Staff Editor vs Composer Pro
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Staff Editor
Learn music notation by interactively placing and editing notes on a musical staff. This app offers an educational and recreational way for beginners to explore the fundamentals of music composition and hear their creations.
- Interactive music staff
- Drag and drop note placement
- Edit note pitch by dragging
- Remove notes easily
- Play composed melodies
- Beginner-friendly music education
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Staff Editor leads you to the world of music notation by allowing you to work interactively with a predefined set of music notes on the staff. It offers an opportunity for beginners to understand the fundamentals and feel the beauty of music in both an educational and a recreational manner. Simply drag different notes and place them on different positions of the staff as you wish to hear them. If you wish to edit a note, drag it upward or downward to alter the pitch, or you can remove it directly. Once you are satisfied with the note combinations that are placed on the staff, play the melody to enjoy the creational work you just composed.
Composer Pro
Compose music scores with ease using a familiar keyboard layout. This app supports multiple parts, a wide range of instruments, and various musical symbols, making it suitable for both beginners and experienced musicians.
- Keyboard-style note input
- Support for up to 8 parts
- Over 100 instruments
- Variety of music symbols
- Configurable parts and settings
- Instrument transposition
- Export without watermark
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A handy sheet music writer app, make writing sheet music feels like typing notes. Tap on the keys with notation in a familiar keyboard layout. Provide a very easy way to compose music score. Support up to 8 parts, over 100 instruments, variety of music symbols and notations. It is very friendly for rookies while professional enough for experts. --------------------------------- UNLIMITED ACCESS SUBSCRIPTION - Support up to 8 parts - Config parts(add, delete, reorder) - Change key for each part - Change beat type and tempo - Config clef for each staff - Config sound for each part - No watermark image export - No Ads - Support 2nd voice part - Transpose instruments - Change keyboard size - Import data file - Unlock all 100+ instruments - The subscriptions are $9.99 monthly and $49.99 yearly with free trial - Payment will be charged to iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase - Subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period - Account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period, and identify the cost of the renewal - Subscriptions may be managed by the user and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the user's Account Settings after purchase - Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that service, where applicable - Terms of use: https://service.notationpad.com/terms_service.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Composer Pro at 4.5 against Staff Editor's 3.0. Composer Pro also leads on review sentiment (72% vs 33%) and ads (none vs shown). Staff Editor's advantage is monetization model (free with in-app purchases vs subscription) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 15.0). On price, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Staff Editor sells 4 one-off in-app purchases and Composer Pro sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Composer Pro holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Composer Pro has 685 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 33% of Staff Editor's written reviews are positive against 72% of Composer Pro's.
Staff Editor ships an update every 12 months, Composer Pro every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 19, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Staff Editor | Composer Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.0 (8 ratings) | 4.5 (685 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 33.3% of reviews | 71.5% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 8 | 685 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 12 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Subscription |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 30 MB | 161 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Yang Zhao | 嵩 张 |
Customer experience
Staff Editor
Composer Pro
Bugs and requests
Staff Editor
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Composer Pro
Reported bugs
3 issues- Notes sometimes placed incorrectly
- Measures and compositions randomly deleted
- Inability to restore deleted content
Requested features
5 requests- Add more instruments beyond piano
- Allow changing time signatures and key signatures without subscription
- Improve note editing and placement
- Add export options to save/share compositions
- Provide more music notation tools and dynamics
In-app purchases
Staff Editor
- Instruments Pack$0.99
- Choirs Pack$0.99
- Fun Voices Pack$0.99
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- Remove Advertisements$1.99
Composer Pro
- Unlimited Access$6.997 Days
- Pro Access$9.991 Month
- Pro Access$49.991 Year
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- Pro Access7 Days trial$49.991 Year
