ShowMyTrades and Karnek both connect to MetaTrader accounts read-only, and neither can place a trade. Both give an account a public page that anyone can check. Past that, they are built for different jobs and priced very differently, and ShowMyTrades is free for most of what it does.
This page sets out the facts as each company publishes them, so you can decide which one fits. Karnek facts come from our own product and pricing page.
Checked on 2 October 2026. Every ShowMyTrades fact here comes from showmytrades.com on that date, and the pages are listed under Sources at the end. Prices and features change, so check their current pages before you decide.
The short answer
If you want a free public track record, a trading journal that fills itself, or a tracker for cTrader or TradeLocker accounts, ShowMyTrades gives you a great deal for nothing, and it is the better fit. If you run several expert advisors as a fleet on MetaTrader and want a paid monitoring service built around keeping them running, with a public page that never shows a backtest and marks the date live monitoring began, that is the job Karnek is built for.
Where ShowMyTrades is ahead
- Price. The free plan covers unlimited MT4, MT5, cTrader and TradeLocker accounts, a public page, 18 embeddable widgets, alerts on the site and on Telegram, and Prop Shield. Pro is listed at $9 a month as a launch price (shown down from $19) and adds a portfolio view, email alerts, a developer API, an MCP server and webhooks. Ultra is $49 a month.
- More platforms. ShowMyTrades reads MT4 and MT5 through its own EA or the investor password, cTrader through OAuth and TradeLocker through the broker's API. Karnek reads MT4 and MT5 only.
- Free prop challenge tracking. Prop Shield follows five rules, profit target, maximum drawdown (static or trailing), daily loss with your firm's reset hour, consistency and trading days, each with its own warning and critical level, at no cost.
- A journal as well as a tracker. You can attach a note of up to 1,000 characters to a closed trade, name strategies by magic number, and on Pro merge up to 100 accounts into one portfolio curve.
- Two verification badges. Track Record Verified means the data reaches ShowMyTrades from the broker through the read-only investor password. Trading Privileges Verified means the owner proved control of the account by placing a pending order that carries a verification code. Karnek has no check of who controls an account.
- An API. Pro includes a read-only REST API and an MCP server for AI assistants. Karnek does not offer a public API.
What Karnek does differently
Karnek costs more than ShowMyTrades, so it has to earn the difference. These are the parts of the product you pay for. All of them are live today.
A report every 30 to 90 seconds, with the broker link in every one
Karnek's connector reports every 30 seconds by default, and the MT5 agent every 60. Each report carries three signals: the terminal is alive, it is connected to the broker, and AutoTrading is switched on. The account page keeps them apart, so a dead VPS, a lost broker connection and a switched-off AutoTrading button each read as what they are. Alerts are checked every minute, and the offline alert fires after the number of minutes you choose, five by default. More on how that works in system health and uptime.
Quiet strategies, judged against their own rhythm
ShowMyTrades alerts work on thresholds you set for each account, inactivity included. Karnek's check for a strategy that has gone quiet works the other way round: it learns how often each strategy normally trades and flags one that has been silent for longer than its own usual gap, with weekends allowed for. A strategy is checked once it has at least 12 trades over a week or more in the last 60 days. The reasons EAs fail are mostly quiet ones, which is why this check exists.
No backtests on a Karnek page
ShowMyTrades lets you publish a Strategy Tester report as a page, labelled BACKTEST throughout. Karnek does not host backtests at all. A Karnek public page shows the account itself: the date live monitoring began, uptime over the last 30 days, any gaps in monitoring, and whether the account is real money, a prop challenge or a demo. History from before monitoring began is imported from the broker's records and marked as such on the chart. How Karnek verified results work explains the full chain.
Per-EA and per-broker figures, net of costs (Trader and Pro)
EA Performance breaks each strategy out on its own and splits it by broker, compared per lot so a bigger position at one broker cannot flatter the result. A broker costs view shows commission, swap and fees per account and per EA. It does not include spread or slippage.
Correlation across the fleet (Pro)
Pro shows which accounts and strategies move together and which offset each other, so a fleet that is really one bet in eight costumes shows up as concentration risk. Strategy correlation covers how to read it.
