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Software · Audio & music

MuseScore

Create, play and print beautiful sheet music.

  • Completely free
  • Windows, macOS and Linux
  • Open source

Overview

MuseScore is a music notation program, available on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Features described in its Flathub listing, in its GitHub repository and on its official website: lyrics display, PDF export and MIDI support.

File formats mentioned: PDF and WAV.

Overview written by LicitPro from the documentation published by the authors and the cited sources; we have not tried the resource ourselves.

Excerpts that establish this information
  • “Create, play back and print beautiful sheet music with free and easy to use music notation software MuseScore Studio.” — official website, 10 November 2026
  • “It supports unlimited staves with up to four voices each, dynamics, articulations, lyrics, chords, lead sheet notation, import/export of MIDI and MusicXML, export to PDF and WAV, plus online score sharing.” — Flathub, 10 November 2026
  • “It supports unlimited staves with up to four voices each, dynamics, articulations, lyrics, chords, lead sheet notation, import/export of MIDI and MusicXML, export to PDF and WAV, plus online score sharing.” — Flathub, 10 November 2026
  • “It supports unlimited staves with up to four voices each, dynamics, articulations, lyrics, chords, lead sheet notation, import/export of MIDI and MusicXML, export to PDF and WAV, plus online score sharing.” — Flathub, 10 November 2026
  • “MuseScore can import and export MIDI and MusicXML files, and it can also import from Capella and several other programs.” — Flathub, 10 November 2026

At a glance

All of MuseScore is free: no feature is locked behind a paid plan, and its code is open.

Its licence (GPL-3.0) is a copyleft open source licence: you may use, study, modify and redistribute it, including commercially; modified versions must keep the same licence.

Plans and conditions

  • Free content: the free library can be used without paying, under the publisher’s licence.

Strengths

  • Open source code
  • Commercial use allowed

About

MuseScore is cross-platform, multi-lingual, open source music notation software. It features an easy to use WYSIWYG editor with audio score playback for results that look and sound beautiful. It supports unlimited staves with up to four voices each, dynamics, articulations, lyrics, chords, lead sheet notation, import/export of MIDI and MusicXML, export to PDF and WAV, plus online score sharing. MuseScore can upload scores directly to the score sharing site musescore.com. Program support is provided on musescore.org. Features supported by MuseScore include: Unlimited score length Unlimited number of staves per system Up to four independent voices per staff Score creation wizard and templates Automatic part extraction and transposition Repeats, including segnos, codas, and measure repeats Dynamics, articulations, and other expression markings, with playback support for most Custom text markings Lyrics Chord symbols Jazz notation, including lead sheets, slash notation and a “handwritten” font for text Swing and shuffle playback Mixer for instrument levels and effects Percussion notation Early music notation Cross-staff beaming Import of graphics Custom key signatures Additive time signatures User-defined score styles Most elements in MuseScore are laid out automatically but can also be positioned manually. The capabilities of MuseScore can be extended via plugins, and the growing repository on musescore.org contains many plugins submitted by users. MuseScore includes a set of sounds that reproduce common instruments (as defined by General MIDI) without taking up a lot of disk space or memory, but you can also substitute any SoundFont you prefer for a wider variety of sounds or for more realism. MuseScore can import and export MIDI and MusicXML files, and it can also import from Capella and several other programs. MuseScore can export to PDF, PNG, and other graphic formats, to WAV and other audio formats, or to Lilypond for an alternative layout and print option.

Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

Sources and checks

  • Facts collected from Unspecified source (platforms) —
  • Facts collected from Flathub (credit card, source code, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use, version) —
  • Facts collected from Official plan pages (pricing, licence, terms) (limits, commercial use) —
  • Facts collected from Winget (Windows Package Manager) (source code, publisher, platforms, version) —
  • Facts collected from Homebrew (platforms) —
  • Facts collected from Wikidata (licence, platforms) —
  • Last technical check: 5 November 2026
  • Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

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