MetaTrader Virtual Hosting: What Migration Actually Moves

A trader who wants an Expert Advisor running while the desktop machine is asleep has two genuinely different things to choose between, and both get called a VPS. One is a Windows computer rented from a hosting company. The other is rented from inside MetaTrader itself, and it is not a computer you log into at all.

The second one is what this page covers, and specifically what happens the moment you press synchronise.

What Virtual Hosting Is, and Why It Is Not a Rented VPS

MetaQuotes documents virtual hosting as a service that keeps the trading platform running around the clock, rented for a specific trading account from within the platform and paid for through an MQL5.community account named in the platform settings.

That description sounds like a hosting product, and the vocabulary encourages the comparison. The operative difference is not price or uptime. It is that there is no machine on the other end that you can look at.

A rented server is a computer: you connect to a desktop, install MetaTrader yourself and can run other software beside it. So is the desktop in front of you, whichever operating system it runs, and MetaTrader on Linux is installed into a compatibility layer on that machine and stops when the machine does. The virtual platform is populated only by copying your local environment onto it, and you read its behaviour out of logs rather than off a screen.

One convenience does follow from the service being sold inside the platform, since MetaQuotes states you can pick the server closest to your broker. Everything about renting a forex VPS as a machine sits on that page rather than this one.

Migration Goes One Way and Only One Way

Migration takes whatever your terminal has running at that moment and reproduces it on the virtual side, and MetaQuotes is explicit that the traffic never flows in reverse. The local platform is the source and the virtual one is the copy.

The interface advertises neither of the two results that follow. Anything you change locally after synchronising stays local until you synchronise again, so a tweaked input parameter does not reach the running robot on its own.

And nothing on the virtual side can be pulled back down. There is no export, no reverse sync and no editing in place: changing what runs up there means rebuilding the environment locally and sending it again.

Migration is therefore not a one-off setup step. It runs every time you synchronise, which makes it the ordinary mechanism for changing the programs, charts and subscription settings on the virtual platform.

The Exact Contents of a Synchronisation, Item by Item

What travels is narrower than most traders expect, and the exclusions are specific rather than general. The one that costs people the most is the chart with no Expert Advisor on it.

Such a chart is skipped during synchronisation, and it is skipped even when custom indicators are running on it. A trader relying on that indicator for alerts will find nothing running afterwards.

MetaQuotes gives the workaround directly: put the indicator on a chart that also carries an Expert Advisor doing nothing, which the MQL5 Wizard in MetaEditor generates from its Expert Advisor template. The stated reason is that indicators should migrate deliberately rather than by accident.

Scripts are a harder exclusion, carried across not at all, and an endless loop running at the moment of synchronisation does not change that. Charts on non-standard timeframes or symbols are also left behind.

That last row is a real choice rather than a detail. The platform offers a complete migration, one that moves programs without signal subscription settings, and one that moves signal settings alone, so a trader running several expert advisors on one account can send the robots without disturbing a subscription.

The Auto-Trading Switch Flips in Both Directions

This is the part with a live account attached to it. On the virtual platform, automated trading is always permitted, and MetaQuotes states that this holds regardless of the local platform setting and of the properties of the Expert Advisor itself.

The practical reading is blunt. Any robot with trading functions running when you synchronise can place trades afterwards, so a half-finished Expert Advisor left on a chart is not dormant simply because auto trading is off locally.

The same mechanism protects you in the other direction. When Expert Advisors are transferred, automated trading is switched off locally, so two platforms connected to one account cannot both trade through the same robot.

Signal copying is handled identically. If the account has an active subscription with copying allowed, that permission is disabled locally during migration, and copying is turned on for you on the virtual side once migration finishes. Both events are written to the log, which is worth reading through the journal and experts logs.

Paid Market Products and the Activation You Do Not Spend

Anyone who has paid for an Expert Advisor knows that activations are finite and that moving software between machines consumes them. Migration is treated as a special case.

