forScore has been the best-known sheet music reader for the iPad for many years. Still, many musicians look for an alternative – because of the feature set, the pricing model, or because they’d rather keep their scores in a folder of their own. Here we compare Notenbuch with forScore and Newzik as fairly as we can.
Note: Notenbuch is our own app. Information about the other apps comes from their public materials as of September 2026. Prices and features may change.
The three apps at a glance
| Notenbuch | forScore | Newzik | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | One-time purchase, no subscription | One-time purchase, optional annual “forScore Pro” subscription | Subscription model |
| Platforms | iPhone, iPad, Mac with Apple silicon | Apple devices | iOS, Android, web |
| Where do scores live? | As ordinary files in a folder you choose, e.g. iCloud Drive | In the app’s own library | In your Newzik account with cloud sync |
| Strengths | Simple, quick to set up, metronome and tuner built in, no cloud lock-in | Very large feature set, big user community | Ensemble collaboration, cross-platform |
When is Notenbuch a good fit?
- You want to keep your scores as ordinary PDF files that you can also open in the Files app, on your Mac or in other programs.
- You don’t want a subscription or an account.
- You need the essentials – library, annotations, setlists, pedal, metronome and tuner – without a long learning curve.
- You use an iPhone as well as an iPad.
When is forScore the better choice?
If you rely on many specialised features or have used forScore for years, there’s little reason to switch. forScore is mature and offers lots of tools for professionals with large libraries.
When is Newzik the better choice?
If your whole ensemble distributes parts centrally and marks them up together, or if fellow players use Android devices. That’s what Newzik is built for.
Switching without risk
Because Notenbuch works with ordinary files, switching is easy: export your scores as PDFs, put them in a folder in iCloud Drive and select that folder in Notenbuch. Your files stay unchanged, so you can always go back.