Comparison

Paperless Music vs String Theory

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

Head to head
About

Paperless Music

Digitize your entire music library, including sheet music, tabs, and scores. Organize, annotate, and perform your music seamlessly with powerful tools. Practice and tune your instrument with built-in features, and even use a second screen for a larger view.

Highlights
  • Import sheet music, tabs, and scores
  • Scan documents with camera
  • Organize music with detailed metadata
  • Create custom collections and setlists
  • Add and sync audio tracks
  • Built-in instrument tuner and metronome
  • Annotate and edit music with drawing tools
Features
Read full description

Free 90-day trial! Add your sheet music, guitar tabs, fake books, and scores, and leave your paper behind. Organize, annotate, practice, and perform with the most powerful yet easy-to-use music viewer and manager. Whether you’re a student or teacher, whether you play in a band, sing in a choir, or gig on the weekends, and no matter what your style of music is, you can count on the app’s reliability for live performances and go paperless with confidence. Build Your Library • Import PDF files from the Files app, a web browser, or from many other apps and sources. • Scan your music with the camera-based document scanner. • Import images from the Photos app. Organize Your Music • Describe and classify your music in great detail with information like title, composer, artist, genres, tags, instruments, key, duration, time signature, rating, difficulty, tempo, web link, and notes. • Add scores with multiple movements or books with multiple songs, then organize them into sections. • Create collections to make groups of music, such as setlists, virtual binders, or books. • Easily find the music and collections you’re looking for with filters. With a few taps, for example, you can see all music that’s in a major key with a 4/4 or 6/8 time signature, having a tempo between 120 - 135 beats per minute. • Create smart folders to automatically keep your music and collections organized. Add Audio Tracks • Add tracks from the Music app. • Record your own audio. • Import audio files. • Adjust pitch and playback speed. • Turn pages automatically while audio plays. Stay In Tune • Tune your instrument using the device microphone. • Generate a tone using a variety of instruments and sounds. • Adjust the A4 frequency. • Select from 10 temperaments to customize the tuning. Practice and Perform • View music in portrait or landscape mode. • Scroll music horizontally or vertically. • Turn pages by swiping, moving the slider, using a Bluetooth page turner, tapping the edge of the screen, following a link, making a facial gesture, or playing audio that has automatic page turning enabled. (Facial gestures require a device with a TrueDepth camera.) • Create links to jump or scroll to another page. Links are great for music with repeats or codas. They also allow music to be automatically scrolled with precise timing. • Use the pencil and highlighter tools to write on music with your finger or with the Apple Pencil. All Apple Pencil settings are supported. • Add text with options for size, rotation, color, font, and justification. • Choose from a wide selection of symbols and shapes to add fingerings, dynamics, accidentals, and more. • Use the low-latency metronome with options for sound, visuals, accent, and count off. See More with Second Screen • Connect two devices and see more of your music. • When viewing music on the main device, it will extend onto the other device’s screen. Share and Back Up • Share your music and collections with other Paperless Music users, with or without your annotations or audio tracks. • Share music in native format to preserve all information, or share in PDF format for general sharing and printing. • Create a backup of your library to keep your data extra safe and to easily transfer everything to other devices. And Much More • Set the page color of your music. • Undo changes made to any page while the viewer is open. • Choose from six library view modes for music and three modes for collections. • Batch edit genres, tags, and instruments. • Adjust the text size in the Settings app to boost or shrink the size of text throughout Paperless Music. • Search using Spotlight. Find and launch right into your music even when the app isn’t running. Learn more by reading the integrated, searchable user guide, accessible from the app’s home screen and from the website. Paperless Music has no ads and no subscriptions. There is no sign-in and there are no accounts. www.paperlessmusic.com

About

String Theory

This app helps guitarists explore scales and chords with an interactive fretboard. It allows users to compare scales, test custom tunings, and record riff ideas. The tool is designed for practicing improvisation, learning theory, and saving musical inspiration.

Highlights
  • Interactive guitar fretboard with scale mapping
  • Scale and Chord Finder tools
  • Custom tunings with octave control
  • Riff recording and vault organization
  • Left-handed mode
  • Scale comparison overlay
Features
Read full description

String Theory is a focused guitar tool for exploring scales, visualizing the fretboard, matching chords, and capturing riff ideas without clutter. Build better fretboard awareness with an interactive scales map, compare two scales at once, test custom tunings, and find compatible chords in seconds. When inspiration hits, record the idea and save it to your riff vault with notes and playback. Features: • Interactive guitar fretboard with scale mapping • Major, harmonic minor, melodic minor, and pentatonic scale families • Scale Finder and Chord Finder tools • Chords-to-scales matching • Add a second scale overlay for comparison • Custom tunings with per-string octave control • Left-handed fretboard mode • Fullscreen fretboard view • Riff recording, playback, rename, share, and vault organization • Light/dark mode, 3 color themes, haptics, and a polished liquid glass interface Whether you’re practicing improvisation, learning theory, or saving new ideas, String Theory keeps the essential guitar tools in one fast, modern app.

Screenshots

Paperless Music4 screens
String Theory4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Paperless Music at Free against String Theory's $1.99. Paperless Music also leads on ratings volume (904 vs 1) and iOS requirement (16.6 vs 26.0). String Theory's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and review sentiment (100% vs 79%). On ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Paperless Music is free to download; String Theory costs $1.99 up front. Paperless Music sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. String Theory asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

String Theory holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Paperless Music has 904 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 79% of Paperless Music's written reviews are positive against 100% of String Theory's.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Paperless Music versus String Theory: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPaperless MusicString Theory
PriceFree — better$1.99
Rating4.8 (904 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews79.2% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings904 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 2 months—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS16.6 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB10 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAgilstreamDANIEL NIKOLAS SZTURM

Customer experience

Paperless Music

All ratings797 ratings
Positive95.5%
Neutral2.1%
Negative2.4%
Written reviews130 reviews
Positive79.2%
Neutral13.1%
Negative7.7%

String Theory

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Paperless Music

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Stopped working with Bluetooth pedal during performance
  • Unable to import PDFs on certain iOS versions

Requested features

5 requests
  • Shuffle option for collections
  • Export set lists or playlists
  • Ability to straighten scanned music sheets
  • Integrate audio playback of associated tracks
  • Add more music notation tools (arrows, brackets, chords)

String Theory

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Paperless Music

One-time1
  • Full Access$9.99
None

String Theory

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Paperless Music free?
Paperless Music is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is String Theory free?
String Theory costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Paperless Music or String Theory?
String Theory is rated higher. Paperless Music averages 4.8 out of 5 from 904 ratings, while String Theory averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Paperless Music or String Theory have ads?
Neither Paperless Music nor String Theory shows ads.

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