Products bought from the MQL5 Market and launched on a chart are carried across with everything else. They remain completely functional afterwards, and MetaQuotes states that the number of available activations is not reduced by the move.

The wording of the exemption is narrow and worth reading closely: licensing a purchased product without consuming an available activation is provided for the virtual platform specifically. Nothing in that sentence extends the exemption to any other kind of server, so a purchased robot moved onto a machine you rent yourself is an ordinary installation and follows the ordinary rules.

The DLL Rule That Settles the Choice For Some Traders

Two restrictions are absolute, and for some setups they end the discussion before any comparison of price or latency begins.

The first is that a program running on the virtual platform may not call a DLL. There is no permission to grant and no setting to change, so an Expert Advisor built around an external library cannot be hosted this way at all.

The second is authentication. An account that uses a one-time password cannot be used with the service, because a platform meant to run unattended cannot stop and ask a human for a code every time it reconnects.

Neither of these is a drawback to weigh against a benefit. Each is a yes-or-no condition, and either one on its own moves you to a rented machine.

What to Set Before You Synchronise, Not After

Because the virtual platform has no interface, there is no afterwards in which to correct something. Everything the environment needs has to be right at the moment you press synchronise.

The one that catches programmers is WebRequest. If a program sends HTTP requests, both the permission and the full list of trusted addresses have to be entered on the Expert Advisors tab beforehand, since there is no dialogue on the virtual side to approve a new one.

Input parameters deserve a second look for the same reason, because a wrong value goes up with the robot. Signal copying additionally needs the MQL5.community login and password on the Community tab, and any Expert Advisor that mails or uploads results needs its email and FTP settings filled in first.

Two settings shape the load. Trimming Market Watch to the symbols your robots use reduces tick traffic, and the Max bars in chart value in the Charts tab caps how much history a wasteful indicator recalculates, against an automatic download of up to 500,000 bars per chart. Colour schemes are irrelevant, unlike the settings that templates and profiles store locally.

One setting is decided for you: positions are synchronised without confirmations, permanently, because no interface exists in which a confirmation could be shown.

Who Should Rent a Real VPS Instead

Three situations point away from the terminal-native service, and all three come out of the restrictions above rather than from any judgement about quality.

An Expert Advisor that calls a DLL and an account secured with a one-time password are both hard exclusions. The third is broader: if your setup depends on scripts, on other software beside the platform, or on seeing a desktop and intervening, then what you need is a machine.

Everything after that decision belongs elsewhere. Comparing providers, judging uptime commitments, how close the data centre sits to your broker and installing the platform once you have the server are covered on the forex VPS page, and a trader still choosing a platform version may want the differences between MT4 and MT5 first.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is MetaTrader virtual hosting?

It is a MetaQuotes service that keeps a trading platform running continuously for one trading account, rented from inside the platform and paid for through an MQL5.community account. It exists so that Expert Advisors and signal copying keep working when your own computer is off.

Is virtual hosting the same as a VPS?

No. A rented VPS is a machine you connect to, install MetaTrader on and can use for other software. The virtual platform has no user interface at all: you fill it by copying your local environment to it and observe it through its logs.

Does migration move my custom indicators?

Only if the indicator sits on a chart that also carries an Expert Advisor. A chart with indicators and no Expert Advisor is ignored during synchronisation, and MetaQuotes suggests running the indicator alongside an Expert Advisor generated from the MQL5 Wizard template if you want it moved.

Will my Expert Advisor start trading by itself after migration?

It can. Automated trading is always permitted on the virtual platform whatever the local setting or the robot’s own properties say, so any Expert Advisor with trading functions that was running at synchronisation can trade there afterwards.

Do I lose an activation when I move a purchased Expert Advisor?

No. Products bought from the MQL5 Market are carried across, stay fully functional, and the count of available activations is not reduced. MetaQuotes describes that licensing exemption as applying to the virtual platform, so do not assume it covers a server you rent elsewhere.