used to code robots for the ActForex platforms. An example is the AvaTrade platform.
Many professional ECN platforms are coded with more specialized languages such as C#.

Characteristics of a Good Expert Advisor

A good expert advisor must meet certain basic criteria that enable it to work perfectly. These are listed as follows:

The parameters for trade entry and exit must be well defined.
The EA must have acceptable money management parameters.
The expert advisor must be able to evolve with the market. For this to happen, the creator of the EA must make it amenable to periodic updates.
A commercially sold EA must have adequate protection from decompiling software. Essentially, it must be hack-proof.
Code must be bug-free and error-free.

Where can you obtain Expert Advisors?

There are two main sources of expert advisors, buying a pre made EA or creating your very own EA from scratch. Each pathway has its advantages and disadvantages and you must be aware of these before you make a choice on which way to go.

Buying a pre-made EA

There are literally thousands of expert advisors sold online, and even more which are offered for free either as standalone bonus products or as lead-in products to other forex products. It is very difficult to get a forex robot that works from an online source. This is because there is no way for the trader to know the performance and the risk management profile of any expert advisor before purchase.

It is always a mistake to believe anything written about an expert advisor (EA) on the sales page of the vendor. You must have a way of subjecting the EA to evaluation to see if it meets the parameters for a good robot before you spend your hard-earned money. Usually, the way to do this is by making use of any free trial offers provided by vendors of such products.

Developing Your Own EA

There are several advantages of using this option. Perhaps the most important is that you will end up with a forex robot for you, by you and created just for you. You get to setup the EA with your strategy, fitted to your trading circumstances, your capital and risk management profile. The challenge is getting a programmer who can adequately translate your performance metrics into an actionable EA without messing up the coding process. Having your own expert advisor also allows you to edit the code as you wish.

Approaches to Building a Trading Robot

No programmer should just wake up blindly and start programming a trading robot. There is a time-tested approach to building a trading robot. The approach to building a trading robot is to:

Design
Program
Backtest
Execute

In performing this four-step approach to trading a forex robot, the trader must consider the platform to be used, the tools to be used, the platform infrastructure, and how the robot can be analyzed in the future to assess its trading performance.

Designing an EA is where the trader looks at the strategy to be used, the money management parameters, and the conditions for buying or selling a currency pair. After the design, the programming aspect comes to play. This is where the design of the robot is translated into a programming code. When the code is all done, the EA must then be tested and optimized, before it is finally executed for use.

It is essential to get a skilled programmer to do the job of coding. However, building a good EA is usually a multi-disciplinary approach. It requires input from various fields such as statistics, mathematics, programming, and a little common sense.

BrokerNotes.co 2024 Overall Rankings

To recap, here are our top forex brokers for 2024, sorted by Overall ranking.

