Can I play Guitar Hero or Rock Band on my PC?

Frets On Fire - a free, open-source clone that uses your keyboard.

The Xbox controllers may work on the PC - never tried it, but I saw a video and some software a while back that used the Rock Band drum set on PC.

Guitar Hero III was available on PC. However, it was apparently far inferior to the console versions.

Performous is a nice alternative for Guitar Hero/Rock Band on the PC. Open source, compatible with GH and RB instruments, most of console games' songs are available as packs on the net, some game features are already implemented better than the console games.

I agree with Ignis Umbrae because Guitar Hero has 3 versions released for PC. However, Rock Band for the moment not available for PC.

But there is good news about this, if you reach the goal, ie. There is a project of the same group of creators and Rock Band, that after his last throw me RB4 for PS4 and XBOXone, launch RB4 PC.

Here is the link for more info: RB4 FOR PC

On the other hand, Frets on Fire (FoF) has strong competition that is similar to this program is called Phase Shift (PS), I personally love this program. It is absolutely equal to the FoF, the exception does not have the vocal instrument and graphics PS is well above the FoF. It is also configurable on changing 'Themes' fof like, here I leave the link of the program:

PHASE SHIFT (last version v1.7)

And here a variety of 'Themes' you can choose for the PS. (These topics are updated occasionally depending on your designer, so I suggest that you subscribe to their own channels to be more aware of them):

THEMES FOR PHASE SHIFT: (GH / RB ):

GUITAR HERO II - GUITAR HERO III - GUITAR HERO METALLICA - GUITAR HERO 5 (IN PROGRESS - DEMO) - GUITAR HERO WARRIORS OF ROCK

ROCK BAND 2 - ROCK BAND GREEN DAY - ROCK BAND THE BEATLES - ROCK BAND 3 - ROCK BAND 4

Greetings.

There is a program called Clone Hero which is used by most guitar hero livestreamers and also casual players which you can download on the PC. It is in fact a little better than normal Guitar Hero, because you can easily download songs and charts, just about as fast as your computer can download and extract. The link to the download video is here:

There is also an online document with download links to various setlists from actual Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, so you can play all the songs from those games:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13B823ukxdVMocowo1s5XnT3tzciOfruhUVePENKc01o/htmlview?sle=true#gid=0

Update 10 years later:
Now you can play Rock Band, Rock Band 2, Rock Band 3, Green Day Rock Band, The Beatles Rock Band, and LEGO Rock Band using the RPCS3 PS3 emulator.

You can also play any Rock Band / Guitar Hero game using the Dolphin emulator (the downside is the graphical and sound quality), and any Guitar Hero game on RPCS3 with the sound desynchronised, but if your computer is strong enough, desynchronisation might be even not noticeable.