NinjaTrader is a popular forex trading platform but isn’t available for macOS. However, you can easily run NinjaTrader on a Mac including those with the Apple Silicon M1 or M2 chip by installing Windows within macOS using Parallels.
Parallels is the best way to run Windows on a Mac because it allows you to switch between Windows and macOS instantly so you get the best of both worlds.
In fact, Parallels is the only way to run Windows on a Mac that is officially endorsed by Microsoft.
Parallels also works on both Intel and Apple Silicon M1/M2 Macs so it allows you to run Windows on any Mac.
There are other virtual environments such as VMWare Fusion and VirtualBox but they’re nowhere near as easy to setup and use as Parallels.
We definitely don’t recommend using Windows “wrappers” such as Wine either as it’s very difficult to configure them to work with NinjaTrader and the installation frequently breaks.
We also strongly recommend checking out these excellent alternatives to NinjaTrader for Mac as there’s plenty of trading platforms and software out there that are as good as NinjaTrader on a Mac, and is some cases FREE.
After extensive research we found the best forex trading platform for Mac and Windows is TradingView (Free).
When it comes to forex charting and technical analysis, nothing beats TradingView which is why it has one of the most active communities of day traders of any trading tool or platform on the market.
TradingView has been the best charting tool out there for a long time but it now allows you to trade too by connecting it to brokers such as Oanda, Tradestation and FXCM and it works perfectly on macOS Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur and Catalina.
In fact we rated TradingView as by far the best alternative to MT4 as MetaTrader has never been released for Mac.
You May Also Like:
How To Install NinjaTrader on Mac
To install NinjaTrader 8 on a Mac, you first need to download Parallels.
You can find full instructions how to install Windows 10 for free on a Mac using Parallels here.
Nowadays you can install Windows 10 for free because you don’t need to purchase a license unless you want to remove a watermark and customize the look of it.
Parallels makes it easy to install Windows 11 and even downloads it for your automatically from Microsoft.
When you’ve installed Windows on your Mac, you then need to download NinjaTrader and install it.
You will need to enter your email address and NinjaTrader will send you a link to download the Windows version.
Before you install it however, you need to make the following changes in Parallels to make sure that you can drag and drop folders from macOS into Windows.
- Start Parallels and select your virtual machine
- Press the “Configure” button on the top
- Under “Options”, select “Sharing”
- Uncheck “Share Mac” under “Share Mac User Folders with Windows”
- Press “OK” and start the virtual machine
You can then go ahead and run the NinjaTrader installer to complete the setup in Windows.
Why Is NinjaTrader Not Available For Mac?
At the moment the developer has no plans to release NinjaTrader For Mac. The usual reason for software not being available on Mac is that the developer feels that the time and investment required in supporting a Mac version simply isn’t worth it considering the relatively small user base compared to Windows.
NinjaTrader requires the .NET Framework to operate and the .NET Framework is only available on Windows and does not work on macOS.
The development team would therefore have to program the product differently to work on Mac which would be a complex and potentially expensive process.
It’s already a challenging job for the NinjaTrader support team to support any problems or issues on Windows so adding macOS to the mix would make it even more difficult.
Note, another virtual machine that is just as capable is VMWare Fusion. v12 is now FREE for personal use. Min system requirement is macOS 10.15 Catalina.
See here: https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/fusion-evaluation.html
and here: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=fusion-player-personal
Thanks for pointing that out although there are some limitations in the free version compared to VMWare Pro.
The main limitations are for PRO related features, which MOST personal users will never need. This free version is IDENTICAL to v11.5 Standard that used to be PAID product (though it is now updated with new features)… It is NOT a “crippled” or “limited” type product. So to be clear, there are no significant limitations.