The stability of three coupled Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) solitons is investigated by the variational approach in two conventional time-independent trapping potentials. The effects of parameters of the potentials and the initial conditions of the BEC soliton system on the stationary state and self-trapping are discussed. It is found that the trapping potentials play an important role in the stability of the system and change the characteristics of the system, and there are different critical potential amplitude values corresponding to different trapping potentials and initial conditions of the BEC soliton system.