Pinebridge

Your TradingView strategy alerts, executed in MetaTrader 5 on your own server.
Unraid · Docker · Proxmox

Buy me a coffee

Tired of paying a monthly fee just to get your TradingView alerts into MetaTrader 5? Or renting a VPS only so MT5 stays online around the clock? If you have a home server, you already own the hardware for both. Pinebridge receives your TradingView strategy alerts and places the trades in MT5, which runs in a Windows VM on your own machine. No signal-relay subscription, no VPS bill, and your broker login stays on your server instead of with a third-party service.

[!WARNING] Pinebridge places real trades automatically, with no human confirmation. Read the risk notice and run it on a demo account first.

How it works

flowchart TD
    TV["TradingView<br/>strategy alert"] -- "HTTPS webhook" --> CF["Cloudflare Tunnel<br/>(or your reverse proxy)"]
    CF --> BR["pinebridge-bridge<br/>checks the secret,<br/>translates the alert"]
    BR -- "ZeroMQ" --> EA["pinebridge-mt5<br/>Windows VM · MT5 · Pinebridge EA"]
    EA -- "order" --> BK["Your broker"]
    EA -. "fills, PnL, equity" .-> BR
    BR --> DB["Dashboard<br/>(your LAN only)"]

1. Your Pine strategy fires an alert. Its message says what to do, for example signal=long,symbol=EURUSD,qty=1000,sl_price=...,tp_price=....
2. TradingView posts it to your webhook URL. A Cloudflare Tunnel (or your own HTTPS reverse proxy) carries it to your server without opening router ports.
3. pinebridge-bridge rejects anything without your secret, translates the alert, and sends it to the Expert Advisor over ZeroMQ in about a millisecond.
4. pinebridge-mt5 is a Windows 11 VM that installs MetaTrader 5 and the Pinebridge EA by itself. The EA places the order with your broker: market entries and exits, resting limit orders, SL/TP moves and double-down adds, with oldest-first closing for US (FIFO) accounts.
5. The EA reports every fill, close and account update back to the bridge, and the Pinebridge Dashboard shows them.

Screenshots

The dashboard (http://<server>:8081, LAN only): every signal and what happened to it, and every closed trade from MT5's deal history (including broker SL/TP closes) with its pips and net PnL. Stats per run, pair and strategy: win rate, expectancy, profit factor, average win/loss, max drawdown, slippage against TradingView's price and the broker's quote, latency, cost of execution and the equity curve. Start a named run to test a strategy on its own (nothing is deleted), filter by pair or strategy, and download the trades and signal log as CSV. More about the dashboard.

MetaTrader 5 in the VM, running the Pinebridge EA. Its Experts tab logs each signal as it arrives (here a CLOSELONG, closed in 172 ms). You can watch and control it from a browser on port 8006.

A TradingView strategy whose orders become Pinebridge alerts. Each fill (here the IML +1000 long entry, which the bridge turns into a 0.01-lot market order) fires an alert with the message Pinebridge executes.

What you need

Hardware

The Windows VM is what needs resources. The bridge itself uses about 50 MB of RAM.

Measured on the test server (Intel i7-12700K, VM with 8 GB and 2 cores): the running VM uses about 5% CPU. ARM machines (Raspberry Pi, Apple Silicon) can't run the Windows VM, but can run the bridge with your own MT5.

Install

Quick look at the Docker route:

mkdir pinebridge && cd pinebridge
curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jakeshake/pinebridge/main/docker-compose.yml
curl -fsSL -o .env https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jakeshake/pinebridge/main/.env.example
nano .env                  # your MT5 demo login and a Windows password
docker compose up -d       # add --profile tunnel for the Cloudflare Tunnel

What's automated and what you do yourself

Pinebridge does:

• the Windows install, MetaTrader 5, the ZeroMQ library, compiling the EA, attaching it to a chart, and the firewall rule, all on the first boot
• a webhook secret, generated on first start. The bridge log prints your exact webhook URL and alert Message.
• close retries after broker disconnects, FIFO-compliant closing, and a readable reason for every broker error in the dashboard

