MetaTrader 5 (MT5) was developed in 2010 as the successor of the highly popular MetaTrader 4, which came out five years earlier. However, adoption of the MT5 did not go as fast and smoothly as expected, which is largely attributed to the fact that the platform’s marketplace for trading strategies is not backwards compatible with the MT4. As such, all automated trading strategies developed for the MT4 had to be written again for MT5.
Today, most regulated forex brokers offer both the MetaTrader 5 and MetaTrader 4 for their clients. Both platforms are available in several different versions, including web-based versions for use on any computer, downloadable versions for Windows and Mac computers, as well as mobile apps for Apple and Android devices.