Free Music Notation Software — Write Sheet Music
Write and print professional sheet music for free. Open-source Sibelius alternative.
Professional sheet music software used to cost hundreds of dollars — Sibelius charges around $99 per year, and Finale, the long-time industry standard, was discontinued in December 2024 leaving thousands of musicians looking for alternatives. MuseScore fills that gap completely, giving composers, students, choir directors, and educators a full-featured notation tool at no cost.
The editor works as a true WYSIWYG environment: notes land exactly where you see them, dynamics and articulations update in real time, and the printed result matches what you see on screen. You can enter notes by clicking, using a computer keyboard, or playing a MIDI controller in real time or step mode. The built-in synthesizer plays back your score using high-quality Muse Sounds instruments — strings, piano, brass, choirs — shipped free with version 4.
MuseScore exports to PDF, SVG, PNG, MIDI, and MusicXML, making it compatible with every other notation program on the market. Since version 4.7, it also exports scrolling score videos as MP4, perfect for sharing to social media. Import your existing Finale or Sibelius files via MusicXML and pick up right where you left off.
Whether you are a student writing a first melody, a guitarist adding tablature, or an orchestral arranger scoring for full band, MuseScore scales to the task without locking any feature behind a paywall. The optional musescore.com platform has a paid cloud tier, but the desktop application is entirely free.
Related Tools
- Audacity — Record and edit the audio performance of your composition, or extract audio from a finished piece