MT4 vs MT5 who is the winner?

For me, I have traded on both MT4 & MT5 and I think MT5 is a clear winner based on my needs.

1. MT5 has more time frames than MT4: I like to view the market through different moments in time and MT5 offers a higher number of timeframes than MT4. For example on the Hour time frame, MT5 has 1,2,3,4,6,8,12 hours while MT4 has just 1 & 4 hours only.

On the minute time frame, MT5 has 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20 & 30 minutes while MT4 has just 1,5,15 & 30 minutes.

2. Wider Range of Instruments to Trade: most brokers don't offer stock, options & futures CFDs on MT4 but they all offer them on MT5.

3. MT5 comes with an inbuilt Economic Calendar: this is another feature I appreciate on MT5 because I can easily check when economic data will be released without having to leave the trading environment. Some brokers like Tickmill go a step further to insert economic calendar news release dates on the charts so you don't forget an important news event is coming.

MT5 takes the crown for me, because it has more pending order types.

Placing orders in advance is a very important part of my trading strategy so while MT4 only offers 4 pending orders types, MT5 offers 6 pending order types and this makes a whole lot of difference.

While both MT4 & MT5 have Buy Limit, Sell Limit, Buy Stop & Sell Stop orders, MT5 was equipped with two additional pending orders: Buy Stop Limit, & Sell Stop Limit.

MT4 cannot show you Trade History directly on the charts while MT5 can, and this is a big disadvantage of MT4. So, MT5 is my clear winner.

Purely from the point of view of charting library, both MT4 & MT5 in my opinion are not as good as Tradingview.

I use the broker's platform (it can be anything, MT4 or MT5 or proprietary) for placing orders only, not for charting.

But if you have to make a direct comparison between MT4 & MT5:
a. You can find higher number of instruments on a broker's MT5 platform like stock CFDs. But it necessarily does not make it better.

b. One good thing about MT5 is that you can code EAs & indicators in Python, while you have to write it in MQL4 in MT4.

It is much easier to write your own scripts in MT5 & run it on a server, compared to MT4. Not that you cannot do it on MT4, but it's just much easier to do it in Python, there are more libraries & help compared to MQL4.

MT5 is better because it is an updated version of MT4 and it corrects all the short comings of MT4

I agree with @Karbin, MetaTrader as a whole is outdated and TradingView is the future. Left to me, I think TradingView is first and cTrader is secind best and MetaTrader is last

You make fair points, and I largely agree with your assessment.

On the charting front, TradingView is objectively superior, better UI, more drawing tools, cleaner layouts, multi-timeframe analysis, and a massive community sharing ideas and indicators. There's really no debate there. Using the broker platform purely for order execution is a practical and smart workflow many professional traders follow.

On the MT4 vs MT5 comparison, your points are valid, but I'd push back slightly on the Python angle because it's a bit nuanced.

MT5 does support Python, but primarily through the MetaTrader5 Python library, which is used for external scripting, connecting to the terminal from outside, pulling data, sending orders programmatically.

The native in terminal EAs and indicators on MT5 still run in MQL5, not Python. So the coding environment inside the platform is MQL5, which is actually quite powerful but still a proprietary language.

The real advantage you're describing, running scripts on a server in Python is more about algo trading via API, where MT5's Python library genuinely shines compared to MT4's more limited options. That's a legitimate and meaningful difference, especially for anyone building systematic strategies.

So to summarize your comparison honestly:

MT5 wins on instrument availability and Python-based external automation

MT4 wins on nothing objectively at this point, it's largely legacy

Neither wins on charting, TradingView is the right tool for that job

Your workflow of separating charting from execution is arguably the most rational approach available to retail traders today.

TradingView charting is extraordinary

It's also detailed