Most sight-reading comparisons are apples and oranges: a generator against a reader, a note-naming game against a real-piece app. SightReader and MasterPiano are the rare case where the two things are genuinely alike. Both listen to your MIDI keyboard, follow real published pieces, mark your notes green or red in real time, and grade the library by ABRSM level. So the honest comparison isn’t about who does the core job — both do — it’s about value: what you get free, and what you pay.
Full disclosure: we make SightReader. We’ll be straight about where MasterPiano is stronger, because on a couple of things it is.
What MasterPiano does well
MasterPiano is a modern, capable tool with a genuinely large catalogue — it advertises 8,000+ real pieces, more than SightReader’s 4,000+ — and a structured curriculum that goes beyond reading into scales, arpeggios and chords organised by ABRSM grade. It tracks scores and streaks, and Premium adds PDF export of the music. If your priority is the widest possible library and a single app that covers technical work alongside sight reading, that breadth is a real strength and worth the look.
Where SightReader differs
The core loop is so similar that the differences sit around the edges — and the biggest one is cost.
- Price. SightReader is £5 a month (or £48 a year). MasterPiano Premium is $19.99 a month (or $149.99 a year) — several times the price for the same essential feature. If you’re practising real pieces with live feedback and paying monthly, that gap adds up quickly.
- The free tier. SightReader’s core practice loop is free with no daily time limit. MasterPiano is free to start but caps MIDI practice at around 10 minutes a day, so serious daily practice effectively needs Premium.
- Free extras. SightReader’s note-recognition trainer and scales mode are on the free tier too, so a beginner isn’t paying to learn the notes.
Where MasterPiano wins: the larger library and the fuller scales/arpeggios/chords curriculum with PDF export. We won’t pretend otherwise.
Side by side
| App | Listens as you play (MIDI) | Reads real pieces | ABRSM 1–8 graded | Library | Free tier | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MasterPiano | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 8,000+ | 10 min/day | $19.99/mo |
| SightReader | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 4,000+ | Uncapped | £5/mo |
So which should you choose?
If value matters most — and for most individual learners it does — SightReader is the cheaper way to do the same core thing, and its free tier lets you practise properly without a daily clock running down. If you specifically want the largest library going, or a single app that folds a full scales-and-technique curriculum in with your reading, MasterPiano earns its higher price for that breadth.
Either way, you’re getting the feature that actually matters for practising alone: software that listens and tells you the truth about what you played. That puts both of these ahead of the generators and note-naming games — the wider field is covered in the best piano sight-reading apps, and if free is your deciding factor, is there a free sight-reading app? goes through exactly where each tool draws the line. For exam-specific practice, the Grades pages show what each ABRSM level asks of you.