Contributor, Benzinga
April 25, 2024

Trading forex safely via an online forex broker generally requires a secure and uninterrupted connection to the Internet since the forex market stays open 24 hours a day throughout the trading week.

The security of staying online during trading hours is of utmost importance to many traders. Installing your forex trading platform on a good virtual private server (VPS) can keep it online and operable even if your personal computer, power or Internet connection go down unexpectedly. 

If you’ve actively traded currencies before, you probably know how vital maintaining reliable market access can be, especially if you are an algorithmic trader. Keep reading as Benzinga reviews some of the best forex VPS providers around so you can evaluate which forex VPS would be best for your currency trading business. 

Quick Look: Best VPS Options for Forex Trading

  • Best for All Forex Trading: ForexVPS.net
  • Best for MetaTrader 4 Users: MetaTrader VPS
  • Best for Trading Through U.S.-Based Brokers: Cloudzy
  • Best for Affordable VPS Access: Cheap Forex VPS
  • Best for Windows Servers: InterServer VPS
  • Best for High-Frequency Traders (HFT): UltraFX VPS
Disclosure: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 69% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Best Forex VPS Options

Below you can find Benzinga’s picks for the top VPS providers for forex traders.

1. Best for All Forex Trading: ForexVPS.net

ForexVPS.net is Benzinga’s top choice for all-around forex trading because it offers the most locations worldwide and a mere 1 ms latency for forex trade executions.

ForexVPS.net has a reputation for offering the lowest latency worldwide among forex VPS providers. With auto-startup options for several forex trading platforms, ForexVPS.net has no shared resources and provides 24/7 customer support.

Pricing

  • Basic: For $30 a month you receive 2 GB RAM, 1 Core CPU, 60 GB SSD disk and a dedicated IP address; it is available for Windows 2012/22.
  • Basic+: For $34 a month, the Basic+ plan provides 2.5 GB RAM, 2 Cores CPU, 80 GB SSD disk and a dedicated IP address. The plan is available for Windows 2012/15/19/22. 
  • Standard: For a $51 monthly charge, you’ll receive 4 GB RAM, 2 Cores CPU, 90 GB SSD disk and a dedicated IP address. This plan is available for Windows 2012/16/19/22.
  • High Frequency: For a $59 monthly fee, you receive 3 GB RAM, 1 Core CPU, 70 GB SSD disk and a dedicated IP address. This plan is available for Windows 2012/16/19.  

Pros

  • Dedicated IP address
  • Automatic backups
  • Up to 256 GB RAM
  • Redundancy
  • 24/7 customer support
  • Discounts for longer billing cycles
  • Unlimited bandwidth with all plans 
  • 100% uptime guaranteed on VPS servers
  • 3 different service plans 
  • VPS hosting in 13 major data centers in Europe, North America, Australia and Asia
  • Seasonal promotional discount

Cons

  • Somewhat expensive 
  • Website only in English

2. Best for MetaTrader 4 Users: MetaTrader VPS

The MetaTrader 4 and 5 (MT4/5) trading platforms remain the most popular software for online retail forex trading. In addition to offering excellent technical analysis and charting resources, the platforms let you run expert advisor (EA) software that essentially automates trading and/or market analysis for you. MetaTrader developer MetaQuotes offers MetaTrader VPS which is an excellent VPS choice for MetaTrader users.

Pricing

  • MetaTrader VPS offers several plans starting with the Basic plan, which costs just $15 per month. The Popular plan has a cost of $14 per month for 3 months, while the Trader plan offers 6 months at $13 per month. Finally, the Business plan gives you 12 months for $12.80 per month. 

Pros

  • 24-hour uptime 
  • Up to 3 GB of allocated RAM
  • Unlimited number of vCPU cores on demand
  • Up to 16 GB of hard disk space
  • Access to the open MQL5.community features
  • No need to install trading software if you’re using the MT4/5 platforms
  • Support for MT4/5 EAs
  • Minimum setup requirements
  • Low monthly price
  • Flexible on-demand resource allocation

Cons

  • Mac OS support only available via the Wine emulation software 
  • Trading platforms other than MT4/5 must be installed 

3. Best for Trading Through U.S.-Based Brokers: Cloudzy

Cloudzy offers precision-engineered forex VPS plans from 15 strategic locations in 11 U.S. cities, as well as in London, Frankfurt and Singapore.

Forex traders that use U.S.-based forex brokers get the most from this VPS service. Having its base and 11 of its data centers located in the U.S. gives this VPS service a clear advantage for U.S. traders and those who live outside the U.S. but trade through a U.S.-based broker.