Company	Overall Rating	Minimum Deposit	Average Spread EUR/USD - Standard	Trust Score	Tradeable Symbols (Total)	Read Review
IG	9.9	£250.00	0.98 info	99	19537	IG Review
Interactive Brokers	9.9	$0	0.63 info	99	8500	Interactive Brokers Review
Saxo	9.7	$0	1.1 info	99	70000	Saxo Review
CMC Markets	9.6	$0	0.61 info	99	11925	CMC Markets Review
FOREX.com	9.4	$100	1.4 info	99	5500	FOREX.com Review
Charles Schwab	9.3	$0	1.25 info	99	40000	Charles Schwab Review
City Index	9.3	£100.00	1.4 info	99	13500	City Index Review
XTB	9.1	$0 info	1.00 info	96	6200	XTB Group Review
eToro	8.9	$50-$10,000	1 info	93	5461	eToro Review
Capital.com	8.7	$20 info	0.67 info	87	3007	Capital.com Review
Swissquote	8.7	$1000	N/A info	99	472	Swissquote Review
AvaTrade	8.7	$100	0.93 info	94	1260	AvaTrade Review
OANDA	8.6	$0	1.61 info	93	3928 info	OANDA Review
Plus500	8.6	€100	1.5 info	99	5500 info	Plus500 Review
FXCM	8.6	Starts from $50	0.78 info	95	440	FXCM Review
Pepperstone	8.5	$0	1.10 info	95	1726	Pepperstone Review
XM Group	8.5	$5	1.6 info	88	1394	XM Group Review
Admirals	8.5	$100	0.8 info	93	8702	Admiral Markets Review
FP Markets	8.3	$100 AUD	1.1 info	87	10000	FP Markets Review
Tickmill	8.2	$100	0.51 info	86	725	Tickmill Review
IC Markets	8.2	$200	0.62 info	84	3583	IC Markets Review
FxPro	8.1	$100	1.51 info	90	2249	FxPro Review
Markets.com	8.1	$100	1.9 info	93	2179	Markets.com Review
FinecoBank	8.0	$0	N/A info	94	9770	Fineco Bank Review
BlackBull Markets	8.0	$0	0.76 info	78	26000	BlackBull Markets Review
Vantage	8.0	$50	1.30 info	90	1000	Vantage Review
ThinkMarkets	7.9	$50 info	1.1 info	92	4000	ThinkMarkets Review
HYCM (Henyep Capital Markets)	7.8	$20	1.2 info	86	1199	HYCM Review
HFM	7.8	$0	1.2 info	86	500	HFM Review
DooPrime	7.8	$100	N/A info	83	10000	DooPrime Review
Questrade	7.8	$250	N/A	86	641
ActivTrades	7.7	0	0.98 info	81	1267
Trading 212	7.7	€10	1.9 info	79	8025	Trading 212 Review
BDSwiss	7.7	$10-$5000 info	1.6 info	76	1081	BDSwiss Review
Trade Nation	7.7	$0	0.6	85	1000	Trade Nation Review
TMGM	7.6	$100	N/A info	83	12000	TMGM Review
Eightcap	7.6	$100	1.0 info	85	736	Eightcap Review
Moneta Markets	7.5	$50	1.38 info	72	1016	Moneta Markets Review
Spreadex	7.5	$0	0.81 info	71	10000	Spreadex Review
MultiBank	7.5	$50	N/A	84	1042	MultiBank Review
Exness	7.4	$10 info	N/A	81	227	Exness Review
ACY Securities	7.4	$50	1.2 info	75	2200	ACY Securities Review
easyMarkets	7.3	$50	0.8 info	80	230	easyMarkets Review
RoboForex	7.3	$100	1.3 info	73	8400	Roboforex (RoboMarkets) Review
VT Markets	7.3	$100	1.2 info	70	1000	VT Markets Review
Octa	7.2	$25	0.9 info	70	277	OctaFX Review
IronFX	7.2	$50	1.2	83	340	IronFX Review
IFC Markets	7.2	$1	1.44 info	67	630	IFC Markets Review
Trade360	7.2	$250	N/A info	76	1062	Trade360 Review
Axi	7.1	$0	N/A info	82	175	Axitrader Review
TeleTrade	7.1	$100	N/A	71	500	Teletrade Review
iFOREX	7.0	$100	N/A	75	750	iFOREX Review
FXOpen	7	$100	N/A info	76	87	FXOpen Review
FXPrimus	7.0	$100	N/A info	71	140	FXPrimus Review
Xtrade	6.9	$250	N/A info	74	482	Xtrade Review
Forex4you	6.8	$0	N/A info	61	150	Forex4you Review
GBE brokers	6.8	$500	N/A info	71	500	GBE Brokers Review
Alpari	6.8	$20	N/A info	68	105	Alpari Review
TopFX	6.7	Depends on payment method	1.03 info	67	655	TopFX Review
Libertex (Forex Club)	6.7	$10	N/A info	73	300	Libertex Review
LegacyFX	6.7	$500	N/A	67	425	LegacyFX Review
FXGT.com	6.6	$5	N/A	69	117	FXGT Review
ATFX	6.5	$500	N/A info	85	150	ATFX Review

Popular Forex Guides

More Forex Guides

Popular Forex Reviews

Methodology

At BrokerNotes.co, our data-driven online broker reviews are based on our extensive testing of brokers, platforms, products, technologies, and third-party trading tools. Our product testing extends to the quality and availability of educational content, market research resources, and the accessibility and capabilities of mobile platforms and trading apps. We also dive into each broker’s trading costs, such as VIP rebates, inactivity fees, custody fees, bid/ask spreads, and other fee-based data points.

Steven Hatzakis, an industry veteran with decades of experience in the forex market, leads the BrokerNotes research team. All BrokerNotes content is researched, fact-checked, and edited by the research team.

All websites and web-based platforms are tested using the latest version of the Google Chrome browser. Our Desktop PCs run Windows 11, and we use MacBook Pro laptops running the latest version of macOS to test trading on the go. We test mobile apps and products using iPhones running iOS 17 and Samsung devices running Android OS 14.

Note: The online brokers on our site provide the ability to trade forex in one or more ways, such as non-deliverable spot forex (i.e., rolling spot contracts), contracts for difference (CFD), or other derivatives such as futures. The availability of specific markets or features will depend on your country of residence and the broker's applicable brand or entity that services your account(s).

Forex Risk Disclaimer

There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading securities. With respect to margin-based foreign exchange trading, off-exchange derivatives, and cryptocurrencies, there is considerable exposure to risk, including but not limited to, leverage, creditworthiness, limited regulatory protection and market volatility that may substantially affect the price, or liquidity of a currency or related instrument. It should not be assumed that the methods, techniques, or indicators presented in these products will be profitable, or that they will not result in losses. Learn more about foreign exchange risk.

About the Editorial Team

BrokerNotes.co provides unbiased forex broker reviews and ratings to help traders and investors find the best broker for their needs. All content is researched, fact-checked, and edited by our research team and all ratings and rankings are based on the team’s in-depth product testing.

navigate_before navigate_next