CogNote vs Legato

CogNote is an open-source studio management suite for private music teachers, combining lesson scheduling, attendance, family communication, student progress tracking, quizzes, and flashcards. Teachers can schedule recurring weekly lessons and record attendance with one tap; cancellation windows, banked credits, and credit expiry are configurable studio settings. Families can use a private link to see schedules, practice links, and notes without logging in, and teachers can email lesson notes. Progress views include skill radar charts, trend lines, attendance, and per-note quiz analytics. Students can start practice from a link without an account, using note and symbol quizzes with instant feedback or SM-2 spaced-repetition flashcards. Notation appears on a staff with clefs, key signatures, and more than 40 musical symbols. CogNote is MIT-licensed, supports data export, and can be self-hosted. Hosted Free has soft caps of five active students, five practice lessons, and five sheet music items; Hosted Pro costs $5 a month and includes a 30-day trial for new accounts. Self-hosting is free but requires running the stack, including Docker or Supabase, email, and backups.

Legato is a studio management platform for music educators and studio managers. It supports lesson scheduling, student records, invoicing, and payment tracking across Android, iOS, and the web. Legato AI can take actions on a teacher’s roster through voice or chat, including scheduling, charging, cancelling, and invoicing. Scheduling includes recurring lessons, rescheduling, student reminders, and conflict detection. Stripe handles invoices, recurring charges, payment tracking, and reminders. Students can use a portal to view lessons, notes, assignments, and invoices, while a practice tracker provides a timer, weekly streaks, and goals. Teachers can import student information from CSV files or notebook photos. Listed integrations include Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, email notifications, SMS reminders, and PDF export; Zoom, push notifications, and an analytics dashboard are marked as upcoming. Legato is a progressive web app installable from a browser on mobile and desktop, with offline support. Legato Pro costs $19.99 a month, billed monthly. Legato says it takes no additional cut from payments; Stripe’s standard processing fee typically applies at 2.9% + 30¢ per US transaction.