Software Alternatives & Reviews

forScore VS Finale

Compare forScore VS Finale and see what are their differences

forScore logo forScore

With forScore, your sheet music has never been better—it’s everything you can do with paper, and so much more.

Finale logo Finale

Finale, the world standard for music notation software, lets you compose, arrange, notate, and print engraver-quality sheet music.
  • forScore Landing page
    Landing page //
    2020-07-07
  • Finale Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-29

forScore videos

FORSCORE 2020 Overview & Tips

More videos:

  • Tutorial - ForScore Review and Tutorial for Piano Teachers
  • Review - How I Use My iPad for Sheet Music with forScore

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to forScore and Finale)
Music Tools
27 27%
73% 73
Audio & Music
31 31%
69% 69
Music
24 24%
76% 76
Email Marketing
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

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

forScore Reviews

Best music notation software 2022
Orpheus Sheet Music Pro (opens in new tab) If you prefer to use Android hardware, Orpheus is the best sheet music app on that OS. It doesn’t have as many organization and file import features as forScore, but the interface is easy to use and includes an annotation tool. There’s a free version that displays ads and limits chart uploads to 30 total. Orpheus has support for...

Finale Reviews

We have no reviews of Finale yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, forScore should be more popular than Finale. It has been mentiond 15 times since March 2021. 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.

forScore mentions (15)

  • Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2023
    Https://forscore.co/ iPad pdf reader & annotator designed for sheet music. As a “tech” husband helping out a non technical musician wife it’s a game changer. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Best way to view a pdf of sheet music on a phone/tablet?
    ForScore is pretty well regarded. I use a free app called PiaScore that will show me two pages at once - my eyes suck though, so the tab is a bit small - might be okay for you though. I actually ended up buying a cheap Donner page turner that works pretty well with PiaScore and PDF Expert (which is my main pdf reader - but I don't think it lets me see two pages at once). Source: 12 months ago
  • Thoughts for Year One self-taught Pianists - ideas and resources (long!)
    ForScore also has a keyboard in it so you can quickly play some notes anywhere, and so does GarageBand on iPad. Source: 12 months ago
  • What are your must-have iPad apps?
    ForScore. That is why I, like many of my colleagues, bought the iPad. Source: about 1 year ago
  • This is how I would reconstruct the iPad lineup to make it simpler and easier to understand. Thoughts?
    Yes. I once considered the Surface Book among other options (at the time it had a bigger screen than the Surface Pro). And by the way, Apple also cares about musicians. As evidenced by the official advertising banners and videos, in which you can always see the application forScore, which has become almost a de facto standard for many musicians. Source: over 1 year ago
View more

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

What are some alternatives?

When comparing forScore and Finale, you can also consider the following products

Chordsheet Maker - Create chord sheets or lead sheets quick and easily from your iPad. Add rhythms, endings, segno, codas and all what's necessary for your musicians to know what's your music about. Transcription made easy!

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

Stave'n'Tabs - iOS and macOS notation and tablature editor with MIDI and MusicXML files support and chromatic...

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.

Guitar Pro 7 - Create, play and share your tabs

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.