Best forScore alternatives in 2022

There’s no doubt that in the digital sheet music arena, forScore is a quality and leading resource. If you’ve found your way to this article, then you probably know that already. 

But you’re probably also aware that there are other options out there in the same region of the market, and that some of these services could be a better fit for your musical needs. 

What exactly are the alternatives, then? What do they offer? And which of them is right for you? 

Let’s try to answer these questions, after taking a closer look at forScore’s offering, and why, despite its justified reputation, it might not be the software that's destined to lastingly transform your musical practice.

About forScore

forScore is an app, a sheet-music service that strives to provide users with the means to purchase, read and play their content all in one digital space. 

Offering cross-platform availability on Apple devices, forScore enables you to interact with sheet music through a sleek interface. By downloading titles from affiliate sheet-music marketplaces (such as Musicnotes) - or uploading your own - and making use of its excellent e-reading technology, you can reinvent the way that you handle your materials.

‘The world’s library, just millimetres thick.’ That’s how they put it, and it’s difficult to argue that, by digitising every stage of the musician’s process - from finding music right through to performing it - forScore doesn’t facilitate invaluable access to a treasure trove of online content via the light, portable, and increasingly resourceful electronic tools that nowadays assist us with so many aspects of our daily lives.

Let’s take a look at what forScore offers more specifically, and some reasons why users often look to alternative options.

Core features

• Organise and access sheet-music purchases from online retailers including Musicnotes, Virtual Sheet Music and Noteflight, as well as your own PDF uploads and scans 
• The app’s e-reading software simplifies digital engagement with sheet music, providing annotation tools, interact facilities such as bookmarks, repeats, and hands-free page-turning
• Manage your database with personal metadata, embed audio to augment your titles and assist in practice, and make use of utilities such as metronome, tuner, pitch pipe and piano keyboard, and great Apple Pencil functionality 

Positives of forScore

• As a personal, digital music library, forScore offers the means to access a selection of large and diverse online sheet-music marketplaces, consolidate your purchases from all these sources, and arrange them however you see fit
• Its score-reading technology is high-tech, effective and packed with features that many musicians will find genuinely useful
• The app enables musicians to concentrate all their music-making in one digital space - it’s a comprehensive digital solution

What could be better

• These benefits don’t come cheap - on top of charging users 19.99 to download the app, all content from third-party affiliates still needs to be purchased 
• In terms of compatibility, the app is quite restricted, only being available on iOS and and macOS devices - users of Android and Microsoft devices don’t have the chance to exploit the forScore package
• Certain features of the app aren’t as intuitive as they could be, with many users finding it difficult to navigate the app, adjust settings and make use of forScore’s full range of features

forScore alternative #1: nkoda

nkoda certainly occupies the same ballpark as forScore, but there are a few aspects that distinguish the two services from one another. Some of nkoda’s strengths also play to the areas where forScore might improve, making it a good first port of call for those on the hunt for an alternative.

It’s fundamentally another digital sheet-music service, striving to facilitate virtual access to content and empowering musicians to interact with it as practically and as naturally as possible. It does this through two apps as opposed to one, each specialised in its remit. The nkoda library sees to the access side of things, while the nkoda reader concerns interaction.

The library is really where the divergence between the services occurs, for while forScore functions as a kind of gateway to external content, nkoda actually provides it directly. The sheet music itself, sourced from the catalogues of 140 publishing partners - including the likes of Breitkopf & Härtel and Faber Music - is an inseparable part of the package. 

On the other hand, although forScore's app closely matches the functionality of nkoda's e-reader, a key difference is that the latter is completely free. It still enables users to upload, organise and utilise all their sheet-music materials, but you don’t have to pay anything for the privilege.

Core features

• Instant access to 140 publishers’ sales and hire catalogues, comprising 100,000+ titles - scores, parts, tabs, educational texts and more, for players of all instruments, skill levels and styles 
• Manage and share personal materials through playlists, offline storage and unlimited uploads, and make use of cutting-edge score-reading facilities suitable for practice and performance, including annotation toolkits and widgets 
• Access to a thriving worldwide community of musicians, including publishers, educational institutions and performing institutions 

Positives of nkoda

• Opting for nkoda means that you’re instantly supplied with over 100,000 premium titles of sheet music, editions from over 140 of the world’s leading publishers - as soon as you enter the menu
• nkoda also entails cross-platform availability, but unlike forScore the app's compatible with Android phones and tablets, as well as Windows computers - on top of Apple devices
• Makes more sense financially - not only is the score-reading software completely free, but a small subscription fee will also grant you unlimited access to an entire library of sheet music, bypassing the need to pay for individual titles

What could be better

• Despite the high tally of publishers who have licensed their materials to nkoda, you won’t find content there from some major players in the game, such as Hal Leonard and Henle
• You’re also restricted to what’s in the library, so if what you’re looking for isn’t there, then you’ll either have to wait for nkoda to license and digitise it or find - and perhaps buy - the work in question elsewhere and upload it to the music reader yourself
• It is still a paid service, but unless you’re happy with public-domain content only, which will massively restrict what you can play, then you’re always going to have to pay something

forScore alternative #2: Piascore

Piascore is another app that inhabits this same arena concerning access to and interaction with sheet music, which means it'll firmly appeal to those who are dissatisfied with the financial implications of forScore.

