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

According to my 2010 poll, about 20% of this blog’s readers are using some kind of a Forex VPS service to host their trading platform, and some 30% are planning to use a virtual private server for trading. I am quite sure that the things have changed significantly since then as Forex traders gain better understanding of how VPS works, realize the convenience of using it, and because of the overall higher quality of the service provided by the Forex hosting companies.
Forex VPS service
Today, 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 in the world.
Recently, MetaQuotes Software Corp. has launched 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 (with some free time 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 my opinion, VPS is a nice feature if your broker does provide it, but it is hardly a worthy aspect 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/or 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, I would strongly suggest doing it.
My own experience is based on using a VPS service from LinkUpHost. My VPS is active since September 2013, and I can gladly boast that I had not had a single issue with it for 20+ months. For $22/month, I get to host three platforms with multiple expert advisors and indicators in each of them. By the way, two of the platforms use DLLs, execute external programs, and run FTP connections. Renting my own VPS was one of the best choices in my Forex trading career so far. Currently, I am not planning to switch to MetaQuotes’ virtual hosting or one of my broker’s VPS (I prefer to keep my server independent from the broker). And how about you?

What type of VPS service do you use?

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If you want to tell us more about how you automate your Forex trading using VPS or similar services, please feel free to reply to this post using the form below.

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