What is the best music notation software?

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14

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433

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Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 12 OptionsWhy?

Best music notation software	Price	Platforms	Collaborative
93 MuseScore	-	Windows, Linux, Mac	-
-- Lilypond	Free	-	-
-- ScoreCloud	-	Windows, Mac, IPhone	-
-- Finale	-	-	-
-- Dorico	0 $ - 599 $	Windows, Mac, iPad	-

See Full List

11 Other Options Considered

Lilypond

Top Pro

Customisable in every detail

Lilypond is easily the most powerful free/libre engraver, and arguably even more powerful than the commercial heavyweights Sibelius and Finale, mostly because it is set up as a Turing-complete programming language: it can be extended for any notation task whatsoever. For most common tasks this is of course not necessary (Lilypond has them built in), but whenever some feature doesn't exist yet, the user can just add it. See More

Top Con

There's a big learning curve at first

LoveableOceanus's Experience

great for people who know how to program in a programing language See More

Top Pro

Best Typographical placement of musical elements, most readable engraving

Although there is a learning curve, the output of Lilypond is superior in every way. Very little after engraving adjustment is needed and the typography is both beautiful and very readable. See More

Top Con

Even for fans of text-based languages, Lilypond is not easy to use

Lilypond's syntax is influenced by both LaTeX and Lisp, and one might argue that it combines the disadvantages of both: it is both inconsistent and verbose. For simple tasks, ABCjs is more convenient to write, whereas for big projects a proper AST layout would be desirable. See More

VigilantXolotl's Experience

use it for my compositions - also use Musescore See More

Top Pro

Free and open source, much effective for mass engraving

Lilypond is free, and open source. Lilypond community is active and helpful. Lilypond is much effective for mass engraving, by typing text instead of 1-button mouse clicking. See More

DeterminedHedone's Experience

I am used to markup based formats so this was a natural fit for me. See More

Top Pro

Imports various sound files formats

There are converters that could convert from midi, encore (.enc), ABC music (.abc), MusicXML(*. mxml), etc. See More

Justus Sagemüller's Experience

Powerful, albeit difficult text-based music engraving program See More

Top Pro

Very very lightweight

Even more lightweight than MuseScore, just need the binary, some libraries (that come preinstalled with almost all systems), and a text editor (even ed will do). See More

EnterprisingNusku's Experience

Best quality output. Very quick to use after initial learning curve. See More

Top Pro

Most stable software & files

Lilypond is quite stable as a software. As files are text files they're virtually incorruptible, the files could be edited with any text editor. See More

PerfectEriu's Experience

Blew my entire career trying to use it, developed severe depression, neck damage, chronic pain, a heart condition, lost scores due to computer errors, was late on dead lines for major projects, lost my appartment, money and almost died. But appart from that it's great, you get to spend time alone! Wouldn't swap that for touring, drinking and partying all night like in the old days! See More

See All

ScoreCloud

Top Pro

Understands MIDI and audio input

In addition to being able to convert MIDI to sheet music, ScoreCloud can analyze single-instrument audio to derive music notation from that. See More

Top Con

Transcription not always precise

Although very impressive, the results aren't always 100 %. The easy-to-use editor helps this though. See More

Kazooie's Experience

I like ScoreCloud over MuseScore since I can play audio to get notation. As a decent notation reader but novice notation writer the automatic notation helps me get a starting point for editing. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, IPhone

Top Pro

Transcribes polyphonic audio to sheet music

Being able to transcribe an acoustic piano straight into sheet music is a time saver! See More

Top Con

Music font doesn't look as professional as competitors

FlexibleApep's Experience

A different (but great) kind of notation software! See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

Top Con

No VST instruments

Playback in ScoreCloud is only with default MIDI sounds witch doesn't sound great. But it is good enough to work with and rehearse. You can attach audio performance or youtube video to the song and that helps when sharing songs. See More

Top Pro

Web Player

You can share your scores through the ScoreCloud web page, and the web player is great! There is a voice mixer and you can even change the tempo and key of the songs witch is great for rehearsing. See More

Top Con

Only the pro plan allows saving files locally

ScoreCloud service is tied to their servers to a degree where it's not possible to save files locally without a $19.99 / month subscription. See More

Top Pro

Import and export MIDI

Getting an automatic score from a MIDI file even when it doesn't have correct timing is very nice. And with MIDI export you can open the music in other music software like Logic or Ableton. See More