Pricing

  1. Beginner: This plan, which is the most affordable, costs $7.95 per month. The plan provides you with 2 vCPUs, 2 GB of memory, 30 GB of NVMe storage and 3 TB of bandwidth. 
  2. Beginner II: The second plan, which offers the best value, costs $14.95 per month and gives you 2 vCPUs, 4 GB of memory, 60 GB of NVMe/SSD storage and 5 TB of bandwidth. 
  3. Business: This plan costs $29.95 per month and suits larger traders. The plan allows for 4 vCPUs, 8 GB of memory, 140 GB of NVMe/SSD storage and 7 TB of bandwidth. 
  4. Entrepreneurial: For a cost of $54.95 per month, the Entrepreneurial plan gives you 6 vCPUs, 16 GB of memory, 250 GB of NVEm/SSD storage and 10 TB of bandwidth. 
  5. Best Performance: The first of the SuperTrader plans, the Best Performance plan costs $54.95per month and gives you access to 6 vCPUs, 16 GB of RAM, 250 GB of NVEm/SSD storage and 10 TB of bandwidth. 
  6. Premium Strength: For $129.95 per month the Premium Strength plan lets you have up to 8 vCPUs, 32 GB of memory, 400 GB of NVMe/SSD storage and 12 TB of bandwidth. 
  7. Forex VPS 64GB: The best value of the SuperTrader plans, the 64GB plan costs $275 per month and allows for 12 vCPUs, 64 GB of memory, 800 GB NVMe/SSD storage and 15 TB of bandwidth. All plans have a 1 Gbps connection. 

Pros

  • 7-day money-back guarantee 
  • MetaTrader 4 and 5 support  
  • Trader and SuperTrader plans 
  • Custom VPS services 
  • 2 to 64 GB of memory 
  • Up to 12 virtual CPUs
  • As much as 15 TB of bandwidth
  • 1 Gbps connection

Cons

  • Platforms other than MT4 and MT5 require custom installation 

4. Best for Affordable VPS Access: Cheap Forex VPS

If you’re just starting out or have to work with limited financial resources, then you’ll want to consider Cheap Forex VPS. This provider offers some of the most affordable VPS plans for forex traders. Cheap Forex VPS offers four different plans starting at just $3.73 per month and might be a good fit if you’re looking for an inexpensive VPS plan.

Traders looking for affordable VPS access should check out Cheap Forex VPS. Starting at less than $4 per month, this VPS provider can reduce your trading costs if you need to use a VPS.

Pricing

  1. Lite: This plan costs $3.73 per month, and you get a 12 GB SSD drive, a 384 Mhz - 2000 Mhz vCPU, 512 MB to 1024 MB of RAM, and a 1 to 2 terminal count. 
  2. Basic: The Basic plan costs $6.19 per month and gives you a 15 GB SSD drive, a 768 Mhz to 3400 Mhz vCPU, and 750 MB to 1500 MB of RAM. 
  3. Deluxe: For $11.99 per month, the Deluxe plan offers a 20 GB SSD drive, a 1536 Mhz to 6000 Mhz vCPU and 1024 MB to 2048 MB of RAM. 
  4. Ultra: This plan costs $20.99 per month and includes a 40 GB SSD drive, a 3000 Mhz to 6000 Mhz vCPU, and 2048 MB to 4096 MB of RAM.  

Pros

  • Unlimited bandwidth 
  • Premium support
  • Datacenters in Europe and the U.S. 
  • 99.99% uptime
  • Dedicated IP address for each trader 
  • 5-day money-back guarantee
  • Hyper-V virtualization platform
  • Full MetaTrader support 

Cons

  • Limited terminal count 
  • 2 to 4 GB RAM limit

5. Best for Windows Servers: InterServer VPS

InterServer VPS offers great VPS plans for Windows users starting at only $10 per month. If your hosting needs grow, you can conveniently add slices to your VPS plan for $10 per slice, so the number of slices in your plan will determine your monthly fee. For example, if your plan includes 10 slices, then your monthly bill would be $100.

Pricing

  • Windows hosting starts at $10 per month with each additional slice costing an additional $10 up to $160 per month. Each slice you pay for increases the number of CPU cores and RAM allocation up to 32 GB for 16 slices. Bandwidth transfer rates start at 2 TB and range up to 32 TB for 16 slices. 

