MQL5 is where MT4 and MT5 strategy authors already are: Signals for subscription streams, the Market for selling EAs, both built into the terminal itself. It is the default for a reason, and its weaknesses are structural. Here is the comparison an EA developer actually needs.
Distribution, at a scale nothing else in retail FX matches. The Signals service and Market are embedded in every MetaTrader terminal, providers keep 80 percent of subscription and sale revenue at published terms, and the surrounding ecosystem of forum, articles, and code base answers every technical question an EA developer has. Publishing there requires a verified real account for signals, which is a real, if minimal, honesty floor.
| Dimension | MQL5 Signals / Market | Sonar Sciences |
|---|---|---|
| Distribution today | Massive, terminal-embedded audience | Newer platform; no subscriber distribution offered today |
| Platform share | 20% of subscriptions and sales | Nothing to list or validate; the execution fee applies to your own winning trades only |
| Evidence standard | Real-account stats for signals; Market EAs sell on vendor claims and screenshots | Every result platform-computed: four years of data, costs included, out-of-sample gate |
| Buyer trust context | Community forums openly warn about curve-fit products | Evidence is the product; nothing passes without it |
| Version integrity | Vendors update products; past claims mutable | Versioned: results permanently attached to the version |
| Payouts | Published channels, with community complaints about friction in some regions | Drawn from your own prefunded wallet on your own winning trades only, never from the broker account |
Figures are MQL5's published rules as of July 2026; verify current terms directly.
Long-running public threads in MQL5's own community voice concern that many Market products are curve-fit and sold on backtest screenshots, and buyer skepticism reflects it, which suppresses trust and prices for every honest vendor on the platform. That is the trust discount, and it is structural: the platform validates identity, not strategies. Sonar Sciences's entire design answer is to move validation into the platform: results are computed by the system on four years of cross-venue data, the out-of-sample gate decides before any money is committed, and versioning makes history immutable. Smaller audience, but every number a buyer sees is one no seller could have drawn.
Keep MQL5 if immediate distribution is decisive: the audience is real and the 80 percent split on it is real. Add or choose Sonar Sciences if your EA's best feature is that it survives honest testing: the verdict is computed for you on four years of cost-inclusive data, it costs nothing, and you can run the survivors on your own broker account with the fee falling only on your own winning trades. The strongest position for a serious EA developer is the pair: MQL5 for reach, Sonar Sciences for proof.
No. Sonar Sciences does not sell EA files and does not offer any way to publish a strategy for other people to follow. Your rules run through the platform's validation, four years of data with costs, an out-of-sample gate and a ten-day live forward round, and what you get back is a versioned record and the ability to run the strategy on a broker account you connect. The strategy logic itself stays yours; what is published is the evidence and the stream, never the composition.
At published rules as of July 2026: 20 percent of subscription revenue on Signals and 20 percent commission on Market sales, with seller registration, a verified real account for signals, and platform rules on leverage and drawdown. Verify the current rules pages before publishing there.
Differentiation. The MQL5 Market's trust problem is documented in its own forums, and an honest vendor there competes against fabricated screenshots. A platform-computed, versioned validation record is the one credential that market cannot fake, and Sonar Sciences produces it at no cost to the author.
Bring one strategy you already trust. The Studio validates it against four years of real data, costs included, for free.
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