One is a $109 plugin that lives inside MetaTrader and uses your broker's own data. The other is a browser platform you subscribe to that runs anywhere. The setup burden differs by roughly double, the cost model differs entirely, and only one of them lets you rehearse on the exact data you will trade against.
Walked through each vendor's actual flow on 17 August 2026, counting every discrete action before a first manual practice trade.
| Tool | Steps | What they are |
|---|---|---|
| TradingView | ~6 | Site → sign up → verify email → open chart → find replay → discover intraday needs a paid plan |
| Soft4FX | ~12 | Install MetaTrader → broker demo account → verify → log in → download history → buy Soft4FX → download → install plugin → licence → attach to chart → configure → start |
| Year 1 | Year 3 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soft4FX | $109 + tax | $109 + tax | $109 + tax |
| TradingView (paid tier) | Annual sub | 3× annual | 5× annual |
Soft4FX is a one-time purchase and stays flat forever. TradingView is a subscription that never stops — though you are also renting far more than replay: charting, alerts, screeners, Pine Script and the community.
A correction worth carrying: Soft4FX is still widely quoted at "$97, MT4 only". On the vendor's own pricing page it is $109 plus tax and covers both MT4 and MT5. The platform detail matters if you plan to move to MT5, since the licence follows you at no extra cost.
This is the strongest argument for Soft4FX and it is almost never made.
Soft4FX replays your broker's own history, inside the terminal you place live trades through. Your practice data is your live data. Spread behaviour, symbol naming, session boundaries and quote precision all match what you will actually experience.
TradingView uses its own consolidated feed. It is high quality, but it is not your broker's, and the differences are real — different session close times, different weekend handling, sometimes different highs and lows on volatile days. A strategy rehearsed on one feed and traded on another has an unmeasured discrepancy baked in.
The counter-argument is equally real: broker history is often shallow. Many brokers hold far less intraday depth than you would want, and quality varies. Soft4FX inherits whatever your broker gives it, so its data ceiling is set by someone else.
| Soft4FX | TradingView | |
|---|---|---|
| Price model | $109 + tax once | Subscription |
| Manual bar-by-bar trading | Yes | Yes — paid tiers only |
| Free tier usable for intraday | Trial | No |
| Requires MetaTrader | Yes | No |
| Install required | Yes | No |
| Setup steps | ~12 | ~6 |
| Data source | Your broker | TradingView feed |
| Matches your live conditions | Yes | No |
| History depth | Broker-dependent | ~6mo M1 → all stored |
| Charting quality | MetaTrader | Best in class |
| Indicators & scripting | MQL ecosystem | Pine Script |
| macOS / Linux / phone | No | Yes |
| MT4 and MT5 | Both included | n/a |
| You… | Choose |
|---|---|
| Already trade through MetaTrader on Windows | Soft4FX |
| Want practice data identical to your live feed | Soft4FX |
| Want to pay once and never again | Soft4FX |
| Plan to move from MT4 to MT5 later | Soft4FX — licence covers both |
| Use a Mac, Linux or want to practise on a phone | TradingView |
| Want the best charting and indicators | TradingView |
| Trade equities and crypto as well as forex | TradingView |
| Refuse to install anything | TradingView |
| Want free intraday replay | Neither — see below |
These overlap less than they appear. Soft4FX solves one specific problem — MetaTrader's missing manual testing — cheaply and permanently. TradingView is a whole analysis platform with replay included on paid tiers. If you already pay for TradingView, you have replay; if you already live in MetaTrader, $109 once is the cheaper fix.
TradingView's free plan has no intraday replay and Soft4FX has only a trial, so "free manual replay" is not available from either.
FXAbsolute provides it with no account and no install: 28,412,683 one-minute bars across 15 forex, index and crypto instruments from 2021 to 2026, replayed bar by bar with drawing tools, limit orders, an automatic trade journal and live statistics. It runs on macOS, Linux and phones like TradingView, and costs nothing like neither.
Where it genuinely loses to each: it does not use your broker's data, so it lacks Soft4FX's live-matching advantage; and its charting, indicators and instrument breadth are far behind TradingView's. It has no spread modelling at all, which matters for tight-stop strategies. It solves the manual-replay problem specifically and leaves the rest alone.
Soft4FX is better if you already use MetaTrader on Windows — it costs $109 plus tax once, covers MT4 and MT5, and replays your broker's own data so practice matches live conditions. TradingView is better if you want no install, superior charting, or need to work on macOS or a phone, but its free plan has no intraday replay.
As displayed on the vendor's pricing page on 17 August 2026, $109 plus tax as a one-time purchase covering one user and two MetaTrader accounts, with both MT4 and MT5 included. Reviews still widely quote $97 and describe it as MT4-only; both are incorrect.
Only on daily timeframes and above. The free Basic plan has no intraday bar replay at all, so it cannot be used to rehearse intraday forex. Essential provides roughly six months of one-minute depth and is the first tier suitable for that purpose.
Not natively. It requires MetaTrader on Windows, so a Mac user needs Parallels, CrossOver or Wine, and on Apple Silicon that adds cost and a performance penalty. TradingView and other browser tools run on macOS with no workaround.
Because your practice conditions then match your live conditions — spread behaviour, session boundaries, symbol naming and quote precision all align. Soft4FX replays your broker's history inside the terminal you trade through. The trade-off is that broker history is often shallow, so your data depth is set by your broker rather than by you.
Yes. FXAbsolute offers unlimited manual bar-by-bar replay free with no account, covering 28,412,683 one-minute bars across 15 instruments from 2021 to 2026. BacktestFX offers free tick data with real spreads in exchange for an account and ads. Neither Soft4FX nor TradingView provides a usable free option for intraday manual replay.
FXAbsolute replays five years of real one-minute data bar by bar — free, no account, and it runs on Mac, Linux and mobile.
Open FXAbsolute →