Cost / License
- Free
- Open Source
Application type
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- Android Tablet
- Flathub




Guitar Pro is described as 'Edit tablatures for guitar and other instruments with a realistic audio engine and interactive tools, supporting a format popular among guitarists worldwide' and is a popular music production app in the audio & music category. There are more than 50 alternatives to Guitar Pro for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Linux apps. The best Guitar Pro alternative is TuxGuitar, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like Guitar Pro are MuseScore Studio, Songsterr, Avid Sibelius and Rosegarden.




Compose, arrange, and share music using free, open-source software for Windows, Mac, and Linux with integrated playback, fast note entry, MIDI, MusicXML, PDF support, multilingual UI, and direct connection to an online sheet music community for sharing scores.




Songsterr is an archive of guitar, bass and drum tabs. It is collaboratively built and maintained by your fellow music lovers. Anyone with Internet access can contribute new tabs and make changes to existing ones.

Professional music notation software for Windows and macOS featuring intuitive, task-based score creation, MIDI and onscreen input, up to 16 staves, guitar tab conversion, Magnetic Layout, dynamic parts updates, text and lyric support, scanning tools, and expressive playback.




Rosegarden is a well-rounded audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment.



Online music score editor enabling real-time collaboration and editing in your web browser, supporting MusicXML, MIDI, PDF, MP3, WAV, percussion notation, history tracking, Google Hangouts video, metronome tools, and cross-device access for composers and students.




Impro-Visor is a music notation program designed to help jazz musicians compose and hear solos similar to ones that might be improvised.




Reflow is a music notation app that runs on iPhone, iPad and Mac. It is a 100% Native app that supports iCloud sync and latest Mac OS X features such as Versions, Autosave and Fullscreen.




TablEdit is a program for creating, editing, printing and listening to tablature and sheet music (standard notation) for guitar and other fretted, stringed instruments, including mandolin and bass.




Tabular is a brand new tablature editor that lets you read and write music for guitar, bass, drums and much more. It's the best way to learn new songs, write your own songs and run through practice exercises for nearly any kind of stringed instrument or drum kit.



Power Tab Editor is a free tablature authoring tool created by Brad Larsen for Windows. It is used to create guitar, bass and ukulele tablature scores, among many others. The current version uses the *.ptb file format.

Band-in-a-Box is an intelligent automatic accompaniment program. You can hear and play along to many song ideas and go from "nothing" to "something" in a very short period of time with Band-in-a-Box as your "on demand" backup band.


TuxGuitar is to Guitar Pro as WordPad is to Word. It's not quite the same, but it's got all of the essential features, is open source, and is free.