Finale, a music notation app for Mac and Windows, has been used by musicians since Macs had 9-inch black-and-white screens, but now its developers are discontinuing it and pointing users to alternatives.
An app for writing music and notation may never have become mainstream, but here's what avid Finale users have to say about the app: Apple Insider Forum since at least 2002.
“Today, Finale is no longer the future of the music notation industry. After 35 years, that's a reality I'm willing to be upfront about,” wrote Greg Dell'Era, president of developer MakeMusic. “Rather than release a new version of Finale that would provide little value to our users, we have decided to end development.”
“Development on Finale has ended, but we know your musical journey isn't over,” Dell'Era continues. “We want to express our warmest, deepest gratitude to all of our loyal and passionate users.”
Development of Finale began in the 1980s, and the first version was released in 1988. This version required a Mac Plus, Macintosh SE, or Macintosh II, and it was recommended that these Macs have 1.5 MB of RAM.
To put this in historical context, Finale soon gained a competitor whose name is well known today but whose original functionality has been forgotten: Apple's current digital audio workstation app, Logic Pro, began as third-party Notator Logic in 1990, a rival scoring app.
Derella says that over the 40 years since then, the app has been continuously developed and millions of lines of code have been written, making it exponentially harder to achieve anything more than incremental improvements.
Neither Finale nor the associated PrintMusic app is available for purchase at this time. Existing users can continue to use the apps or re-download them until August 25, 2025.
After that date, existing users will no longer be able to download the software or receive support, and you will no longer be able to authorize Finale after installing it on a new computer.
MakeMusic and Dell'Era are encouraging users to switch to Dorico Pro, Finale's biggest rival. Dorico Pro 5 normally retails for $579, but users of any version of Finale or PrintMusic can purchase it for $149.