Best CFD Trading Platforms

Pepperstone is a no-dealing desk broker that offers lightning-fast execution times (less than 30 ms) and small spreads by working with the finest available liquidity sources. It provides transactions with leverage of up to 30:1. Pepperstone offers 92 currency pairs, including the EUR/USD and other well-known ones, in addition to 20 CFDs on cryptocurrencies, 23 CFDs on indices, 900+ CFDs on equities, and over 30 CFDs on commodities.

FAST EXECUTION SPEEDS

Pepperstone stands out with some of the fastest execution speeds out there, based on our testing. When we ran EAs using the popular MT4 trading platform for both limit and market orders, we found Pepperstone had fast execution speeds of 77ms for limit orders and 100ms for market orders.

This put Pepperstone as the third fastest broker overall, just behind BlackBull Markets and Fusion Markets, but amongst the fastest forex brokers in the UAE.

COMPETITIVE RAW SPREADS

Pepperstone has excellent spreads for both accounts, but we found the broker’s Razor Account stands out from our testing, averaging spreads of 0.1 pips for EUR/USD.

To highlight how low Pepperstone’s spreads are, we compared the commissions or ECN-style accounts of different brokers using a range of popular currency pairs. These spreads are taken from the broker’s websites and updated each month.

ECN Broker Spreads	EUR/USDUSD/JPYUSD/CADEUR/GBPAUD/USDAUD/JPYGBP/USDUSD/JPYUSD/SGD	EUR/USDUSD/JPYUSD/CADEUR/GBPAUD/USDAUD/JPYGBP/USDUSD/JPYUSD/SGD	EUR/USDUSD/JPYUSD/CADEUR/GBPAUD/USDAUD/JPYGBP/USDUSD/JPYUSD/SGD	EUR/USDUSD/JPYUSD/CADEUR/GBPAUD/USDAUD/JPYGBP/USDUSD/JPYUSD/SGD	EUR/USDUSD/JPYUSD/CADEUR/GBPAUD/USDAUD/JPYGBP/USDUSD/JPYUSD/SGD
	0.10	0.30	0.40	0.20	0.20
	0.30	0.50	0.60	0.50	0.50
	0.44	0.20	0.83	0.40	0.42
	0.17	0.24	N/A	0.54	0.30
	0.10	0.10	0.20	0.40	0.10
	0.20	0.30	0.70	0.50	0.40
	n/a	n/a	0.30	0.60	0.50

Avg. spreads are taken from each broker's website and updated monthly. Last update on 01/01/2025

ZERO-PIP SPREADS 100% OF THE TIME

Most brokers with RAW spreads advertise “spreads from zero,” so we took this into account when testing Pepperstone’s Razor account. Our results highlighted that only Pepperstone and City Index kept their minimum spreads at zero pips 100% of the time for all major currencies.

You can see how Pepperstone compared to other brokers from our zero-pip testing results below:

DIVERSE RANGE OF PLATFORMS

Pepperstone offers 4 diverse trading platforms, MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader, and TradingView.
Where Pepperstone stands out, however, is in its range of sophisticated tools. We particularly like Smart Trader, an enhancement to the MetaTrader trading platforms that includes 28 trading apps covering everything from strategy to management tools to access to expert advisors.

Of the Smart Trader tools we tested, the highlight for us was the ability to use the Terminal to select all of our open orders and uniformly set take profit and stop loss orders for all of our positions.

Pepperstone ReviewVisit Pepperstone

AvaTrade is a top forex broker in the UAE that caters to a diverse group of traders. Unlike Pepperstone and most other brokers, AvaTrade provides fixed-spread trading, which means that the broker sets prices using its own liquidity instead of relying on outside suppliers.

COMPETITIVE FIXED SPREADS

We awarded AvaTrade one of the best forex brokers in the UAE because it offers the most competitive fixed-spread trading from our testing. When testing, we found AvaTrade offers stable fixed spreads of 0.9 pips while trading EUR/USD when using MT4, MT5 or AvaTradeGo trading platforms.

In fact, AvaTrade came out on top against 10 fixed spread brokers we tested, offering an average of 1.4 pips across the 7 most traded currency pairs. While you can obtain tighter spreads with an ECN-style account, AvaTrade’s fixed spreads are consistent enough to keep your trading costs low.

