CogNote vs Spoteca
CogNote
cognote.studio
Spoteca
spoteca.comSide by side
| Figure | CogNote | Spoteca |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $5/mo | $1/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 3 | 4 |
| Spec score · Music School Software | 9.2 (#2) | 8.2 (#7) |
| Billing | CogNote can generate invoices from attendance and billing policies, email PDF invoices, record payment and export payment CSV files. | Spoteca supports custom pricing plans, automatic invoices, payment tracking, discount codes, financial reports and teacher pay tracking. |
| Events | Teachers can create recital or studio events, collect family RSVPs and optionally send invitations and reminders. | Events and recitals can be scheduled with rooms or venues, participant lists, announcements, recurring events and event history. |
| Scheduling | It supports recurring weekly lessons and one-tap attendance while preserving local lesson times across daylight-saving changes. | A shared colour-coded calendar covers teachers, students and rooms, with recurring bookings and conflict detection. |
| Security controls | The hosted privacy policy states that traffic uses TLS, tenant data is isolated with database row-level security and stored credentials are encrypted at rest. | Spoteca says it uses reasonable technical and organisational security measures and records staff support sessions for auditability. |
| What it does | CogNote is an open-source studio-management and music-practice suite for private music teachers. | Spoteca is a cloud management platform for schools and academies handling students, guardians, teachers, lessons, classes, schedules, attendance, progress, payments and communication. |
Plans
In their own words
CogNote
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.
Spoteca
Spoteca is a cloud-based management platform for music schools, covering students, teachers, lessons, schedules, payments, attendance, and communications. Its shared calendar handles recurring lessons, scheduling conflicts, rooms, teacher availability, and attendance. Billing features include custom plans, automatic invoices, payment tracking, discounts, financial reports, and teacher pay tracking. Schools can also manage group classes, events and recitals, curricula, lesson notes, milestones, and student progress reports. Role-specific account views serve administrators, teachers, students, and guardians, with messaging. Reports cover enrollment trends, new students, dropouts, teacher performance, financial results, and student flags, with PDF or CSV exports. Schools can bulk-import records from Excel, and customers retain ownership of their data and can export a full copy before cancellation. Spoteca is web-based. Its Free plan costs nothing forever and supports up to 10 billable enrollments. Growth costs $1 a month per billable enrollment per branch, capped at $100/month per branch, and includes a 30-day trial. Scale costs $100 a month for 101 or more active enrollments.