Pros

  • 24/7/365 Customer support 
  • U.S.-based datacenters  
  • Ability to run multiple MT4/5 platforms at high speed 
  • Affordable plans
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
  • Flexible resources 
  • Plesk control panel
  • High-end security 
  • Run Windows remote server from any location

Cons

  • Only four data centers, all located in the U.S.
  • No free domain with the plan

6. Best for High-Frequency Traders (HFT): UltraFX VPS

Catering primarily to algorithmic forex traders, U.K.-based UltraFX VPS offers access to U.K. and U.S. networks and trading venues. These venues include major liquidity providers and Interbank dealing servers. UltraFX VPS features ultra-low latency trading, with less than 300 nanosecond latency seen on its own high-frequency trading (HFT) network.

This platform is a great option for professional traders, investment banks, trading firms and hedge funds involved in HFT and algorithmic trading.

Pricing

  1. Economic VPS (LD4): The Economic VPS costs 20 GBP per month + value-added tax (VAT). With this plan, you’ll get access to the Equinix LD4 Data Center in the U.K., 2.2 to 2.5 GHz CPU clock frequency, 2 VCPU Core, 2 GB memory and 30 GB of solid-state drive (SSD) storage. Packages cost 55 GBP for 3 months and 109 GBP for 6 months. You can also add an additional IP address for 15 GBP per month.    
  2. Premium VPS Packages: With the Premium Packages, which start at 48 GBP per month. 
  3. HFT VPS Packages: Starting at 75 GBP, the HFT VPS Packages for Equinix LD4 and Equinix NY4 provide ultra-low latency and additional memory and storage. 
  4. HFT Dedicated Servers: For hedge funds, banks and high-net-worth traders, these VPS plans start at 750 GBP per month.

Pros

  • Cross-connect to liquidity providers 
  • Private internet channels for order executions 
  • Five HFT dedicated servers
  • Three premium plans with Tier 1 virtualization technology
  • Customized servers for HFT
  • Access to Equinix LD4 and Equinix NY4 data centers 
  • Dedicated servers 
  • Ultra-low latency

Cons

  •  Too expensive for most retail traders

What is a VPS?

A VPS is a remote computer you can install and run your forex trading software on. Many prudent currency traders use a VPS as part of their risk management strategy, especially if they use automated trading software that requires a fast and stable internet connection.

Using a VPS as a forex trader helps you avoid potentially costly market connectivity losses from a computer system failure or power or internet outages. Losing your connection to the market means you cannot initiate or close out trades, which can leave you with expensive losses or missed profits.

How Does Forex VPS Work?

A forex VPS works like a cloud-based desktop personal computer. A suitable VPS will typically host a compatible operating system that you can control remotely from a connected device.

This process works a bit like a website hosting server you might be familiar with that lets you store your website information remotely. The main difference with a VPS is that you also get the ability to install and run software programs independently just as if they were located on your own computer.

In practice, several VPSs will typically operate on a single high-powered computer. Virtual servers are all allocated specific amounts of the hosting computer’s CPU power, RAM, internet bandwidth and hard disk space so that you get what you signed up for each month. A virtual CPU (VCPU or vCPU) represents a portion of a physical CPU assigned to a virtual machine (VM).

Forex VPS services are typically offered by providers on a monthly subscription basis. Subscribing to such a service gives you access to a VPS where you can install your trading software and save your data remotely.

What to Consider with a Forex VPS

The ideal VPS provider for your forex trading needs will depend on what you need to do and how much you can afford to pay each month. If you need to store large amounts of market data or analytical results, for example, then you probably will look for a reasonably-priced hosting plan with a decent amount of storage.

Furthermore,if you need very quick trade analysis or executions to operate your forex trading strategy, then you might require a VPS provider that offers ultra-fast internet speeds and powerful dedicated CPU cores and RAM to run your trading software.

Some additional considerations to take into account when selecting a forex VPS service are listed below.

Reduced Latency

A major reason that many forex traders turn to a VPS is to reduce their latency when trading since latency affects how quickly your trades are executed. Latency is the amount of time it takes to confirm a trade has been executed in the market after order entry.

While latency is typically measured in milliseconds or even nanoseconds, such a small time frame can still make a substantial difference to your profitability when trading in a volatile market. Since you generally want the lowest latency possible, you should look for a VPS provider with a fast internet connection that has servers located as close to your chosen online forex broker as possible.

Since you often cannot do much to improve your internet connectivity at home without incurring a substantial additional monthly cost, using a VPS to trade forex can be a more economical way to reduce latency and speed up forex order executions.

Security

You will generally want to choose a VPS provider that offers a high level of security to protect your personal data and software since your trading platform will typically have access to your margin deposit money.