Top Con

Free plan doesn't allow exporting MIDI

Top Pro

Import and export MusicXML

Because you can import and export MusicXML you can transfer your scores from other notation programs into ScoreCloud, or create them in ScoreCloud and send MusicXML to friends or publishers that use MusicXML. Some editing is usually required when using MusicXML but that's true for any program. See More

See All

Finale

Top Con

Not straightforward rules

Top Pro

There’s nothing it can’t do

SuaveStilbon's Experience

Too many bugs, the MIDI won't work in the current versions, where there was no problem in earlier versions.No See More

Top Con

A little heavy on the wallet

Although students can get a special deal, Finale comes in a little pricey. See More

Top Pro

Improved professional program

Improved program from the early years. If it wasn't for Sibelius competition, Finale wouldn't be as good as it is now and improving. See More

PerceptiveSopdu's Experience

It seems not to have improved much in over a decade or expensive 'updates'. Still has some unintuitive aspects that make make it painfully tedious to use. Latest version appears to have fatally crashed my PC. Will never pay to update again. Switching to alternative software. See More

Top Pro

Nice sounds

Although violins still sound very synthetic, overall Finale has very nice instrumental sounds. See More

See All

Dorico

Top Pro

Great support team

Top Con

Expensive

Ranging from $150 to $844 (depending on the version), Dorico is by no means a cheap application. The price can be rather painful for students, or people who just want to try notation. See More

EmpatheticUlgen's Experience

Intuitive, great features, development team is highly responsive to users' needs. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, iPad

Top Pro

Produces high quality scores

The scores produced by Dorico look really nice on paper and on the screen, and much better than any other software I've used, making this an ideal software for engravers. See More

SpontaneousShapash's Experience

Started with the FREE SE edition and moved to the Elements edition which supports 12 staves (and my needs). For me it does everything very well and the playback and MIDI editing is excelent. It will also support time signature-less transcription a'la Eric Sirtie. See More

Top Pro

An intuitive interface

The interface makes the use very intuitive. Easy to use, for musicians. See More

Kambro's Experience

A software that allows you to write professional quality scores, with a very well-designed interface for musicians, and very intuitive. One could honestly say that this is the music writing software of the 21st century. The support team is extremely dynamic, and the help forum is very well-designed. See More

Top Pro

Suitable for contemporary music

Developers are aware of the needs of contemporary music (experimental notation, accidentals on each note, nested tuplets) and will add even more features to meet them. See More

See All

Sibelius

Top Con

The real time performance is an industry wide joke

nobody uses it, because the results are terrible. See More

Top Pro

Interface and Notation

It is comparable to a word document for music. Sibelius Ultimate has great maneuverability in streamlining the music writing process. See More

Hadley's Experience

Used Sibelius from the beginning of the program when Finn owned it. See More

Top Con

Expensive Lease Software

It is an expensive lease software. If your lease expires so do your files and access to them. See More

Top Pro

Draggability

Can click and drag just about anything to anywhere you really want. See More

TrustworthyUlgen's Experience

Very easy to use once you get the hang of it. Produces excellent scores. See More

Top Con

Counter-intuitive user interface

The user interface for Sibelius is very confusing, with a lot of unusual and frustrating design choices. Irish YouTuber Tantacrul has made a video dissecting the flaws of the software's interface. See More

WorthyPollux's Experience

expensive but good. See More

Top Con

Lease software most advertized

Avid tends to try to get you to the lease thing, which I'm not so ok with. There are however options to pay for the software outright, though it might take a bit more digging around their sight. (Sweetwater usually displays the option if you search for it). See More

MightyKumarbi's Experience

The Avid Software manager is HUGE over 300mb of memory used all the time, even when you're not using Sibelius. The full version is nice, but expensive, and has the worst user interface design ever. The free version is highly knobbled. Teachers learn this and then force it on students. The user interface really needs sorting out, as does the sound set issues - common reboots and difficult to use hardware support for soundcards. The Real time performance is a joke. See More

DiligentProphasis's Experience

I am a composer with learning how to compose with Finale Notepad (2012) for a few years, then came across Musescore, which I used for about a year, then started to work with Sibelius, now for about two years, and I very much love it. See More

IngeniousChiminigagua's Experience

Non existent customer service . A total waste of time See More

See All

PreSonus Notion

Top Pro

Good DAW integration

Top Con

No organs

There are no downloadable organs for this product. See More

AgreeableKi's Experience

composer See More

Top Pro

Sequencer and playback editing tools built in

Top Con

Lacks the advanced engraving tools of Finale, Sibelius, and Dorico

TrustworthyUlgen's Experience

Easily the easiest learning curve and to use once you've learned. I haven't tried printing scores yet though so I can't comment on that side of things. See More

