My first meanderings into Dorico.
I do have some basic grasp of Finale, but could not just hop into Dorico and enter notation the same way. For example, stacking two or three notes on top of each other like a chord (or less) - the next note slid over into the next beat and my intended chord was a melody. 😃 There is a command for that kind of stacking. If you do want a chord, you click a chord icon.
There is a long introductory writeup saying that the underlying philosophy or premise is different from other notation programs. I think they said it is with the working composer in mind. You start by entering "players" - if in an ensemble or whatever one of the players will play both flute and piccolo, those are the instruments for Player 1. After that you enter the instruments for that player. Then there is the idea of "streams". If I have a piece with three movements, each movement is a "stream" for the same work. Several pieces belonging together in a same suite or group of works, are each "streams". That's way past my needs.
You don't have to specify how many measures - it generates the measures as you go along. You can omit putting in rests: it shows beats above your measure so you can just input the next note where you want it, and it inserts rests for you. I believe it also means that you can replace things anywhere without everything sliding over in a measure. The beats that it shows can be calibrated on the bottom - if you want to show only quarter note lengths, or smaller units.
I found the first tutorials much easier to follow than those of Finale. In Finale, I vaguely remember that you were led through creating music step by step and that was supposed to teach you how things work. Here the first tutorial was on "inputting notes", one element at a time, and in the background there was a "scribble sheet" score for playing around with the ideas. I was able to try out each thing to make sure I understood how it worked. After the 2nd or 3rd tutorial, it seemed to jump things needed. The tutorials found on-line and via the site were handy.
My biggest obstacle with Finale was figuring out how it worked. The tutorial style was not compatible with how I learn (or I was too dense. 😉 )