QUESTION

What is the difference between an EA and a trading bot?

SHORT ANSWER

In practice they mean the same thing. Expert Advisor is MetaTrader's specific term for an automated program running inside the platform; trading bot is the generic term used across every market including crypto.

If someone says Expert Advisor, they are talking about MetaTrader — the term is MetaQuotes terminology and it implies a program written in MQL4 or MQL5 running inside the terminal on a chart. If they say trading bot, the venue is unspecified and could be an exchange API, a crypto platform, or MetaTrader.

The distinction that actually matters is where the code executes. An EA runs on your machine inside MetaTrader, which is why the terminal must be open and why a VPS exists. A bot connecting to an exchange API typically runs on a server and does not need a desktop platform at all.

That difference determines the entire operational picture — what happens when your computer sleeps, whether the strategy can run on a phone, and what infrastructure you have to maintain. See can I run a trading bot on my phone.

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