Paintstorm Studio vs FocalPaint
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Paintstorm Studio
This app offers a professional digital painting experience on iOS devices, leveraging Apple Pencil for advanced control. It provides a vast array of customizable brushes, stroke correction, and intuitive tools for artists of all levels to create masterpieces on the go.
- Advanced brush customization
- Stroke post-correction
- Perspective-aware parameters
- Dynamic and custom interface
- Mask brush functionality
- Photoshop PSD and ABR support
- Apple Pencil integration
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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 - Standart tools pack (Lasso, Magic wand, Crop, Fill, Gradient and etc) - Control of the random amounts - Photoshop PSD and ABR supported - Apple Pencil support (Pressure, Tilt, Direction)
FocalPaint
This app offers a unique brush engine for realistic paint simulation, pigment mixing, and canvas textures. It allows for custom brush and layer creation using Metal GPU or Javascript code, with advanced features like spectral color models and Apple Pencil Pro support.
- Realistic paint and pigment mixing
- Custom brush and layer creation
- Transparent ink simulation
- Apple Pencil Pro support
- Spectral color model
- Open source shader code library
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FocalPaint's unique brush engine simulates thick paint and real pigment mixing with accurate physics models. Features: - Realistic color blending behaves like real paint! - Real canvas texture and paint thickness - Transparent Ink simulation - Open Source GPU shader code library for reference and customization - Write your own custom brush with Metal GPU or Javascript code - Write your own custom layer modes with Metal GPU code - Apple Pencil Pro support with hover - 16 channel "spectral" color model (256 bits per pixel) - Wide color gamut (P3) Please note: Apple A12 GPU or newer is required Terms of Use: https://www.focalpaint.com/p/terms-of-use.html Privacy Policy: https://www.focalpaint.com/p/privacy.html Special Thanks to: Scott Allen Burns Troy James Sobotka & Friends colour-science.org python library MyPaint painting software team Anna Timm (@anti-art)
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: FocalPaint at $4.99 against Paintstorm Studio's $12.99. FocalPaint also leads on update cadence (monthly vs every 4 months) and review sentiment (79% vs 60%). Paintstorm Studio's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and ratings volume (368 vs 13). On ads, monetization model 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
Paintstorm Studio costs $12.99 and FocalPaint $4.99 up front. FocalPaint sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Paintstorm Studio asks for nothing beyond the download.
Paintstorm Studio holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Paintstorm Studio has 368 ratings behind it against 13, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 60% of Paintstorm Studio's written reviews are positive against 79% of FocalPaint's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Paintstorm Studio ships an update every 4 months, FocalPaint monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 6, 2026 and August 15, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Paintstorm Studio | FocalPaint |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $12.99 | $4.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.4 (368 ratings) — better | 4.2 (13 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 59.6% of reviews | 78.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 368 — better | 13 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 13.1 — better | 18.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 103 MB | 557 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sergei Komarov | brien dieterle |
Customer experience
Paintstorm Studio
FocalPaint
Bugs and requests
Paintstorm Studio
Reported bugs
5 issues- Crashes on startup or when using certain tools
- Brush lag and performance issues with large canvases
- Unreliable autosave and file management
- Unresponsive or glitchy UI elements
- Incompatibility with older iPad models
Requested features
5 requests- Improved brush customization and management
- Seamless canvas rotation and zooming
- Expanded layer and selection tools
- Better text and typography support
- Integrated cloud/online sync and sharing
FocalPaint
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Paintstorm Studio
No in-app purchases
FocalPaint
- Generous Tip$0.99
- Big Tip$4.99
- Huge Tip$9.99
Questions
Is Paintstorm Studio free?
Is FocalPaint free?
Which has better reviews, Paintstorm Studio or FocalPaint?
Do Paintstorm Studio or FocalPaint have ads?
Which is updated more often, Paintstorm Studio or FocalPaint?
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