Comparison

Drawing Box Pro vs Paintstorm Studio Lite

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Drawing Box Pro

Create digital paintings and designs with a comprehensive set of artist tools. Features include various brush effects, multi-layer support, and video replays of your creative process. Optimized for Apple Pencil on iPad Pro for enhanced accuracy and natural drawing.

Highlights
  • Pencil and brush effects
  • Multi-layer support
  • Video replay of artwork
  • Apple Pencil optimization
  • Symmetrical drawing
  • Customizable color mixer
  • Export to PSD, PNG, PDF, video
Features
Read full description

Drawing Box Pro is the best app for painting and designing on a mobile device. A complete artist necessary tool set, with gorgeous pencil and brush effects. The strong feeling of comfort and the variety of the painting tools are incomparably rich. The pencil has 3 different stroke styles and 9 exclusive hatching effects. Brush, airbrush, watercolor, oil painting and smudge complete the set of artist tools. The excellent video replay of your paintings will show up your processes and techniques. This is the best tool for teaching, analyzing and sharing your artworks. Special for Apple Pencil drawing on the iPad Pro: The Apple Pencil brings new challenges to painting apps with the three totally new specifications: the pointed pencil tip, the tilt angle, and the pressure sensitivity. Drawing Box Pro will give more accuracy compared to the finger tip and other styluses, the painting tool size will produce a really smooth variation by simple tilt the angle of the pen, and the pressure will add dark and saturation to the colors. The pencils, brushes and other painting tools were enhanced individually to take the biggest advantages from pressure sensitivity and tilt angle cognition. You will feel again the incredible natural way to use pencils, pens and brushes. Drawing with the Apple Pencil means working with not less than 350 levels of color density without adjusting your tool. In the meantime, you will draw and paint with strokes which can be enlarged up to 7 times their initial size, always without any adjustment. The necessary tools: - Pencil - Brush - Eraser - Color palettes - Canvas The artist basic digital features: - Zoom and pan - Multi-layers - Undo and redo - Gallery (storage place) - Size and opacity adjustment The extra art tools: - Pencil: 3 styles + 9 hatching heads - Inkpen: rounded and calligraphic heads - Art brush: 30 awesome effects - Airbrush: 9 rich styles - Watercolor: 10 whooshy brushes - Oil painting: 3 deep coloring effects - Smudge: 3 different color merging methods - Symmetrical drawing: vertical and horizontal orientations - Shapes: lined, gradient and flat fill. - Color mixer: create your personal colors. - Wet effect on the canvas. Bonus digital features: - Pressure sensitivity control (compatible with the new Apple Pencil) - Multi-layers options: duplication, merge down 2 layers, opacity control, layer transition and edition, fill layers with imported pictures from your device library, camera or the application gallery. - Canvas: rich textures and colors. - Multiple undos and redos for a faster work edition. - The gallery artwork is organized by blocks of unlimited number of pages. You can almost create a digital book inside the app, then export it as pdf files. Supported exported formats: psd, png, pdf, video. - Video replay and sharing of your artworks. - Paintings can be mixed and duplicated into several blocks.

About

Paintstorm Studio Lite

This app offers professional digital painting tools for artists of all levels. It provides extensive brush customization, stroke correction, and intuitive controls to enhance the mobile art creation experience. Discover new possibilities for digital drawing with advanced features and Apple Pencil support.

Highlights
  • Extensive brush customization
  • Stroke post-correction
  • Apple Pencil support
  • Dynamic interface
  • Mirror drawing
  • Standard tools pack
Read full description

Paintstorm Studio is the first iOS App designed not only for simple sketches, but professional digital painting of any level, genre and technique. Paintstorm helps you to discover the magnificence and unleash the full potential of Apple Pencil and brings you to a whole new level of drawing. Creating an art masterpiece has never been so mobile. A major feature of Paintstorm Studio is the array of brushes to choose from. We did our best so that you can easily and quickly adjust the brushes suitable to your painting style. Anyone who has ever painted knows it's hard to overestimate the painting tool and the importance of all the seemingly insignificant details. We tried not to miss any of them. Our goal was to create an intuitive, simple-to-use but at the same time functionally powerful tool that brings the process of digital painting to a new level, making it as comfortable as possible. - Full control of all brush options (Incredible possibilities for brush settings) - Bristle brushes of any form and kind - Stroke post correction (You can take an action on any option. Not only on the stroke thickness) - Parameters binding to the perspective - Dynamic interface (Global interface scale, panels scale, opacity, color) - Custom panels - Full controlled mask-brush (Each brush can work as mask for other brush) - Takes underlayer's color while blending - "Close gaps" function when you fill or select - Dirty brush mode - Stroke stabilizer - Usable color mixer - Different gradient strokes - Mirror drawing - Standard tools pack (Lasso, Magic wand, Crop, Fill, Gradient and etc) - Control of the random amounts - Apple Pencil support (Pressure, Tilt, Direction) Lite version restrictions: - It is not possible to load and save psd files - A watermark is added to the picture Upgrade to the full version and get rid of the limits!