Top Pro

Notatal score pro

EmbiggenedNotus's Experience

Fantastic for live playback while you're composing. It includes sequencer features, integrates well with DAWs and has ReWire support, plus it includes a fantastic sample library. See More

Top Pro

Great library

See All

Soundslice

Top Pro

Web-based

Nothing to download or install. See More

Top Con

Little control over engraving

The sheet music is "responsive," meaning it wraps to fit whatever device you're on. So this isn't intended for creating notation for print publication — it is native to the web. See More

Top Pro

Imports Guitar Pro files

Great support for importing Guitar Pro files, of which there are many across the internet. See More

Top Pro

Imports MusicXML

Great support for importing MusicXML from other notation editors. See More

Top Pro

Great for transcribing

The editor can sync with YouTube videos or MP3s, which makes for a very efficient transcription workflow. See More

Top Pro

Free

The basic version is free, though there are paid features such as ability to add custom keyboard shortcuts. See More

See All

Guitar Pro 7.5

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MuseScore

Top Pro

Lightweight

Contrary to most of its commercial counterparts, MuseScore is lightweight (less than 100MB) and can run acceptably on aging computers. See More

Top Con

No real-time transcription tool

If you are looking to play your MIDI keyboard and have the computer attempt to transcribe and print out your latest masterwork as you play, MuseScore is not the tool for you. It does, however, have a "semi-realtime" note input mode, which is kind of the same thing as a transcription tool. See More

MightyKumarbi's Experience

Great easy interface (if you can use Sibelius you can already use Musescore) Great support for learners, intermediate users and Teachers. Fantastic library of pieces available. Great xml provision for import/export to Logic/ Sibelius etc. Wonderful to be able to Freely upgrade the sound set through free to own Sound Fonts. this program has been very useful to me in my teaching and professional capacity. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Free and open source

The pricing means you can dump it on any computer you like, without having to empty your wallet for a license. It also means you have a chance to use this program as a starting point for your own engraving software program, if you are also a programmer. See More

Top Con

Cannot copy and paste time signature changes

Copying a section of music with multiple time changes not possible. Muse developers talk of this as an enhancement rather than a basic need. See More

AgreeableBaduhenna's Experience

It might take time to get used to, but It is well worth it! See More

Top Pro

MusicXML import and export ensures a degree of compatibility with other programs

If you are submitting files to a publisher, MusicXML format can be read by the big engraving programs: Sibelius, Finale, MuseScore, etc. Often there are some display issues that will need to be tweaked when using MusicXML between different programs, but publishers will spend a lot of time tweaking the file anyhow. See More

Top Con

Cymbal rolls sound bad

There is no easy way to add good-sounding cymbal rolls. See More

Hadley's Experience

Used it from early days. See More

Top Pro

Easy inscription

The newest version of MuseScore added collision detection for elements - so unless you're importing something really wonky, you shouldn't have text and notes overlapping or hitting each other. You can save your favorite spacing and size preferences to a file and have MuseScore automatically load it when you start a new project, or load it manually from the file. See More

Top Con

Bad sounds

Although its ok for basic composing, the default sounds can sound inferior to other more polished sounds. In fact, it will remind you of old mario games with midi music; because that is pretty much what it is. See More

CalmIxpiyacoc's Experience

MuseScore is great! It is very easy to write and upload scores, and to search for scores also. See More

Top Pro

Polished GUI

Looks on par with Apple software. Better than almost all FOSS software. See More

Top Con

Bad support for microtonal music

Although Musescore does offer in addition to the Western 𝄫/♭/♮/♯/𝄪 accidentals also nonstandard ones, but they are essentially just glyphs; MuseScore does not know how to resolve them or use them in key signatures, let alone offer proper tuning of the playback pitches. (Playback pitch can be set manually in cents, but this is very cumbersome and error-prone.) See More

FerventMastorpaz's Experience

Musescore is certainly the best. See More

Top Pro

Automatic part generation

MuseScore can automatically generate scores for individual parts which 'link' to the main score - you can change things on the score and see that change appear in the relevant part, and vice versa. See More