You do:

1. Enter your broker login in the template or .env before the first boot.
2. Create the tunnel or HTTPS hostname. It happens in your Cloudflare account (guide) or your reverse proxy. Point it at the webhook port only.
3. Watch the first boot at http://<server>:8006. It takes about 15-70 minutes. Leave the VM alone until MT5 shows the EA on a chart.
4. Create the TradingView alert on your strategy, with the webhook URL (including your secret) and the Message from the bridge log. Condition: Order fills and alert() function calls.
5. Test on a demo account, and check the dashboard shows each signal as executed before you think about a live account.

Things to know

• Alert delay. TradingView usually takes 1-6 seconds to deliver a webhook. The dashboard shows it as "TV → bridge". Pinebridge suits strategies on minute-and-up timeframes, not scalping on ticks.
• Start alerts while the strategy is flat. If you create an alert while TradingView's strategy is already in a trade, MT5 never saw that entry, and the exits and SL/TP moves that follow are skipped ("no open position"). They sort themselves out at the next fresh entry.
• Your broker login is read once, at the first boot. To change accounts later, log in again inside MT5. After switching accounts or re-attaching the EA, re-tick Allow Algo Trading and Allow DLL imports (otherwise you get 10027 - auto trading disabled by client).
• US (FIFO) accounts don't allow opposite positions. Have your strategy close a position before reversing it.
• EA updates in a new image don't reach an already-installed VM on their own. Copy the new EA in, recompile it, and re-attach it on the chart: see Updating the EA.
• Slippage vs TradingView compares the MT5 fill with TradingView's price, which comes from TradingView's data feed, so it includes the difference between the two feeds as well as real slippage.
• Keep the dashboard private. It shows your balance and positions. Never add port 8081 to your tunnel, and set DASHBOARD_PASSWORD if others use your network.

Security

• The webhook needs your secret (?secret=... in the URL; TradingView can't send custom headers). Anything without it gets 401.
• Public traffic goes through a Cloudflare Tunnel or your reverse proxy, never a forwarded port, and only ever reaches the webhook.
• Broker and Windows credentials are never baked into the images. You supply them at runtime.

Documentation

• Unraid install · Docker, Proxmox and bring-your-own-MT5
• Cloudflare Tunnel setup
• TradingView alert format (what your Pine strategy should send)
• MT5 and EA setup, troubleshooting · Dashboard · Architecture

Support

• Questions and help: the Unraid forum support thread
• Bugs and feature requests: GitHub issues

When asking for help, include the bridge log (docker logs pinebridge-bridge, with your secret removed), MT5's Experts tab, and your broker and account type (demo or live, hedging or netting).

Status

Running on Unraid with a Forex.com demo account: automatic first-boot install; live TradingView alerts end to end (market entries and exits, resting limit orders, double-down adds, SL/TP moves); close retries after a broker disconnect; FIFO-compliant closing on a US account; and the dashboard's fills, slippage and latency from real alerts. Docker Compose uses the same images. Proxmox and bring-your-own-MT5 reports are welcome.

Repo layout

• signal-bridge/: the pinebridge-bridge image (Flask webhook, ZeroMQ, dashboard)
• mt5-windows/: the pinebridge-mt5 image, built on dockur/windows; oem/ holds the provisioning scripts and the EA source
• unraid-templates/: the Unraid templates listed in Community Applications
• extras/: the optional pinebridge-tunnel Unraid template (.template, not .xml, so Community Applications doesn't list a second cloudflared)
• docs/: setup guides

Support the project

If Pinebridge saves you a VPS or a signal subscription, consider buying me a coffee.

Supporter perks:

• Any donation: a ready-to-use Pine strategy that sends Pinebridge-formatted alerts.
• $20 or more: a premium Pine strategy.

After donating, message me on Buy Me a Coffee with your TradingView username, and I'll give you access to the invite-only script on TradingView. The scripts are tools, not trading advice: backtests and past results don't predict future returns. Run them on a demo account first.

License

MIT. Please also read the automated trading risk notice.