Show My Trades
Platforms· Glossary

What Is cTrader? The Platform and How Tracking Works

cTrader is the main alternative to MetaTrader for retail forex. What it does differently, how OAuth authorisation works, and the real platform split we see.

cTrader is a trading platform built by Spotware and licensed to brokers, in the same arrangement MetaTrader uses: the broker runs the server, you run the client. It is the main alternative to MetaTrader for retail forex and CFD accounts, and it is usually chosen by brokers who want to advertise their execution model rather than hide it.

How it works

Three parts, as with any platform of this kind, but the split is different.

cTrader Desktop / Web / Mobile   ← charts, cBots, client-side logic
    ↕ FIX or Open API
Broker server                    ← order matching, positions, balance
cAlgo (C#)                       ← the language cBots and indicators are written in

Two differences matter in practice. Automation is written in C# rather than MQL, which brings a mainstream language and a debugger with it. And cTrader is position-based: several orders on the same symbol merge into one position with one average price, where MT4 keeps every ticket separate. That single design choice changes how you count trades, and therefore how win rate, average trade length and volume are calculated on any record built from a cTrader account.

Access for third parties runs through the cTrader Open API with OAuth2 authorisation. You are sent to cTrader, you approve the connection there, and the tracking service receives a token. No password is handed over, and you can revoke the token from your cTrader account at any time — the tracker cannot place, modify or close an order with it.

Why it matters

If you trade on cTrader and want a public track record, the platform choice has until recently been a dead end. The two best known tracking sites grew up around MetaTrader and neither connects a cTrader account, so the usual advice — connect it somewhere and send the link — was not available to you at all.

The OAuth route is also the cleanest of the credential models in this category. A read-only investor password is safe but permanent until you change it; an OAuth token is revocable from the platform's own settings, without touching your trading credentials.

What the data shows

ShowMyTrades connects MT4, MT5, cTrader and TradeLocker, and the cTrader accounts here carry exactly the same public page as the MetaTrader ones: broker-synced, verified, embeddable.

That is the whole point, and it is a short one. The two best known trackers in this category do not read cTrader at all, so a cTrader trader who wants a public record has had nowhere to put it.

Where you see it on ShowMyTrades

A cTrader account carries the id prefix ctr- and appears exactly like any other: the same stats panel, the same charts viewer, the same monthly returns table, the same verified track record badges.

Two honest differences. There are no terminal diagnostics — ping, packet retransmission, terminal build — because there is no MetaTrader terminal in the loop to measure. And magic numbers do not exist in cTrader as they do in MQL, so every trade arrives in the Manual bucket rather than split by strategy.

Common misunderstandings

  • "cTrader means better execution." The platform exposes more about execution and is often paired with a raw-spread account, but execution quality belongs to the broker, not to the software. Measure it on your own account rather than assuming it from the logo.
  • "A cBot is an EA." Same idea, different language and different runtime. A strategy written in MQL does not run on cTrader without being rewritten.
  • "Trade counts should match my MetaTrader record." They will not. Position-based merging means a scale-in that MT4 records as four tickets appears as one position with one average price.

Connecting one takes about a minute: see cTrader account tracking for the OAuth flow and what ends up on the page.