FerventNeptune's Experience

Dors not support VST plugin. See More

Top Pro

Great sheet sharing web page

So you composed a new score! Now what? Well, you can start by putting it on the muse score sheet music sharing web page where others will be able to enjoy it and comment on it. Or maybe you're just looking for a score from an old video game: in that case, you should probably search the page for it, and download one of the many available formats (pdf, muse score format, mp3, xml, etc). See More

RespectableKhonsu's Experience

for piano music it's pretty handy See More

Top Pro

Bugs quickly fixed

The fact that Musescore is open source and relies on a huge community of volunteers, combined with a strraightforward issue tracker ensure the rapid development of musescore. See More

MightyChaxiraxi's Experience

Free, and as complicated to use as you need it to be. I'm a music educator, and I use this for everything from writing simple rhythm sight-singing exercises to arranging pieces for full symphonic orchestra. It's intuitive and quick, and works well for a variety of tasks. See More

Top Pro

Easy to add new sounds

If you're not happy with the default sounds (a good, but aging set from Roland), you can import any .sf2 and .sf3 soundfonts and easily use them. You can even have multiple soundfonts running simultaneously. See More

HelpfulProserpina's Experience

Really enjoyed using Muse for vey basic functions, but you cannot copy and paste time signature changes. That has been a very basic requirement of classical music and some jazz for decades. See More

Top Pro

Decent tutorial

Walks your through all the features. See More

MemorableTezcatlipoca's Experience

Apart from the mostly poor sounds of instruments, Musescore is the perfect music notation software for me - it's easy to use, it's free and has many other benefits. See More

Top Pro

Available on Mobile

Android and iOS. See More

AmiableConand's Experience

I compose in MIDI, and the MIDI-to-score conversion was atrocious. Gibberish notes that weren't there, even on a simple 4-instrument piece with nothing complicated going on, it couldn't get the note values even approximately right. Even on a quantized track, MuseScore can simply not produce a usuable score from a MIDI file source. See More

Top Pro

Ultimate Guitar Merger gives hope for professional improvements

With Ultimate Guitar merger, hopefully, needed improvements will be done in a timely fashion and a lot fewer workarounds. See More

DecisiveArebati's Experience

Cannot accept real time chord entry from midi keyboard. See More

See All

The Best 1 of 12 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for MuseScore

My Recommendation for MuseScore

Lightweight

No real-time transcription tool

Free and open source

Cannot copy and paste time signature changes

MusicXML import and export ensures a degree of compatibility with other programs

Cymbal rolls sound bad

Easy inscription

Bad sounds

Polished GUI

Bad support for microtonal music

Automatic part generation

Great sheet sharing web page

Bugs quickly fixed

Easy to add new sounds

Decent tutorial

Available on Mobile

Ultimate Guitar Merger gives hope for professional improvements

11 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Lilypond

My Recommendation for Lilypond

Customisable in every detail

There's a big learning curve at first

Best Typographical placement of musical elements, most readable engraving

Even for fans of text-based languages, Lilypond is not easy to use

Free and open source, much effective for mass engraving

Imports various sound files formats

Very very lightweight

Most stable software & files

My Recommendation for ScoreCloud

My Recommendation for ScoreCloud

Understands MIDI and audio input

Transcription not always precise

Transcribes polyphonic audio to sheet music

Music font doesn't look as professional as competitors

Easy to use

No VST instruments

Web Player

Only the pro plan allows saving files locally

Import and export MIDI

Free plan doesn't allow exporting MIDI

Import and export MusicXML

My Recommendation for Finale

My Recommendation for Finale

Not straightforward rules

There’s nothing it can’t do

A little heavy on the wallet

Improved professional program

Nice sounds

My Recommendation for Dorico

My Recommendation for Dorico

Great support team

Expensive

Produces high quality scores

An intuitive interface

Suitable for contemporary music

My Recommendation for FORTE

My Recommendation for FORTE

Quite friendly and intuitive GUI in most.

Unstable, easy to crash

Very intuitive to use.

The graphic draw has deficiency and cannot be moved nor removed after placed.

My Recommendation for Sibelius

My Recommendation for Sibelius

The real time performance is an industry wide joke

Interface and Notation

Expensive Lease Software

Draggability

Counter-intuitive user interface

Lease software most advertized

My Recommendation for PreSonus Notion

My Recommendation for PreSonus Notion

Good DAW integration

No organs

Sequencer and playback editing tools built in

Lacks the advanced engraving tools of Finale, Sibelius, and Dorico

Notatal score pro

Great library