Rented VPS vs. MetaQuotes Virtual Hosting vs. Broker's VPS

Traders who understand well how VPS works value the advantages offered by such a setup and are either using some kind of a Forex VPS service to host their trading platform or planning to use a virtual private server for trading in the future. With time, only more people realize the convenience of using it, in part because the overall improving quality of the service provided by Forex hosting companies.

Nowadays, there are several ways for a trader to set up a trading platform for untroubled 24/7 uptime:

Conventional VPS that is provided either by a web hosting company or by a specialized Forex VPS company. In both cases, you pay a moderate monthly fee and receive a private access to a Windows PC where you can install your MetaTrader or any other platform. You can then add expert advisors, indicators, scripts, custom software, or anything else you need to streamline your trading process and to access the platform from any other PC or mobile device in the world.

MetaQuotes Software (the developer of MetaTrader trading platform) offers its own virtual hosting service as a built-in feature of the MetaTrader platform. It now appears both in MT4 and MT5. For a rather low price of $10 per month (with a free trial period available for testing), one can rent a virtual hosting directly from the platform and set up a trading account with any EAs, indicators or scripts. The obvious advantage of this service is its simplicity (everything is transferred to a virtual hosting using an easy-to-use wizard) and a very fast connection to trading servers. The disadvantage is also very significant — you do not get a fully functional Windows PC under your control, so you cannot install additional software or even use DLLs with your MQL programs. Also, the price might seem low, but you would need to rent a separate virtual hosting for each trading account, whereas normal VPS service allows installing multiple accounts simultaneously.

Some Forex brokers offer their own VPS service to live traders. Some just provide a discount, others will offer a completely free service to traders with big deposits or monthly turnover. In many cases, the broker just pays your fee at the normal VPS provider, but some brokers host VPS for customers on their own. The latter case results in a significant reduction of latency between your expert advisors and the broker's server. In general, a free VPS is a nice feature if your broker does provide it, but it is hardly an important feature to hunt for when opening a live account.

Running your own VPS server is now cheaper and more viable than it has been earlier. It can either be collocated with a professional data center or installed at home if adhering to some basic requirements for self-hosted servers. If you plan for a long-term usage of the VPS service and need custom hardware and software installed, this is probably the best choice. It offers unprecedented scalability, flexibility, security, customization, and also complete control. If your trading involves some data-heavy operations, live connections to multiple servers, proprietary software solutions, and you have enough money and expertise to set up your own Forex VPS server, it would be a sensible thing to do.

Renting a VPS is potentially one of the best choices you can make in your Forex trading career.

If you want to talk about how you automate your Forex trading using VPS or similar services, feel free to go over to our forum to discuss this topic.