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Drawing Box Pro at 88% against Paintstorm Studio Lite's 24%. Drawing Box Pro also leads on rating (4.4 vs 4.0) and update cadence (every 6 weeks vs every 4 months). Paintstorm Studio Lite's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (262 vs 27). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Drawing Box Pro sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Paintstorm Studio Lite asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Drawing Box Pro holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Paintstorm Studio Lite has 262 ratings behind it against 27, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 88% of Drawing Box Pro's written reviews are positive against 24% of Paintstorm Studio Lite's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Drawing Box Pro ships an update every 6 weeks, Paintstorm Studio Lite every 4 months. Both last shipped on October 15, 2026.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Drawing Box Pro versus Paintstorm Studio Lite: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDrawing Box ProPaintstorm Studio Lite
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (27 ratings) — better4.0 (262 ratings)
Positive reviews87.5% of reviews — better24.1% of reviews
Number of ratings27262 — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeks — betterEvery 4 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPadiPad
Requires iOS9.0 — better13.1
Further details — not scored
Size46 MB103 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperEtienne Nguyen Tan HonSergei Komarov

Customer experience

Drawing Box Pro

All ratings27 ratings
Positive88.9%
Neutral3.7%
Negative7.4%
Written reviews48 reviews
Positive87.5%
Neutral8.3%
Negative4.2%

Paintstorm Studio Lite

All ratings262 ratings
Positive72.9%
Neutral7.3%
Negative19.8%
Written reviews141 reviews
Positive24.1%
Neutral13.5%
Negative62.4%

User reviews

Drawing Box Pro

From 27 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🎨 Realistic paint tools
  • ✍️ Fluid line drawing
  • 💡 Mirror drawing tool
  • 👍 Easy to use interface
  • 📱 Works well with Apple Pencil

Room to improve

  • 💥 Frequent crashes
  • 🗑️ Drawings disappear
  • 📉 Low resolution (32-bit or less)
  • 🚫 No stylus support (except Apple Pencil)
  • 🖼️ Oils and watercolor lack realism

Paintstorm Studio Lite

From 262 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 💎 Excellent brushes and color mixing
  • 🎨 Sophisticated drawing tools
  • 🖌️ Advanced interface like desktop apps
  • 🖥️ Powerful features on par with desktop software

Room to improve

  • 🚧 Cluttered and confusing interface
  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and performance issues
  • 💦 Annoying watermark on exported artwork
  • 🔍 Lack of clear instructions and tutorials

Bugs and requests

Drawing Box Pro

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • App crashes after ten minutes
  • Drawings disappear when deleting a blank page
  • Unintended lines when zooming with Apple Pencil
  • Dropbox backup seems out of date

Requested features

6 requests
  • Update to 64-bit resolution
  • Add moving tool
  • Improve realism of oils and watercolor
  • Support for other styluses (Adonit Jot, Wacom Intuos Creative)
  • Rethink the app icon design
Show 1 more
  • More brushes

Paintstorm Studio Lite

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • App crashes when opening or switching between projects
  • Brush settings and color wheel disappearing unexpectedly
  • Inability to save or recover unsaved artwork

Requested features

4 requests
  • Remove watermark option
  • Ability to import photos and images
  • Better organization and customization of UI
  • More intuitive brush and tool controls

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Drawing Box Pro

One-time1
  • Unlock All Tools And Features$4.99
None

Paintstorm Studio Lite

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Drawing Box Pro free?
Drawing Box Pro is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Paintstorm Studio Lite free?
Paintstorm Studio Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Drawing Box Pro or Paintstorm Studio Lite?
Drawing Box Pro is rated higher. Drawing Box Pro averages 4.4 out of 5 from 27 ratings, while Paintstorm Studio Lite averages 4.0 from 262 ratings.
Do Drawing Box Pro or Paintstorm Studio Lite have ads?
Neither Drawing Box Pro nor Paintstorm Studio Lite shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Drawing Box Pro or Paintstorm Studio Lite?
Drawing Box Pro ships an update every 6 weeks, and Paintstorm Studio Lite every 4 months. Most recently, Drawing Box Pro was updated on October 15, 2026 and Paintstorm Studio Lite on October 15, 2026.

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