Comparison

Paintstorm Studio vs Sketcha

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • Advanced brush customization
  • Stroke post-correction
  • Perspective-aware parameters
  • Dynamic and custom interface
  • Mask brush functionality
  • Photoshop PSD and ABR support
  • Apple Pencil integration
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 - 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)

About

Sketcha

Features
Read full description

Sketcha is a complete drawing and animation studio for iPhone and iPad, and the first one with a real third dimension built into it. SKETCHA SPACE: DRAW INTO DEPTH Give your layers depth and tilt, then orbit around your own drawing. This is genuine 3D, not a parallax trick. The page opens into a 3D scene, a perspective ground grid sweeps beneath you, planes foreshorten as you turn, and foregrounds grow as they pass the camera. - One tap stages your whole layer stack in depth. No numbers to work out, just named shelves from Very near to Horizon. - One finger orbits, a pinch dollies, two fingers pan and roll. - Fly to layer lands you exactly 1:1 on any plane, so you keep drawing on it, even a tilted one. - Save viewpoints as bookmarks, name them, jump between them. - Turn those views into a cinematic flythrough. Drawing in Space, orbiting, depth, tilt and bookmark jumps are part of the core app. A BRUSH ENGINE THAT FEELS RIGHT Pressure, tilt and velocity drive size, opacity and taper. Adjustable stabilisation and StreamLine smooth your line without lag. QuickShape snaps a held stroke into a clean shape. Touch and hold to sample a colour with a live loupe. Seven hand-tuned presets and an eraser to start, then Brush Studio to build your own: grain, dual texture, scatter, jitter, colour dynamics, pressure and tilt response graphs, and four render modes. LAYERS WITHOUT LIMITS Raster and vector layers, groups, symbols, text and shapes. 27 blend modes, layer masks, clipping masks, alpha lock. Select by rectangle, lasso or magic wand, then move, scale, rotate or reshape. Blend, push and duplicate tools. Adjustments for curves, colour balance, gradient map, motion blur, sharpen, noise, chromatic aberration and halftone. Symmetry, drawing guides and perspective assist. Import photos, SVG and layered PSD. ANIMATION, TWO WAYS Draw frame by frame with onion skin, a light table, per-frame hold and adjustable FPS. Or keyframe everything: position, scale, rotation, opacity and effects, with a bezier easing editor. Add skeleton rigging with IK and smooth weights, shape-tween layers, dialogue sync keys, motion paths, a keyframed camera, an audio track to sync to, and scenes to hold a whole film. EXPORT PNG, PNG sequence, GIF, MP4, sprite sheet, time-lapse, and a rendered Sketcha Space flythrough. .SKETCHAKIT: AN OPEN KIT ECOSYSTEM Brushes and their textures pack into a plain .sketchakit file that anyone can build, share or sell. Import a kit in one tap, export your own from the brush library. No walled garden and no in-app store taking a cut. YOURS, OFFLINE No account. No sign-in. No ads. No cloud. Your work is saved on your device, autosaved as you go, and never uploaded anywhere. The only thing that ever leaves is anonymous usage and crash data, and you can turn it off in Settings. Made by Gambit in Turkiye. SKETCHA PRO Sketcha Pro is an optional subscription that unlocks multiple scenes per project, skeleton rigging with IK, shape-tween and dialogue-sync animation, authoring Space flythroughs, and MP4, sprite sheet and time-lapse export. Everything else is included in the core app. We never limit your layers, your canvas or your frames, and we never watermark your work. - Sketcha Pro Monthly: $4.99 per month - Sketcha Pro Yearly: $14.99 per year Payment is charged to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase. A subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period, at the price of the plan you chose. You can manage your subscriptions and turn off auto-renewal in your Account Settings after purchase. Prices are in USD and may vary by region. Terms of Use: https://getsketcha.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://getsketcha.com/privacy

Screenshots

Sketcha4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Sketcha at Free against Paintstorm Studio's $12.99. Sketcha also leads on update cadence (every 9 days vs every 4 months) and device support (3 vs 1). Paintstorm Studio's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and iOS requirement (13.1 vs 15.0). On ads 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

Sketcha is free to download; Paintstorm Studio costs $12.99 up front. Sketcha sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Paintstorm Studio asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Paintstorm Studio ships an update every 4 months, Sketcha every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Paintstorm Studio versus Sketcha: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPaintstorm StudioSketcha
Price$12.99Free — better
Rating4.4 (381 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews59.9% of reviews—
Number of ratings381 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 4 monthsEvery 9 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS13.1 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size103 MB42 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSergei KomarovGambit Global LTD

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

Sketcha

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Paintstorm Studio

No in-app purchases

2 purchases

Sketcha

Subscriptions2
  • Sketcha Pro Monthly$4.991 Month
  • Sketcha Pro Yearly$14.991 Year

Questions

Is Paintstorm Studio free?
Paintstorm Studio costs $12.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Sketcha free?
Sketcha is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Paintstorm Studio or Sketcha have ads?
Neither Paintstorm Studio nor Sketcha shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Paintstorm Studio or Sketcha?
Paintstorm Studio ships an update every 4 months, and Sketcha every 9 days. Most recently, Paintstorm Studio was updated on November 2, 2026 and Sketcha on November 6, 2026.

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