Comparison

iWriteMusic Pro SE vs Notation Scanner

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

iWriteMusic Pro SE

Create beautiful, professional-quality sheet music with an intuitive interface. This app offers efficient input systems, comprehensive notation tools, and useful playback options for musicians of all levels.

Highlights
  • Intuitive user interface
  • Efficient input systems (One-Flick & Traditional)
  • Professional quality sheet music
  • Comprehensive notation elements
  • Useful playback options
  • Export to PDF, JPG, and MIDI
Features
Read full description

Music Writing is easy and fun when you use iWriteMusic! Experience the perfect harmony of ease and versatility in sheet music creation with iWriteMusic! Say goodbye to complicated notation apps and hello to intuitive design. Enjoy quick and beautiful sheet music creation with a comprehensive suite of essential tools for concerts, lessons, and music classes. Best fit for professional musicians, music teachers and students. For songwriters, composers and arrangers. For both singers and instrumentalists (piano, violin, cello, guitar, flute, saxophone, trumpet, drums, etc.). Great for writing down ideas, creating lesson materials, creating lead sheets, or creating scores and parts for chorus groups, choirs, chamber orchestras, jazz bands, Latin bands, orchestras, and more. For daily practice, rehearsals, concerts, iWriteMusic will help you enrich your musical life! Check out 8 reasons to choose iWriteMusic SE (Special Edition) 1. You can understand this app almost instantly! Because of Truly Intuitive and Extremely Simple user interface, you barely need to read pages of manuals nor watching numbers of instruction videos. Unlike Finale, Sibelius and other similar apps, you just have a few things to learn to be able to use this app pretty well. 2.Double your productivity with our Highly Efficient Input System. If you’re already familiar with notation apps and looking for faster & more efficient entry system, try our innovative One-Flick Entry System along with Traditional Entry System to get your job done in no time! What is Traditional Entry System? - The choices will appear with ToolBox. - Select a value and the location separately. - Recommended to those who are not yet familiar with any music notation apps. What is OneFlick Entry System? - The choices will appear when you touch the screen. - Select a location and the value at once. - The selection will change as you slide your finger to left/right. - Recommended to those who are familiar with music notation apps and looking for faster and more efficient entry system. 3. Creates beautiful sheet music / music score - absolutely professional quality! - rich options for page layout adjustment - easy parts creation - easy score/parts management - direct print-out via AirPrint 4. Supports most of major notation elements - multi-track writing - multi-voice writing - percussion/drums notation - chord symbols and lyrics - multi-bar rest - time change - key change - clef change - tempo change - grace note - articulations and dynamics marks - easy song transpose - partial transpose and many more! 5. Useful playback options for practice - mixer with solo, mute and voice select - loop and swing options 6. Data & sheet music sharing - exports/Imports iWriteMusic data file - exports PDF or JPG - exports Standard MIDI file which can be imported by other apps such as GarageBand 7. Extremely Compact Size (15 MB) You can save your device storage space for photos and other apps. 8. Best of all, it's Free! Yes, it's Free and Over 1.4 Million people all over the world has created music with this app family. Let's get started now! Note: This is for iPhone (iPad version sold separately) ATTENTION:  Latency during playback and drawing may occur by device capacity or number of tracks and background applications. Limitations on SE (Special Edition): 1. Water mark appears on page views and printouts. 2. Can’t save more than 5 songs. 3. Can't play more than 30 seconds at a time. 4. Can't import iWriteMusic data file. (export only) 5. Can't export Standard MIDI file.

About

Notation Scanner

This app allows users to scan and recognize sheet music using their device's camera or existing images. It functions as a sheet music reader and player, supporting over 100 instruments and offering playback controls. Users can also export their recognized scores in various formats.

Highlights
  • Scan sheet music via camera or image library
  • Recognize and playback music scores
  • Support for over 100 instruments
  • Adjust tempo and voice parts
  • Export as MusicXML, MIDI, PNG, PDF
Features
Read full description

A powerful scanner for sheet music lovers to recognize sheet music. A handy music OCR tool for you to scan and playback sheet music. Just try to take a photo on the printed sheet music and enjoy it. It dose the recognition process on server side, so it can recognize many more music stuffs than other apps. You could use it as a simple sheet music reader or player as you want. It supports more than 100 different types of instrument along with a very nice sound effect. ----------------------- Features: -Scan the whole sheet at once using the built-in camera or a picture from your image library. -Tap a bar to play the song from. -Support multi-page and reorder them as you wish. -Support up to 8 systems. -Support for changing tempo speed. -Turn up/down the voice of each part. -Export MusicXML, MIDI, PNG and PDF files.

