NoteReader vs ScoreLibrary
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
NoteReader
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Become a sight-reading master! NoteReader trains your note-recognition speed with an interactive quiz — notes appear on the musical staff, and you identify them as fast as you can. WHO IT'S FOR - Piano and instrument students who want to read sheet music faster - Music students building core sight-reading skills - Beginners who freeze up when notes fly by - Anyone with a few spare minutes who wants to sharpen their music fundamentals QUIZ MODE - Treble and Bass clef support - 3 difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Hard (Hard includes sharps & flats) - Beautiful staff notation drawn in real-time - Hear each correct note played back so you learn by ear too SCORE & RANK SYSTEM - Time-bonus scoring rewards speed and accuracy - Climb 5 ranks from Novice to SightMaster - Track your history and watch your progress over time WHY NOTEREADER - No sign-up required — open the app and start practicing immediately - Free to play - Share your scores with friends Ready to read music faster? Start your first quiz today.
ScoreLibrary
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ScoreLibrary is a music score reader built for daily practice rather than the concert stage. It's the first score app with a real time-machine view of your annotations. 【Time Machine】 Every pen stroke is auto-snapshotted hourly. The vertical slider in the PDF viewer lets you scrub the timeline: - See only what you wrote this morning - See only the conductor's notes from last week's rehearsal - "Pin this as current" promotes a past state without losing the future snapshots This is unique among score reading apps. 【Smart Japanese Instrument Detection】 When you import PDFs, on-device OCR picks out the instrument and part number, automatically renaming "15_Trumpet3.pdf" to "Murdoch's Last Letter_Tp_3rd.pdf" or your localized equivalent. - 90+ instrument patterns (Western and Japanese) - Composer / arranger detection - Both vertical and horizontal text 【Multiple Import Paths】 - Multi-PDF picker with batched import - Whole-folder import - Camera scan to high-quality PDF - "Open in ScoreLibrary" from Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox - Files app, Mail, LINE share sheet support 【Annotations】 - Apple Pencil pen input - Two page-turn modes: paper Page Curl and smooth Slide - Attach photos anywhere on the page 【Concert / Event Management】 - Per-event annotations (your notes for Concert A don't bleed into Concert B even on the same score) - Setlists with reordering - Add multiple flyer images per event (front, back, handouts), viewable full screen - Auto-generated mute lists for what to bring 【Practice Tools】 - Chord card with audible chord lookup - Score reading card for note name / interval reference - Built-in metronome with compound-meter support (6/8, 9/8, 12/8) 【Trilingual】 Japanese / English / 简体中文 with instant in-app switching. 【Pro Tier (one-time $4.99)】 Unlocks Time Machine slider operation, "Pin this as current," paw- shaped slider thumbs, an alternate paw-stamped app icon, and a faint paw-print decoration across the tab backgrounds. Snapshots are recorded in the background for everyone, so Pro can be purchased anytime later without losing your past practice history. One-time purchase. No subscription.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: NoteReader at none against ScoreLibrary's 1. NoteReader also leads on update cadence (daily vs every 2 months). ScoreLibrary's advantage is ads (none vs shown). On price, device support and iOS requirement 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. ScoreLibrary sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. NoteReader asks for nothing beyond the download.
NoteReader ships an update daily, ScoreLibrary every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on August 27, 2026 and September 15, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | NoteReader | ScoreLibrary |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Daily — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 18.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 5 MB | 20 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | BYNET | Daisaku Seto |
In-app purchases
NoteReader
No in-app purchases
ScoreLibrary
- ScoreLibrary Pro$3.99