The app offers access to mostly classical public-domain works, which are supplied to Piascore by the International Sheet Music Library Project (IMSLP). Users can browse and download these titles in the app, and export and print them out of it. A few of the classics are even pre-downloaded to start you off. Because such pieces are out of copyright, you don’t have to pay anything for this setup. Many musicians will be wholly content with free access to essential works.

These works can be read, played, marked up, and organised in the Cloud or in a personal setlist. The app tosses in a metronome, too, and paid upgrades are available, including MIDI piano keyboard, chromatic tuner, and content-sharing with other Piascore users.

Core features

• The Piascore app offers users free access to content in the public domain, as well as a responsive e-reader through which to read, play and annotate that music
• App includes a metronome and other tools such as MIDI keyboard, chromatic tuner, an iTunes-based audio player and a voice recorder - some of these constitute in-app purchases 
• Other features include sending music to print on nearby devices, and enabling automatic, adjustable scrolling and hands-free page-turning - move to the next page with a Bluetooth pedal, or even as acute a gesture as a wink

Positives of Piascore

• Some of the add-on tools aside, it’s an entirely free service, so you can break into the world of digital content and practice without paying a dime 
• Although you can only enjoy access to public-domain works through IMSLP, many musicians will find that they don’t need anything more than that - at least not often enough to warrant a subscription
• The app interface is impressively streamlined, and the e-reader offers a range of really practical features and a slick annotation mode

What could be better

• There’s the obvious flip side of the app’s sheet music being limited to items in the public domain - you can’t access anything that’s in copyright, so popular music, for instance, is off the table
• As with forScore, users of Android and Microsoft devices will be left frustrated, as the app’s only available on those bearing an Apple logo
• With its interface, content and brand in mind, Piascore certainly leans towards pianists, though they doubtless make up the majority of musicians in need of digital access to sheet music

forScore alternative #3: Newzik

As with the previous options that have been explored, Newzik has a lot in common with the other apps here, but it also sets itself apart by specialising on certain aspects of the digital sheet-music experience.

Built on top-quality score-reading technology, Newzik presents a polished app package of interactive tools in the form of a personal, cross-platform sheet-music library. With a handful of products, the platform is encouraging music-makers to go digital by allowing them to assemble, organise, annotate and play music within a virtual space. 

The Newzik experience centralises engagement with notation, and the app will best suit musicians that read or play material often and are looking for an alternative, convenient way to handle a pre-existing collection. Their software also offers flagship collaborative features, which are exploited by an impressive range of prestigious ensembles that perform together via Newzik.

There’s also the PWP service, which is orientated towards publishing houses. It allows them to lease and handle their paid content to ensembles and artists subscribed to Newzik, and who can access that content directly through the app. 

Core features

• Collate, organise and perform your sheet music digitally through the Newzik app, with content constantly synchronised between your devices through the Newzik Cloud
• You can turn any paper or PDF score into an interactive LiveScore, which can then be played back and along to, and you can also add media files to your titles, such as audio tracks, video, MIDI tracks, YouTube links and recordings of yourself performing
• Collaborate in real-time with other musicians, sharing sheet music and other media through Newzik’s collaborative spaces, known as Projects

Positives of Newzik

• All the apps explored here concern themselves with organising your sheet-music collection, but it’s central to Newzik’s service, and they’ve accordingly developed a fantastically practical and intuitive interface in this area of the app
• The LiveScore feature, powered by Maestria technology, allows you to realise your external - physical or digital - scores in sound, brings your material to life in a really remarkable way
• Option to attach various media, annotate titles comprehensively, and collaborate with other users makes Newzik a powerful hub for digital interaction with sheet music 

What could be better

• Although you can make limited use of these features for free, you’ll need to pay a fee of 29.99 per year to enjoy the full scope of Newzik’s score-reading tech, while nkoda’s music reader, for instance, comes for free 
• Publishers can lease their music to performers subscribed to Newzik through the app, but aside from this, there’s no sheet music contained in the app, so you have to import it from elsewhere - which in most cases will mean paying for it
• Despite Newzik’s impressive cross-platform sync between smartphone, tablet and PC, the app is not available on Google Play - only on Apple devices

So, what is the best forScore alternative?

nkoda is the only app of those surveyed here that offers users indiscriminate access to an in-built sheet-music collection comprising premium content both in and out of copyright - all for one, all-encompassing subscription fee.

Don’t want to pay anything? Just interested in digital handling of your sheet music? nkoda covers that base, too, by facilitating entirely free access to its cutting-edge score-reading technology - across all major devices. While Piascore and other apps that we didn’t look at offer similar software for free, they don’t offer the range of access to sheet music of all kinds that nkoda provides. 

nkoda is a service that aims to be everything to every kind of musician - no matter their instrument, preferred genre or level of ability. The subscription fee itself is rooted in the desire to batte digital piracy by reimbursing publishers and their hard-working artists for their music. nkoda strives to sustain a global community of musicians, and it wants you to be a part of that.   

Convinced that it’s at least worth a try? Start your 7-day free trial now. Not just yet? Take a look at this app comparison article, in which nkoda is compared to other apps such as OnSong and MuseScore.