Side by side
Where a company's own pages do not state something, the cell says so rather than guessing.
| As published on 2 October 2026 | ShowMyTrades | Karnek |
|---|---|---|
| Run by | VENUS LABS S.R.L., Italy | Stanchion Systems Ltd, England and Wales, trading as Karnek |
| Free plan | Unlimited accounts, public page, 18 widgets, alerts on the site and Telegram, Prop Shield | 1 account (5 for the first 14 days), live dashboard, health checks, public verified page and widgets, no alerts |
| Paid plans | Pro $9 a month (launch price, listed from $19), Ultra $49 a month | Starter $19 (3 accounts), Trader $39 (10), Pro $79 (25), extra accounts $3 each |
| Platforms | MT4, MT5, cTrader, TradeLocker | MT4, MT5 |
| Can it trade your account? | No, read-only | No, the connector has no trade functions |
| How often the terminal reports | Not stated on their pages | Every 30 to 90 seconds |
| Alerts | Drawdown, daily loss, consecutive losses, profit target, offline, EA gone quiet, AutoTrading off, broker disconnected; site, Telegram and mobile push free, email on Pro | Offline, AutoTrading off, broker link lost, strategy gone quiet, drawdown, margin; email and Telegram, Starter and up |
| Prop challenge tracking | Prop Shield, free: target, max drawdown, daily loss, consistency, trading days | Trader and up: target, max drawdown, daily loss, consistency; warnings at 80% and 90% by default |
| Per-EA and per-broker analysis | Statistics per magic number and symbol, with commission and swap on each trade | Per EA and per broker, compared per lot, net of commission and swap (Trader and up) |
| Verification on the public page | Track Record Verified and Trading Privileges Verified badges | Real, prop or demo label, monitored-since date, 30-day uptime and gaps |
| Backtests | Strategy Tester reports can be published as pages, labelled BACKTEST | Not accepted |
| Fleet correlation | Not stated on their pages | Pro |
| Monthly PDF report | Not stated on their pages | Starter and up |
| API | REST API and MCP server (Pro) | Not offered |
What you pay for with Karnek
Karnek is paid for by subscription. It never trades your account, takes no share of your profits and never needs your trading password. Karnek's free plan covers one account, with the live dashboard, health checks and a public verified page. Alerts by email and Telegram and the monthly PDF report start on Starter, at $19 a month for three accounts. Prop challenge tracking and the per-EA and per-broker analysis start on Trader, at $39 a month for ten accounts. Pro, at $79 a month for 25 accounts, adds side-by-side account comparison and fleet correlation. Extra accounts are $3 a month each on any paid plan, annual billing costs ten months' price, and every paid plan starts with a 14-day free trial.
So for ten accounts, Karnek costs $39 a month, where the ShowMyTrades free plan costs nothing. Whether that is worth paying depends on what a stopped EA or a breached challenge costs you, and on whether you want a monitoring service built around a running fleet or a free record and journal.
Can you use both?
Yes. Both connections are read-only, so running both on the same account adds no trading risk. You could keep a free public page on ShowMyTrades and use Karnek to watch the fleet; each one reads the account through its own connection.
FAQ
Is ShowMyTrades free? Yes, the core is free: unlimited accounts, a public page, widgets, alerts on the site and on Telegram, and Prop Shield. Pro and Ultra are paid extras. That was the position on their pricing page on 2 October 2026.
Is Karnek free? Your first account is free for good, with the live dashboard, health checks and a public verified page. Alerts and more accounts need a paid plan, from $19 a month.
Can either of them trade on my account? No. ShowMyTrades says its access is read-only and cannot place a trade. Karnek's connector has no trade functions at all.
Does Karnek support cTrader or TradeLocker? No. Karnek reads MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 only. ShowMyTrades reads both cTrader and TradeLocker.
Does Karnek show backtests? No. Karnek does not accept backtest reports. A Karnek page shows what the account itself did, with the date live monitoring began.
Choose by the job
For a free track record page, a self-filling journal, or cTrader and TradeLocker accounts, ShowMyTrades is the stronger choice. For keeping a fleet of MetaTrader EAs running, with a report every 30 to 90 seconds, quiet strategies judged against their own rhythm and a public page that marks where live monitoring began, try Karnek on one account for free.
Sources
ShowMyTrades pages, all checked on 2 October 2026:
- Plans and prices: showmytrades.com/pricing
- Features, alerts, platforms, journal notes and backtest pages: showmytrades.com
- Prop Shield rules and alert channels: showmytrades.com/prop-shield
- Statistics per symbol and magic number, commission and swap columns: showmytrades.com/guides/broker-cost-audit
- Verification badges: showmytrades.com/guides/how-to-verify-your-account
- Connection methods: showmytrades.com/showmytrades-vs-myfxbook
- Backtest pages: showmytrades.com/share-your-backtest
- Operator: showmytrades.com/legal/terms-of-service
Karnek facts: pricing, security and verified results.
Written and reviewed by the Karnek Research team. Last updated October 2026.
Educational content only, not financial advice. Past performance does not predict future results. Trading carries significant risk.