Top Fixed Spread Brokers	EUR/USDAUD/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDUSD/JPYAUD/JPYEUR/JPYUSD/CADUSD/SGD	EUR/USDAUD/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDUSD/JPYAUD/JPYEUR/JPYUSD/CADUSD/SGD	EUR/USDAUD/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDUSD/JPYAUD/JPYEUR/JPYUSD/CADUSD/SGD	EUR/USDAUD/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDUSD/JPYAUD/JPYEUR/JPYUSD/CADUSD/SGD	EUR/USDAUD/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDUSD/JPYAUD/JPYEUR/JPYUSD/CADUSD/SGD
	0.90	1.10	1.50	1.50	1.00
	0.70	1.20	1.50	1.30	1.00
	4.00	4.00	3.00	5.00	4.00
	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00
	1.50	1.80	2.00	2.00	1.80

Avg. spreads are taken from each broker's website and updated monthly. Last update on 01/01/2025

GREAT TRADING PLATFORMS And Social Trading

Scoring AvaTrade an 8/10 for its trading platforms, we liked the broker’s solid combination of third-party and proprietary platforms.

The variety of AvaTrade’s platforms extends beyond the broker’s MT4/MT5 offering. You can also use Avatrade’s own excellent platform, AvaTradeGo, as well as speciality platform AvaOptions to trade options, to diversify your trading portfolio.

AvaTrade offers a range of copy trading options via third-party CFD trading platforms DupliTrade and ZuluTrade, or its own, AvaSocial where you can copy successful trading strategies. Only a few brokers can boast this range of social or copy trading options.

IG is one of the oldest trading firms, having been in business since 1974. It has launched in 15 countries across the globe and expanded to have over 300,000 traders, including those in the UAE. The broker’s standout offering is the low minimum deposit of just $0, which allows beginners and advanced traders alike to test out the platform without having to put in vast amounts of capital upfront.

HUGE RANGE OF CFD MARKETS

IG Group stands out in its huge CFD offering with over 17,000 markets available. You can trade forex (100 pairs), shares (over 12,000), indices (130), and cryptocurrencies (15), which no other broker offers from our analysis. We think this makes IG Group a good option if looking for products no other brokers offer.

As a bonus, you can choose from IG Trading platform, ProRealTime and MT4. IG Group offers a variety of platforms to trade on, such as MT4, L2 Dealer, and ProRealTime. The last two options are more advanced platforms, with L2 Dealer offering direct market access and ProRealTime with more sophisticated tools for market analysis.

COMPETITIVE NO-COMMISSION SPREADS

While IG Group only gives you one account option for trading CFDs, the broker does offer a direct market access account (which allows you to access market prices without intervention from liquidity providers) although with a steep minimum deposit of $20,000 AED.

Although IG Group is a market maker, we found its spreads to be very reasonable for its CFD account, averaging 1.13 pips for EUR/USD and 1.38 pips across the five major currency pairs.

These no-commission spreads were amongst the lowest in the UAE, with only eToro (1.30 pip average) and XTB (1.36 pip average) offering marginally tighter spreads.

Standard Account Spreads	EUR/USDAUD/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDUSD/JPYAUD/JPYEUR/JPYUSD/CAD	EUR/USDAUD/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDUSD/JPYAUD/JPYEUR/JPYUSD/CAD	EUR/USDAUD/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDUSD/JPYAUD/JPYEUR/JPYUSD/CAD	EUR/USDAUD/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDUSD/JPYAUD/JPYEUR/JPYUSD/CAD	EUR/USDAUD/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDUSD/JPYAUD/JPYEUR/JPYUSD/CAD
	1.10	1.20	1.40	1.40	1.40
	1.13	1.01	1.71	1.66	1.12
	0.90	1.30	1.40	1.40	1.40
	0.70	2.20	1.10	1.10	0.60
	1.20	0.90	1.50	1.80	1.80
	1.20	1.30	1.20	1.30	1.10
	1.70	1.60	1.70	2.00	1.60

Avg. spreads are taken from each broker's website and updated monthly. Last update on 01/01/2025

XTB is a broker that admits traders from Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait, in addition to the United Arab Emirates. This makes it an excellent choice for traders from nearby areas that fit the same description.

XTB ACCEPTS TRADERS THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST

While all brokers on this list are great options for traders in the UAE, they’re not all as inclusive of neighbouring regions that fall under the same category. XTB is different since it accepts traders from Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait, rather than solely focusing on the UAE.

COMPETITIVE MARKET MAKER SPREADS

As with IG Group, XTB is a market maker and only offers one retail investor account for trading CFDs, but spreads are competitive, averaging 0.9 pips for EUR/USD with no commission fees.

