[adrianh]

They are indeed compatible, as are most modern music-notation programs. You can transfer music between them using an open standard called MusicXML. But MusicXML isn’t 100% lossless, so you might need to tweak your music upon importing into a new app (mostly presentational stuff).

Whether MuseScore is better likely depends on your exact needs. What’s your end goal — preparing music for printing? Just jotting down ideas? Composing and hearing high-quality synthetic sounds? Creating instructional material? Sharing stuff easily online?

[nchelluri]

Thanks for the feedback. I am embarrassed to say it but you asked: I can't read music very well and I like to use NoteFlight to play back scores that I type in to me, so that I can ensure I'm practicing them correctly. That's about the sum total of my usage so far. And I'd prefer to use free software all else being equal.

[adrianh]

No need to be embarrassed — we all start somewhere!

In that case, I think you're fine with Noteflight or MuseScore. If I were you, I'd play with both and choose whichever one you feel is more intuitive.

You might also give Soundslice a try (https://www.soundslice.com/) — it has a web-based music notation editor that has practice tools built in (like a visual piano keyboard to show you where to put your fingers).

It's free to use for your use-case. And though it's not open-source, it was developed by one of the people who created the Django web framework (me!) — so maybe my past open-source work counts for something.

[nchelluri]

Thanks for the link, will check it out and play with all of these tools. :)