Your terminals
The MT4, MT5 and cTrader installs you already run. R4Copier auto-detects them on first launch — you are not asked to re-enter anything they already hold.
R4CopierSelf-hosted by design
A trade copier that runs on your machine — not in someone else’s cloud.
R4Copier installs on your Windows desktop or a VPS you control. The engine that watches your master account and fires the copied orders runs there, beside your terminals — which is why it never needs a working login to any of your accounts.
MT4 · MT5 · cTraderDesktop or your own VPSCredentials in OS keystore
The distinction
Where the software runs decides what it has to know about you.
Most copy-trading services are a hosted product. That single architectural choice creates every credential question that follows.
A trade copier has to be logged into your accounts. There is no way around it — to place an order on a slave account, something has to authenticate as the owner of that account. The only real question is where that something lives.
In a cloud copier, it lives in the vendor’s data centre. You paste your account number and password into a web form, they store it, and their servers log in on your behalf. The service works well and the setup takes two minutes. It also means a company you have never met holds working trading credentials for every funded account you own, indefinitely, and you have no technical way to verify how they are stored.
In a self-hosted copier, it lives on your machine. R4Copier attaches to the MT4, MT5 and cTrader installations already running there through each platform’s own native bridge. The login happens locally, between two processes on the same computer. Nothing about that exchange crosses the internet.
Architecture01 02 03
Three pieces, and only one of them is ours.
The R4Copier engine
A signed Windows application on the same machine. It reads fills from the master, applies your per-slave lot rule and symbol mapping, and writes the resulting order to each slave.
Master to slave is a local hand-off, not a network request to us.
The web dashboard
The one hosted piece. Your terminal pushes account numbers, copy rules and executed trade history so you can review them from anywhere.
It is a reporting surface. Removing it would stop your dashboard, not your copying.
What our servers hold: your licence, your account numbers, your copy rules, and the history of trades your terminal has already executed.
What they do not hold: broker passwords. Those are written to your operating system’s keystore — Windows Credential Manager or the macOS Keychain — on the machine running the terminal. Uninstall R4Copier and they go with it. The full detail is in the Privacy Policy.
DeploymentDesktop VPS
Two sensible places to host it.
Both are self-hosted. They differ in uptime and in how close you sit to your broker.
Your own PC
Fine for testing, for manual trading sessions, and for anyone who is at the desk when the trades happen. Zero extra cost.
The limit is obvious: the copier is only alive while the machine is. Sleep, a Windows update, or a dropped home connection is a missed trade.
A VPS you rent
The configuration we recommend for anyone copying to funded accounts. The terminal runs 24/7 in headless mode and sits on a connection built for it.
ForexVPS, Beeks and ContaboCloud all work; pick the region closest to your broker’s servers rather than closest to you. See local copying and latency for why that matters more than the spec sheet.
The honest trade-off
Self-hosting moves the responsibility, it doesn't delete it.
A cloud copier keeps running when your laptop lid closes. Ours does not, and any page that sells you self-hosting without saying so is selling you something. Here is the real ledger:
What you gain
- No third party holds a working login to your trading accounts.
- No vendor breach can expose credentials that were never sent anywhere.
- No cloud round trip between the fill on your master and the order on your slave.
- If we disappeared tomorrow, the software on your machine is still the software on your machine.
What you take on
- Uptime is yours. A machine that is off is a copier that is off.
- Updates install on your side — signed, but still a thing you have to allow.
- You are choosing and paying for the host. A $6 VPS in the wrong region will perform worse than a good home connection.
For a trader running one demo account, that ledger may not favour self-hosting. For a trader running five figures across several prop firms, it usually does — the cost of a VPS is trivially smaller than the cost of the credential risk it removes.
Side by side
Self-hosted vs. cloud-hosted copiers
| Self-hosted (R4Copier) | Typical cloud copier | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the copy engine runs | Your PC or your VPS | The vendor’s servers |
| Broker password handling | Never leaves your machine | Stored by the vendor |
| Master → slave path | Local hand-off between processes | Two internet hops via the vendor |
| Exposure if the vendor is breached | No credentials to leak | Live trading logins |
| Runs while your machine is off | No — use a VPS | Yes |
| Setup effort | Install and detect terminals | Paste credentials into a web form |
| Who you depend on for uptime | You and your host | The vendor |
Questions
Self-hosting, answered plainly.
What does "self-hosted" mean for a trade copier?
It means the process that watches your master account and places the copied orders runs on hardware you control — your Windows desktop or a VPS you rent in your own name.
A cloud copier runs that same process on the vendor’s servers, which is why it has to hold a working login for every account you connect. Self-hosting removes that requirement entirely.
If it runs on my machine, what is the R4Copier cloud for?
Licensing and the web dashboard. Your terminal reports account numbers, copy rules and executed trade history so you can review them from a phone or another computer.
Broker passwords are not part of that. They are held in your operating system’s keystore on the machine running the terminal and are never transmitted. See the Privacy Policy for the full list of what is stored.
Do I have to leave my computer running?
Yes — copying only happens while the terminal is running and connected. That is the honest cost of self-hosting.
Most traders solve it with a low-cost VPS, which also puts the terminal closer to the broker. A desktop that sleeps at night will miss trades; a VPS will not.
Can I run it on Linux or macOS?
The terminal ships as a signed Windows installer, which is also what the vast majority of MT4, MT5 and cTrader VPS images run.
macOS is supported for the credential keystore integration, but if you are setting up for 24/7 prop-firm copying, a Windows VPS is the configuration we support best.
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