ATC and MBT are ECN brokers so they say that both testing and live feeds are identical. So I'm expecting the commission and swaps on trades are reflected in testing as if it was on live. But those are not real trades so order price closures will vary with live and testing as you say. But not too much I hope? So the lower the spreads the better?

I'm 'hoping' when I got live my test results won't vary too much with testing.

For spread comparison I found this site useful, although it doesn't list all the brokers:
http://www.fxintel.com/live/

The mixed account uses: PipsMiner SE, ForexShocker and ForeNuke (Forgot to mention).

I find this site useful for selecting new robots to test: http://forexrobotstest.com/

My MD risk level is set to 0.3.

It's mentioned in the 'about' link on the top right of the page.

They use broker APIs to connect to their feeds and get the bids/asks to calculate the spreads. That would probably explain why not all brokers are there if they don't provide this data access. If you take ATC and IamFX Brokers as an example, they say that their feeds for live and demo accounts are provided by the same data source. They also provide raw bank spreads and not altered by the brokers, so the quotes 'should' be identical.

It's only on order executions that demo and live vary because your close/buy orders in demo don't influence the market.

Unless your going to be making huge lot orders which can dramatically change market direction like the institutional market makers I suspect demo v live trading won't be too different? So moving from demo to live on a good broker shouldn't give you overly different results.

PipCollector posted:
    
First of all, using the MetaTrader mql language isn't exactly an API to a broker. I can set it up in 30 minutes and just show you the spreads.



Who said anything about mql as a broker API? It's an API to MetaTrader not brokers.
This is a broker API - http://fxtrade.oanda.com/forex_trading/fxtrade/api_trading

Nothing to do with MQL or MetaTrader at all.

<quote=PipCollector>

Secondly, I can't agree with your statement 'I suspect demo v live trading won't be too different?' at all. A broker can show whatever spreads he wants on the demo to attract clients, but once you open a real account you see the real deal.



Of course, and a lot do. ATC and Iamfx state that they provide unaltered raw spreads so their unique selling point is that very fact that they do not alter the spreads. So if anyone is intending to sign up to them they better be making sure to read the terms and conditions that states that.

People seem to be very happy with these brokers, particularly ATC both on live and demo.

Recently, it seems that FXDD also implemented anti-MD measures. Only ITFX executes MD trades like a clockwork...

I haven't got a single MD trade with Alpari UK for weeks now. The future of MD depends on NDD brokers only... Assuming that the new CFTC proposals of 10:1 margin will not get passed.

On most of days I get 'Safe spread limit exceeded' on Alpari UK and MD does not show any activity during it's trading hours. As to FXDD, I have no idea how they can influence MD as they have fixed spread on EUR/USD. The only thing that I know is that MD trades with ITFX almost each day, but it stopped for a while with FXDD.