to mt4 or not to mt4

autotrading is best
linux is secure
mt4 on wine + linux is possible
yet all these other platforms are windows
A java 'backtesting' solution on linux is still missing unless you look at CEP like Progress or streambase.
A java 'trading' solution however, once your system is designed is possible.
ie.
saw this the spreads seem not too too bad.
But the spreads are lazy - does anyone know the best way to get tight spreads using java?

I wonder if either these tight mt4 spreads are because of mini 0.10 and micro 0.01 trading (vs) maybe hotspot are widening spread and taking a cut.

Well 9 mbps is pretty big, i think i'm on 12 with my ISP. Sounds like a coloc solution.

It would almost be worth the effort to get coloc and develop this just to see what real bank data looks like without micro and mini distortion.

see HotspotITCH

reference at the end here because otherwise the posting gets truncated

https://www.myfxbook.com/reviews/trading-platforms/19,1
https://www.hotspotfx.com/technology/apifix.jsp
https://www.hotspotfx.com/marketData/liveStreamingMarketData.jsp

MT4 is good because the are lots of brokers, some good and even more bad ;)
Its pretty easy to connect Java to MT4 client terminal using sockets.
You can have one Windows VPS for that and rest of your system as you like.
You can talk directly to MT4 servers using Delphi or .NET (without MT4 client terminal) but this still requires one Windows box.
FIX API offers native Java connectivity but your choice of brokers get narrowed, there are still some good brokers (don't know many).
Have you checked asirikuy site? They have ANSI C backtesting and order execution platform that seems really interesting.

My spread is about 0.5-0.9 + 0.5 pip commission for EURUSD for best parts of the day. Spread goes to the liquidity provider and commission to my broker. My strategy doesn't depend on spread because I've never tried scalping and I trade always when spread is under 3 pips.

I've chosen C# + MT4, Java + MT4 will be as good. This will be enough for me until I have time and enough profits to move to MT4 Server API or FIX API which ever I then decide to choose. It might be good to choose a MT4 broker that provides FIX API as well so you don't have to change broker later.

Recently MetaQuotes has started the beta-testing of new update for MT4. After MT5 didn't get a lot of popularity, they've simply decided to take all the best features from it and drag them to MT4 with saving all the previous functions of the last one. They were actually managed to create a good product.
Our company have been among the first ones who tested the new MT4 version. You can read our exclusive review on our blog https://www.forexeasystems.com/blog/new-mt4-features-you-will-love