Overall, XTB compares with eToro and IG Group as the lowest spread brokers in the UAE, averaging 1.36 pips across the 5 major currency pairs, from our spread testing.

xStation 5 TRADING PLATFORM

Our testing of XTB’s platforms revealed that xStation 5 offers live data, market commentary and greater transparency than MT4. We particularly liked the additional trading tools that xStation 5 offered, including sentiment data that shows the percentage of XTB clients that are long or short for a given trading symbol.

When trading, it’s important to consider the costs for things like inactivity and financing your account, in addition to the spreads and commissions. AxiTrader excels in this regard, as it doesn’t charge any fees for funding your account using any of the 26 available methods, including Bitcoin and Skrill. Additionally, there are no inactivity fees and no deposit requirements.

LARGE RANGE OF FUNDING METHODS

With 26 funding methods (including Skrill and Bitcoin) and no funding fees, we are impressed the range of funding choices Axi lets you trade with. Plus, there are no inactivity fee or minimum deposits further saves you on trading costs.

MT4 ENHANCEMENT TOOL

Axi only offers the MetaTrader 4 trading platform so we think it’s a good thing it comes with extra features like their MT4 enhancement tool called MT4 NexGen. Useful expert advisors and indicators with MT4 NexGen include Correlation Trader and Alarm Manager.
You will get the option to use Autochartist (to find trading opportunities across different markets automatically) and PsyQuation (made by Axi and gives tailored advice based on your mistakes).

Fast VPS

Axi offers VPS hosting with ForexVPS, MetaTraderVPS, Commercial Network Services and BeekFX VPS. VPS hosting ensures you never have downtime when trading, which we find is ideal for automated trading when using Expert Advisors.

We tested VPS speeds when using ForexVPS and found Axi has a limit order speed of 107 ms and a market order speed of 154 ms makes placing the 1st of the DFSA brokers we tested.

Saxo Bank is a significant player in the CFD trading industry, having been in business for more than 25 years and with 660,000 clients on its books. Leveraged products offer spot trading in addition to CFDs, and there are also conventional investment choices available. Powerful trading tools are included with these instruments, such as Saxo’s own trading platforms, trade signals, technical indicators, and risk management tools.

TRADING ACCOUNTS + SPREADS

While Saxo Bank’s three accounts, Classic (USD $5,000), Platinum USD 250,000), and VIP (USD 1250,000), have higher minimum funding requirements than other brokers, you will have access to lower spreads and discounts with the Platinum and VIP accounts. The platinum for example has 30% lower spreads than the Classic, as such, we recommend Saxo Bank for high-volume traders.

RANGE OF PLATFORMS

Of Saxo Bank’s 3 trading platforms, SaxoTraderGO is designed for long-term investors and small or medium-volume traders, while SaxoTraderPRO is for high-volume active traders as it contains a wealth of customised features and tools to speed up your trading.

We tested SaxoTradeGo with their free 20 day demo account and found it has 64 technical indicators, 20 drawing tools, 19 timeframes and 9 chart types. With useful features like TradingView (which has over 50 million users for social networking), Autochartist and OpenAPI for Excel to customise your automation we thought the platform has some truly cutting-edge features.

HUGE RANGE OF CFD PRODUCTS

You can trade 9,500 instruments as CFDs in different asset classes, including 8,000+ stocks, 675 ETFs, 29 indices, 35 commodities, five government bonds, and 15 indexes

XM offers a Sharia-compliant swap-free account for Islamic traders, which is different from other brokers in that it does not charge additional fees to make up for the lack of swaps. This means that there are no administrative costs, service fees, commission costs, or artificially widened spreads.

NO CHARGES ON ISLAMIC ACCOUNT

XM’s Islamic account is unique compared to other brokers in that it does not use other charges to cover the absence of swaps. This means no administration charges, no service fees, no commission costs, and the spreads themselves are not artificially widened.

As a trader, you are getting exactly the same spreads as a trader using an account with swaps regardless if you use MT4 or MT5 platform.

Best of all, the Islamic account is good for trading with all of XM’s over 1300 different trading instruments, including 57 Forex currency pairs and 1286 shares.

XM RESEARCH AND EDUCATION TOOLSWe love XM’s research and education tools, which include interactive webinars by seasoned traders and leaders in the industry, covering risk management, technical analysis and trading fundamentals. Very few brokers offer anything close to XM’s unique educational resources.