IG Group vs CMC Markets Review

After spending seven months and hundreds of hours researching 43 different forex brokers for trading FX, our team at ForexBrokers.com team collected over 6,000 data points. For this review, we will compare CMC Markets vs IG Group.

To compare these two FX brokers, we will first take a look at the fees charged for trading (no easy task). Not every forex broker publicizes their average spreads, spreads data can vary, as can execution policies and how commissions are charged. Specifically, is the broker a dealing desk (market maker), no dealing desk (agency broker) or are both execution methods offered (dealing desk + STP/ECN)? To simplify this research, we assessed everything for you and provide a single star rating for cost. CMC Markets is a better option with a 5.00 star rating over IG Group's 4.50 star rating.

Commissions and fees aside, let's take a look at regulation and currency availability. Trust is critical, and you should highly consider choosing a broker that regulated in a major hub. CMC Markets and IG Group both are regulated in a major hub. CMC Markets alongside IG Group are publicly traded companies. As far as how many currency pairs are available for trading, here's the answer. IG Group trails CMC Markets by 92 total currency pairs (for example, EUR/USD), with CMC Markets offering 183 and IG Group offering 91.

Next, let's look at the tools and features fx traders desire. With trading platforms, forex traders are all familiar with MetaTrader. IG Group makes Meta Trader available to clients, while CMC Markets does not. Regardless of the trading platform you use, charting should be feature rich. To help compare these two brokers, we counted the number of drawing tools and total technical indicators made available. IG Group offers its clients access to 31 charting tools while CMC Markets has 24 charting tools, a difference of 7. CMC Markets offers its clients access to 74 different indicators (for example, volume) while IG Group has 51 available indicators, a difference of 23.

Overall, IG Group takes the upper hand with 5.00 stars over CMC Markets's 4.50 stars. And, when it comes to individual category awards, IG Group was rated Best in Class - Platforms & Tools, Best in Class - Research, Best in Class - Customer Service, Best in Class - Active Trading and Best in Class - Investor Education in 2018, while CMC Markets was rated Best in Class - Platforms & Tools, Best in Class - Research, Best in Class - Active Trading and Best in Class - Mobile Trading.