Screenshots

Notation Scanner4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: iWriteMusic Pro SE at Free against Notation Scanner's $2.99. iWriteMusic Pro SE also leads on rating (4.5 vs 4.1). Notation Scanner's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 5 weeks) and device support (3 vs 1). On review sentiment, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

iWriteMusic Pro SE is free to download; Notation Scanner costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

iWriteMusic Pro SE holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 207 and 736 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 53% of iWriteMusic Pro SE's written reviews are positive against 50% of Notation Scanner's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iWriteMusic Pro SE ships an update every 5 weeks, Notation Scanner every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
iWriteMusic Pro SE versus Notation Scanner: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriWriteMusic Pro SENotation Scanner
PriceFree — better$2.99
Rating4.5 (207 ratings) — better4.1 (736 ratings)
Positive reviews53.2% of reviews — better49.6% of reviews
Number of ratings207736 — better
Update frequencyEvery 5 weeksEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS16.09.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size19 MB168 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperiWriteMusicProject嵩 张

Customer experience

iWriteMusic Pro SE

All ratings207 ratings
Positive89.4%
Neutral5.3%
Negative5.3%
Written reviews111 reviews
Positive53.2%
Neutral10.8%
Negative36.0%

Notation Scanner

All ratings730 ratings
Positive75.2%
Neutral7.1%
Negative17.7%
Written reviews460 reviews
Positive49.6%
Neutral7.4%
Negative43.0%

User reviews

iWriteMusic Pro SE

From 207 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Easy to use
  • 💡 Helpful for music writing
  • 👍 Useful for music teachers
  • 🚀 Functional free version
  • 👍 Good for small-scale composition

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes frequently
  • 🔧 Unintuitive interface
  • 🔧 Difficult to navigate
  • 🐛 Playback issues
  • 🔧 Fiddly note placement

Notation Scanner

From 736 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Helpful for learning and practicing music
  • 🚀 Works well when the sheet music is clear
  • 💡 Useful for choir and band members

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Struggles to recognize complex or low-quality sheet music
  • 🔒 Forces users to leave 5-star reviews to unlock features
  • 🔋 Slow scanning and processing times

Bugs and requests

iWriteMusic Pro SE

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Incorrect transposition of notes
  • Inability to save compositions
  • Overlapping/unreadable menu text
  • Freezing when trying to copy/paste
  • Inconsistent behavior when adding new measures

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more music notation options (e.g. glissando, ghost notes)
  • Improve playback to follow dynamics and expressions
  • Allow multiple key signatures in the same piece
  • Provide an undo/redo function
  • Implement a chord entry mode for guitarists

Notation Scanner

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Cannot recognize any photos or scans of sheet music
  • Playback skips notes and has timing issues
  • App crashes frequently when trying to scan music

Requested features

3 requests
  • Allow users to manually correct scanned music
  • Improve recognition accuracy for different sheet music styles
  • Add more instrument options beyond just piano

In-app purchases

None

iWriteMusic Pro SE

No in-app purchases

None

Notation Scanner

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is iWriteMusic Pro SE free?
iWriteMusic Pro SE is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Notation Scanner free?
Notation Scanner costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, iWriteMusic Pro SE or Notation Scanner?
iWriteMusic Pro SE is rated higher. iWriteMusic Pro SE averages 4.5 out of 5 from 207 ratings, while Notation Scanner averages 4.1 from 736 ratings.
Do iWriteMusic Pro SE or Notation Scanner have ads?
Neither iWriteMusic Pro SE nor Notation Scanner shows ads.
Which is updated more often, iWriteMusic Pro SE or Notation Scanner?
iWriteMusic Pro SE ships an update every 5 weeks, and Notation Scanner every 2 weeks. Most recently, iWriteMusic Pro SE was updated on October 19, 2026 and Notation Scanner on October 22, 2026.

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