Comparison

Swift Pixels vs Pixelart Studio

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

Head to head
About

Swift Pixels

Create pixel art with a unique color palette and diverse rendering options. Save your creations as PNGs with transparency or high-resolution images to share. Import photos from your library or camera to use as a base for your designs.

Highlights
  • Unique color palette with universal categories
  • Render pixels as squares, 3D boxes, beads, towels, or hexels
  • Save images as PNG with transparency
  • High-resolution export and sharing
  • Import photos from library or camera
Features
Read full description

Simple and easy to use drawing application to create pixel art. Features: * Unique color palette based on universal color categories. Each color category expands a continuous gamut for that color. * Render pixels as simple squares, 3D boxes, beads, a towel, or as hexagons (hexels). * Save small images as PNG images with transparency (alpha/mask), or save them in hi-res and share them with the world :) * Load and import pictures from your Photo Library, or directly take a picture from your camera.

About

Pixelart Studio

Features
Read full description

You are not going to believe what fits inside this app. Pixel Art Studio is a pixel art and animation studio built from scratch for iPad and Mac. The feel is inspired by Procreate, the output is pure pixels: no blur, no interpolation, every pixel exactly where you put it. And then it keeps going, way past what a pixel editor is supposed to do. ONE TAP AND THE SHAPE IS PERFECT Scribble a wobbly line, hold the pencil at the end of the stroke, and QuickShape turns it into a flawless line, rectangle, ellipse or polygon, snapped to the classic pixel art angles. Believe it: you can draw an isometric cube, a cylinder, a staircase or a rounded box in one gesture, extrude it to any height, and never nudge a single pixel by hand. Independent brush axes, spray, pressure shading, glow, blur and a silhouette brush that closes your outline and floods it the moment you lift the pencil. Four axis symmetry, Lock Alpha, one coat of paint per pixel, and Smart Nudge that snaps shapes to their neighbours. ANIMATION TOOLS FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE This is where it stops behaving like a pixel editor. Leave frames empty between two drawings and Tweening fills them in, reading how your art moved, scaled and rotated, object by object. Two sketches become a full animation. Layer Loop is the loopOut of After Effects: two frames of a blinking eye on Cycle, Ping-pong or Reverse, and that layer animates the entire scene by itself, forever. Infinite Scroll slides a layer with wrap around, one full lap every N frames, on X or Y. Paint one strip of clouds, get an endless sky. Offset Assist is the Photoshop Offset filter, live under your pen, so seamless tiles are built, not guessed. Add per layer frames, onion skinning, animation tags, a scrub bar with playhead, folders, blend modes and Parallax Assist playing depth right inside the canvas. SELECT LIKE MAGIC Tap an object and the whole object is selected. Tap a color and it is selected across the layer, connected or not. Freehand and polygon lasso, exact color matching, additive wand, 9 slice scaling in the Unity Sliced style, rotation, mirroring, and a move handle with 1px arrows because pixel art is precision. Erase or transform the same selection across every frame at once. A TILESET STUDIO HIDING INSIDE Build a tileset, stamp a map with it, edit one tile and watch every copy in the map update. Then export PNG plus Tiled .tsj and .tmj, one tile layer per app layer, ready to drop into your engine. Ask around: almost nobody does this. EXPORT LIKE A PRO PNG, JPG, GIF, image sequence and sprite sheet with a configurable grid. MP4 in 4:5, 9:16, 1:1, 16:9 or the canvas ratio, with a safe area drawn over the canvas and loop repetition inside the file. Ship everything, the current frame or a single tag. Opens and saves .aseprite, so your work is never locked in. Record a time lapse of the session and publish your process. IPAD AND MAC Apple Pencil with pressure, two and three finger gestures, project tabs, automatic backup of your library and preview broadcast to another screen. On Mac, the same app with keyboard shortcuts, hover hints and wheel zoom. Your projects and your .aseprite files travel between both. One tap. Perfect pixels. Animation that thinks for you. Maximum effort!

Screenshots

Swift Pixels4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Swift Pixels at $1.99 against Pixelart Studio's $12.99. Swift Pixels also leads on device support (4 vs 1) and iOS requirement (14.7 vs 17.0). Pixelart Studio's advantage is update cadence (every 10 days vs every 5 months). On 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Swift Pixels costs $1.99 and Pixelart Studio $12.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Swift Pixels ships an update every 5 months, Pixelart Studio every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on October 2, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Swift Pixels versus Pixelart Studio: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSwift PixelsPixelart Studio
Price$1.99 — better$12.99
Rating4.7 (14 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews60.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings14 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 5 monthsEvery 10 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPad
Requires iOS14.7 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB9 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDavid GavilanLeonardo Amora

In-app purchases

None

Swift Pixels

No in-app purchases

None

Pixelart Studio

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Swift Pixels free?
Swift Pixels costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Pixelart Studio free?
Pixelart Studio costs $12.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do Swift Pixels or Pixelart Studio have ads?
Neither Swift Pixels nor Pixelart Studio shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Swift Pixels or Pixelart Studio?
Swift Pixels ships an update every 5 months, and Pixelart Studio every 10 days. Most recently, Swift Pixels was updated on October 2, 2026 and Pixelart Studio on October 15, 2026.

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