Stay inside MetaTrader, or practice on a separate Windows desk

A soft4fx alternative is the wrong search if what you want is a better plugin. Soft4FX is the plugin. It runs inside MetaTrader 4 and 5, on Windows, and the license is tied to the account number, not to the PC.

The useful question is where the chart should live.

Three checks before you switch

1. If your templates, indicators, and order habits already live in MetaTrader, stay. That is the thing Soft4FX is good at, and we do not copy it. 2. If you want one payment and their tick history in that same terminal, their license is built for that. Ours is a seat, billed while you keep it. 3. If you want practice that does not require a broker terminal, that is the only job of this desk. It is not a broker, and it does not place live orders.

What the public prices say

Checked on the Soft4FX pricing page on 2026-09-23. The free demo is $0, with all features, unlimited time, and two hard limits: 5 trades per simulation and 2 sample years, and no save or load. The lifetime license is $109 plus tax, for 1 user and at most 2 MetaTrader accounts at the same time, MT4 and MT5 included, one payment, updates included, and their tick history included (they state 10–20 years). Refunds are 14 days. It does not run on Mac except inside a virtual machine. It is not bound to the hardware.

BarionQuant, from the price list frozen on 2026-09-14: Free $0, Standard $15/mo or $150/yr, Pro $29/mo or $290/yr. Free practice is EURUSD. The handbook comes with the seat. There is no separate course SKU. The current public build is Windows only.

We lose these cells on purpose. No Mac build. No 20-year official tick pack. No replay in the browser. No MetaTrader indicators.

What you get if you leave

You get a Windows training window and a seat. The screenshot below is that window on EURUSD M15. The buy and sell controls on it are simulated practice tickets. They are not an order sent to a broker.

Who should skip this page

Stay on Soft4FX if you need the MetaTrader chart, their included tick archive, or a single lifetime payment. Skip us if you need Mac, a browser, or a 20-year official tick pack. The boundary — what this desk will not do — is on the risk page at /en/legal/risk.

If the three checks above point at a separate desk, the next step is the Windows download, then a Free EURUSD session. Pricing is the other link, for when you want more than one symbol.