VPS hosting services typically implement similar security measures to other types of web-based hosting services. At a basic minimum, you should expect a server firewall, frequent operating system and trading software backups, regular security software updates and patches, DDoS protection, server hardening and vulnerability scans to be in place at any VPS provider suitable to host your forex trading business.

A VPS can also serve to protect your forex trading business against connectivity issues that arise if your power or internet service provider goes down without notice. You can just keep on trading using your VPS without experiencing unexpected losses or missed trading opportunities.

Easy and Optimized Operating System

You’ll want to choose a VPS with an easy-to-use and optimized operating system suitable for forex trading. Also, since forex traders can use different operating systems, make sure your chosen VPS provider supports the one you prefer.

Because Windows for servers involves additional licensing fees, using a Windows-based VPS server will usually cost more than a Linux-based server that has no operating system licensing expenses associated with it.

Stable Platform with a Fast Connection

Ideally, you will want a VPS that is stable and well-maintained by its host to keep downtime to an absolute minimum. Most VPS providers have data centers located in multiple places around the globe, so you can usually select one near you or your chosen online broker that will speed up your access to it.

If a VPS provider offers a very fast internet connection, your forex trades will be less subject to the risk of requotes. Requotes occur when you are unable to deal on a quote made via your trading platform because the market has moved, so your broker needs to provide an updated quotation. That risk alone can cost you more each month than a VPS subscription.

Customer Service

Picking a VPS that is backed by high-quality customer service is important. Any good VPS provider should offer basic technical support, including prompt replies to support questions and the ability to fix technical issues as they arise.

Another service option to consider is whether you want a generally cheaper unmanaged VPS server that you can take full control of or a typically more expensive managed VPS service where you do not need to maintain and update the server’s software.

Complementary Programs

Some VPS providers offer complementary programs to provide their clients with a better user experience. For example, helpful VPS services include performing data backups and monitoring servers. Remember that you will also need to have the ability to use your chosen forex trading platform software, such as MetaTrader 4 or 5.

Should All Forex Traders Use a VPS?

Not every forex trader needs to use a VPS. Some traders do not take large enough risks or trade often enough to justify the cost of a VPS. Other traders might already have a fast and reliable internet connection along with the discipline to place stop loss and take profit orders specifying where to exit every trading position they enter into just in case they get thrown offline.

In contrast, many algorithmic forex traders stand to benefit from having a VPS to assure virtually constant uptime for their forex trading platforms. Traders who use EAs with MT4/5 often use a forex VPS server because they need to keep their EAs trading at top execution speeds and without interruptions to achieve the best results.

Since one untimely computer failure, loss of power or internet disconnection could cost you far more than the quite reasonable monthly cost of a basic VPS, it would seem prudent for most forex traders serious about the endeavor to invest in a VPS as a form of risk management.

Boost your Trading with the Best Forex VPS

VPS hosting providers typically describe their service packages by specifying the latency, hard disk storage space, amount of random access memory (RAM), central processing unit (CPU) cores or virtual CPU (vCPU) cores, internet bandwidth and number of data centers you can utilize. When comparing providers and packages, you generally want less latency and more of the other features.

Some VPS providers sweeten their deals by offering faster solid-state drives (SSDs), use of the non-volatile memory express (NVMe) protocol that improves disk access speed, quality customer service, a dedicated Internet Protocol (IP) address, pre-installed trading software and support for multiple operating systems.

As a forex trader, you have many excellent choices with respect to VPS providers. In general, the best forex VPS server for forex trading in your case will be the one that most suits your trading style, budget, operating system and security needs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q

Do you need a VPS for MT4?

A

No, a VPS is not absolutely necessary when using MT4. However, a VPS is highly recommended when using automated algorithms like MT4’s expert advisors (EAs) to assure constant trading access and fast trade execution.

Q

Do I need a VPS for forex trading?

A

No, although a VPS can help assure constant trading access which can prevent losses due to power, Internet or computer outages. A VPS can also be especially helpful if you are running automated trading algorithms and/or need very fast trade executions.

Q

How much is a VPS for MT4?

A

A VPS is a paid service that has an average cost of around $20 per month and a cost range of between $3 and $60 a month depending on the VPS provider and services you select.

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Jay and Julie Hawk

About Jay and Julie Hawk

Jay and Julie Hawk are the married co-founders of TheFXperts, a provider of financial writing services particularly renowned for its coverage of forex-related topics. With over 40 years of collective trading expertise and more than 15 years of collaborative writing experience, the Hawks specialize in crafting insightful financial content on trading strategies, market analysis and online trading for a broad audience. While their prolific writing career includes seven books and contributions to numerous financial websites and newswires, much of their recent work was published at Benzinga.