Sprite Creator vs Sprite Pencil
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Sprite Creator
Create pixel art for games or personal projects with this powerful yet easy-to-use drawing app. It supports sprite sheets, tile maps, and animated GIFs, with robust tools for editing, importing, and exporting your creations.
- Layer editing tools
- Animation frame tools with onion skinning
- Export to PNG, GIF, JPG, sprite sheets, and tile maps
- Import sprite sheets, tile maps, and animated GIFs
- Selection and transformation tools
- Customizable color palettes
- Up-scaling tool
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Sprite Creator is a very powerful and easy to use pixel art drawing app. Create and import sprite sheets, tile maps, or even animated gifs. This app has been designed to be a simple and powerful tool for creating pixel art for games or for fun. Layer Editing Tools - Alpha sliders - Hide option to ignore layer - Copy - Merge down Animation Frame Tools - Onion skin - Onion skin alpha sliders - Live auto looping preview - Copy Exporting Features - png, gif, or jpg - Animated gifs - Sprite sheets and tile maps with full control over number of rows, columns, margin, and spacing - Single image series - Set Background Color (allows you to pick a specific background color for exporting) - Up scaling tool (increase the image size while keeping that pixel look) Importing Features - Import sprite sheets and tile maps and slice it into editable frames by setting width, height, margin and spacing. - Import animated gifs - Import png, gif, and jpg right from your camera roll Selection Options - Move - Flip - Rotate 90 degrees - Copy (copies a selected area for the selected layer) - Copy All (copies a selected area for all layers) - Paste (pastes whatever you have copied on a layer or even a new project's layer) Background options - Checkered - Color - Image Grid Options - On/Off Other Features - Save/Load right in the app - Create your own customized color palette with unlimited colors - RGBA and HSBA color sliders to find the perfect color - Create a new project at any size you want - Edit project size after creating it - Optional inspiration view (floating image from your camera roll for inspiration) - Tap and hold to load an image from your camera roll - Drag to move - Double tap to resize - Preview window to see your pixel art at a small size - Multiple brush sizes - Line, Square and Circle drawing tool - Hand Tool to make it easier to zoom and pan your canvas For more updates and to see Sprite Creator in action check out our Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/spritecreator/
Sprite Pencil
Create pixel art sprites easily on your mobile device. This app offers a powerful drawing engine with a simple toolset, supporting iCloud Drive and Apple Pencil. Edit existing pixel art files and share your creations with various scaling options.
- Pixel art sprite creation
- iCloud Drive support
- Apple Pencil support
- Import and edit existing pixel art
- Symmetric drawing mode
- Automatic shading brushes
- Share with scaling options
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Sprite Pencil enables you to create beautiful pixel art sprites on the go. Sprite Pencil has a simple set of tools, and a powerful drawing engine. Sprite Pencil allows you to open and edit pixel art images you may already have in Files. Sprite Pencil supports in-place file editing so you can use your own file organization. FEATURES: • iCloud Drive support • Apple Pencil support • Drawing engine built exclusively for Apple platforms • Handpicked color palettes • Import color palettes • Move, rotate, flip, fill, and posterize sprites • Easy outlines • Symmetric drawing mode • Automatic shading brushes • Share your pixel art with scaling options • Create pixel art stickers in the iMessage app • Display your sprites in a widget
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Sprite Pencil at Free against Sprite Creator's $3.99. Sprite Creator's advantage is review sentiment (81% vs 68%) and chart position (#79 vs unranked). On rating, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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
Sprite Pencil is free to download; Sprite Creator costs $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Sprite Creator against 4.6 for Sprite Pencil. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Sprite Creator has 330 ratings behind it against 61, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 81% of Sprite Creator's written reviews are positive against 68% of Sprite Pencil's.
Sprite Creator ships an update every 5 weeks, Sprite Pencil monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Sprite Creator | Sprite Pencil |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (330 ratings) | 4.6 (61 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 80.8% of reviews — better | 67.9% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 330 — better | 61 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #79 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.5 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 6 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Skyler Lauren | 256 Arts |
Customer experience
Sprite Creator
Sprite Pencil
Bugs and requests
Sprite Creator
Reported bugs
19 issues- App crashes when exporting files
- App crashes when saving progress
- App crashes when opening certain projects
- Colors disappearing randomly
- Red pixels appearing unexpectedly
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- Zoom glitches and distortion
- Freezing when pressing home button
- Layers deleting unexpectedly
- Image import deletes all frames
- Cannot animate properly
- Selection box doesn't allow moving without duplication
- Hand/move tool not functioning
- Onion skin causes grid to disappear
- Background color not staying in place
- Files won't open after updates
- Export doesn't maintain transparency
- White background instead of transparent on import/export
- Accidental pixel drawing during pan/zoom
- Palette colors not saving between sessions
Requested features
20 requests- Text tool for adding text to sprites
- Ability to export more than 4 frames at once
- Resize/scale tool for content on layers
- Flip and rotate tools for selections
- Static layer that doesn't animate
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- Darken and lighten tools
- Screen rotation support
- Dithered gradients and outline edges
- Redo button functionality
- Copy and paste improvements
- Auto-reverse animation layers
- Palette import/save functionality
- Color select tool for recoloring
- Better file organization with folders
- Transparency background support
- True-size preview option
- Hand/cursor tool for navigation
- Cut option alongside copy/paste
- In-app tutorial or guide
- Apple Pencil support
Sprite Pencil
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Sprite Creator
No in-app purchases
Sprite Pencil
No in-app purchases








