Best MT5 trading journal: how to choose, with facts from each vendor

No journal is best for everyone. Here are the trade-offs for MetaTrader 5 traders, with each competitor's details read from its own pages.

We make one of the tools on this page. AI Trading Journal is ours, so we are not a neutral reviewer. Every competitor fact below was read from that company's own pages on 20 October 2026, and anything we could not read is marked 'check their site'. Prices exclude tax, change often and were copied as written, so confirm them before you buy. Nothing here is financial advice.

There is no single best MT5 trading journal, and any page that names one without saying what it is optimising for is selling something. What exists is a handful of good options that make different trade-offs: how your trades get in, where they are stored, what they cost over three years, and how much analysis you get for the money. This page sets out those trade-offs for MetaTrader 5 traders, with each competitor's details taken from its own pages, so you can pick the one that fits how you trade.

What 'best' depends on

• How the trades get in. Uploading a report by hand, connecting with an account number and investor password, installing an Expert Advisor, or reading your own terminal on your PC are four different things, with different effort and different privacy.
• Where your journal lives. On a company's servers, in your browser, or in a file on your own computer.
• What it costs over time. A monthly price looks small. Over three years it is not.
• How much analysis you need. Replay, backtesting and AI coaching are real features that some tools have and some do not.
• Where you trade and review. Windows only, any browser, a phone.
• Whether you use prop firm accounts and how many accounts you need to track.

The options at a glance

The table lists what each vendor's own pages said on 20 October 2026. Where a page did not say, the cell says so.

Sources: TradeZella pricing and MT5 integration, Tradervue MT5 page, TradesViz MT5 page and pricing, Edgewonk pricing and import page.

Three ways MT5 trades get into a journal

This is the choice that matters most, and it is usually hidden behind a feature list.

• Upload a report. You export an HTML report from the History tab and upload it. It needs no login, but it is manual, so the journal is only as current as your last upload. Tradervue's MT5 page describes this method, and TradeZella and TradesViz offer it too.
• Connect with a login. You give the service your account number, the broker server and the investor password, and its servers read the account. TradeZella and TradesViz describe this, and it keeps the journal up to date by itself. The investor password is read-only, but it is still a credential held by another company. The page on the MT5 investor password explains what it can and cannot do.
• Read your own terminal. A program on your PC reads the MT5 terminal that is already logged in. Nothing leaves your computer, but the program has to run on that computer, so it works on Windows only. This is what AI Trading Journal does.

What each costs over three years

Using the yearly-billed prices listed above, multiplied by three. Cheaper billing periods and promotions change the numbers, so treat this as a comparison of structure, not a quote.

TradesViz's free Basic plan is not in the table because it lists stocks only, so it does not cover MT5 forex or CFD trades. Cost is not value: the paid tools above do more than ours, and the next section says what.

What the higher price buys

• Replay and backtesting. TradeZella lists trade replay on its Pro and Ultra plans and backtesting on all plans, with limits that grow with the plan.
• AI features. TradeZella lists AI credits and agents on its higher plans, and TradesViz lists an AI coach and other AI tools on Pro. AI Trading Journal has no AI coach or AI analysis.
• Many brokers and platforms. The vendors above support more than MetaTrader 5. Ours supports MetaTrader 5 only.
• Use anywhere. Browser-based journals work on any computer or phone. Ours is a Windows desktop app.

Where AI Trading Journal is not the right choice

• You trade on a Mac, a phone or a platform other than MT5.
• You want replay, backtesting or an AI coach inside the journal.
• You want one login that works on every device and shows the same data everywhere.
• You trade stocks, options or futures on other platforms and want everything in one place.

If any of those is you, one of the tools in the table is probably a better fit, and our TradeZella, TradesViz, Tradervue, Edgewonk and TraderSync pages go through each comparison, including where they win.

Where it is a good fit

AI Trading Journal suits a trader who uses MetaTrader 5 on a Windows PC, wants new closed trades to appear without exporting or uploading, prefers not to give a login to a website, and would rather pay $19.99 once than a subscription. It saves one entry per closed position with notes, ratings, tags and screenshots, shows a P&L calendar and Daily, Weekly, Monthly and All time dashboards, builds an Excel report, and can keep a copy in your own Notion if you connect it. It never places or changes trades. The page on a local trading journal explains the idea, and automated trading journal covers what to check in any tool that promises to do it for you.

Choosing by type of trader

• Prop firm trader with several MT5 accounts. Count the accounts each plan allows (TradeZella Essential lists 1, Pro up to 50, Ultra unlimited, and TradesViz lists 1, 10 and 20) and decide how you feel about connecting each account to a website. See best trading journal for prop firms and multi-account journals.
• Trader who wants coaching and replay. Look at TradeZella or TradesViz Pro first and check what the plan you can afford includes.
• Trader on a tight budget. Compare a spreadsheet, a free trial and the free tiers, bearing in mind that TradesViz's free plan is stocks only. See free MT5 journal options.
• Privacy-minded Windows trader. A local app avoids handing out credentials. Check any tool's claims with the guide on how to check a journal is legit.

A ten-minute test before you pay

1. Start the free trial or free plan on a demo account or your real history.
2. Import at least three months of trades.
3. Check one trade you remember well. Do the open time, close time, volume and result match your History tab? If the times are off, read MT5 server time explained.
4. Find a trade you closed in parts. Is it one trade or several? See MT5 partial close in trade history.
5. Look at a trade with commission and swap. Does the result include them?
6. Ask how to get your data out again.
7. Decide whether you would still open it after a month. A journal you skip is worth nothing.

A worked example (hypothetical)

A trader runs two prop firm MT5 accounts from a Windows laptop. They want automatic updates, do not want to hand over investor passwords, and do not need replay. Their short list is the free trial of a local app and a spreadsheet. A second trader uses three brokers across MT5 and another platform, wants an AI coach and works from a phone as well. Their short list is TradeZella and TradesViz Pro, and they should price the plan that covers their number of accounts. Same market, different answers, because the questions at the start of this page have different answers for each of them.

Limits of this comparison

• It lists what each company's pages said on 20 October 2026. Features and prices change, so check before you buy.
• We could not read TraderSync's official pages that day, so we have not stated its price or MT5 method.
• We have not tested the competitors' MT5 imports ourselves. We describe only what their pages say.
• We make AI Trading Journal and have a financial interest in it. Nothing here is financial or trading advice.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• A local trading journal for MT5
• P&L calendar for MT5
• Trade notes, ratings and screenshots
• Trading progress and goals
• Back up your journal and move it to a new PC
• An offline trading journal for Windows
• How to set monthly trading goals
• Import your whole MT5 history
• How to tag trades
• Trade screenshots for your journal
• All trading journal comparisons