Software Alternatives & Reviews

Finale VS MuseScore.org

Compare Finale VS MuseScore.org and see what are their differences

Finale logo Finale

Finale, the world standard for music notation software, lets you compose, arrange, notate, and print engraver-quality sheet music.

MuseScore.org logo MuseScore.org

Create, play back and print beautiful sheet music with free and easy to use music notation software MuseScore. For Windows, Mac and Linux.
  • Finale Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-29
  • MuseScore.org Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-19

Finale videos

Finale 26: Review & What's New

More videos:

  • Review - Insecure Season Finale Review | The Joe Budden Podcast
  • Review - Quick Vid: Bojack Horseman Series Finale (Review)
  • Review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot7AbNBD_tQ

MuseScore.org videos

Music Software & Interface Design: MuseScore

More videos:

  • Review - Musescore Review
  • Review - Giveaway! MuseScore App Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Finale and MuseScore.org)
Music Tools
34 34%
66% 66
Audio & Music
42 42%
58% 58
Music
30 30%
70% 70
Audio
26 26%
74% 74

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Finale and MuseScore.org

Finale Reviews

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MuseScore.org Reviews

Top 18 Free Music Making Software for Beginners [2023]
MuseScore stands out from other music production tools because it is a music notation tool rather than a regular DAW. With its various sophisticated components, MuseScore automates how you score and write sheet music for piano, guitar, orchestras, and even marching bands.
10 Websites for Free Sheet Music (2023)
Musescore is not just a sheet website, but a whole software suite built around music scores. You can get the program (or app, available on iOS, Android and Microsoft) for free and after that, you can access the sheet music from their site.
7 Best Music Composition Software To Write Music [Free & Paid]: 2022
MuseScore is free open source software for music transcription. The software is also available at the official Microsoft Store.
The 10 Best Music Writing Software Programs (2022)
That’s just the start, its easy access to input tools and in-depth information of the notes make it even better. It also allows you to import MIDI and MusicXML files. In addition, MuseScore 2 acquires samples to try on or integrate into your writings.
Best music notation software 2022
MuseScore can import MusicXML and standard MIDI files from other popular notation software. When your score is complete, you can export it as either a graphic file, MusicXML file or audio file. The instrument samples aren’t as realistic or dynamic as those in the best notation programs we tested, but if you are interested in composing music with software, MuseScore is an...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, MuseScore.org seems to be a lot more popular than Finale. While we know about 87 links to MuseScore.org, we've tracked only 3 mentions of Finale. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Finale mentions (3)

  • About free (not pirate) software to start composing
    When you're ready to upgrade, Finale full version has fully sampled sound for hundreds of instruments. Retail $299. finalemusic.com. Source: 5 months ago
  • ‘Jean Sibelius’ Review: An Early Finale
    Since Sibelius and Finale are two industry-leading (and very much competing) music notation software systems, this headline made me do a quadruple-take! https://www.avid.com/sibelius https://finalemusic.com For those interested in (extremely entertaining) breakdowns of the Sibelius software and other offerings in this space from a UI/UX design perspective, I highly recommend Tantacrul's videos, which propelled him... - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • An odd request: what is the music/ theme song that is used during Blue Jays Central on SportsNet?
    I too would want the sheet music so I can transcribe it on music notation software like Finale. Source: over 2 years ago

MuseScore.org mentions (87)

  • Music theory/helper apps?
    I also recently downloaded MuseScore. While I'm not a sight reader, and haven't actually used musical notation in a long time, I think being able to write into staves & preview/export MIDI (or, import & edit MIDI) will be really helpful, and it seems to be used by the Musition courses. Source: 8 months ago
  • is a laptop keyboard good enough?
    Musescore helps people write sheet music. Since notes on a piece of paper form shapes, we might consider that as a visual representation of music. Source: about 1 year ago
  • A stupid post for the sheer number of pianists who are sad that Musecore is no longer free please ignore/ re: "Musecore isn't free anymore?!?!"
    What the f are you talking about? Musescore has always been and always will be free: https://musescore.org/en. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Is there a transcription of this?
    Use MuseScore (which is free!) to write it out and transpose it. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Making flute parts from vocals for songs I like
    3) Outline the song in Musescore notation software, putting in just the chords to begin with. I set up the score with flute as the only instrument, so that when I hit 'play' in Audacity, it sounds just like a flute. Source: about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Finale and MuseScore.org, you can also consider the following products

Sibelius - Sibelius is a virtual score creation tool which allows composers to easily create new piano scores, developed by Avid.

Guitar Pro 7 - Create, play and share your tabs

LilyPond - GNU LilyPond is a computer program for music engraving.

MuseScore - Our goal is to let musicians from all over the world create and share their works, as well as to make learning music exciting, easy and available for all.

OpenMPT - OpenMPT is a popular tracker software for Windows.

Dorico - Dorico redefines the gold standard in scoring software.