Pixaki 3 (Legacy) vs SpritePixels
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Pixaki 3 (Legacy)
This powerful pixel art studio for iPad allows you to create detailed 2D graphics and animations. It offers advanced features like layers, custom palettes, and precise drawing tools, all within an intuitive multi-touch interface.
- Custom canvas sizes
- Layers with opacity control
- Animation with onion skinning
- Customizable color palettes
- Reference layers for drawing over images
- Line, rectangle, and ellipse tools
- Powerful color replacement tool
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Pixaki is a powerful pixel art creation studio for iPad. It features many of the same features found in desktop apps — such as custom canvas sizes, layers, animation, precise color selection, and customizable palettes — but with a gorgeous multi-touch interface that is just right for iPad. Whether you’re creating 8-bit game characters or vast isometric cityscapes, Pixaki has the tools you’ll need in an app you’ll love. // WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: “For our money, Pixaki is the only app worth considering for iPad-related pixel art.” — TechRadar “It’s a great way to kick back on the couch and create the 8-bit scene of your dreams.” — The Verge // FOR THE FUTURE OF PIXEL ART. Pixel art is so much more than just retro. We believe that the best pixel art ever is still being made. By you. That’s why there’s nothing retro about Pixaki. The app is built to take full advantage of the latest features of iOS, and designed for a fantastic experience on iPad and iPad Pro. // PIXEL OVER YOUR SKETCHES. Pixaki’s reference layers allow you to import any image from your photo library at full resolution, resize and reposition it on the canvas, then draw pixels over the top. You can even have multiple reference layers at once, and adjust the opacity so that you can draw underneath the image if you prefer. // ANIMATE. Pixel art was made to move, and with Pixaki it’s a joy to bring your creations to life. With advanced features such as per-frame duration and color-shifted onion skinning, nothing can stop you. // LAYERS. Supports up to 50 layers per frame. Adjust the opacity of each to easily create lighting and translucency effects. Reordering layers is as simple as drag and drop. // FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE PALETTES. Pixaki comes with some great palettes pre-installed, but also allows you to create and save your own. Once you’ve saved a palette, you can import it into any document that you’re working on. You can also import palettes you’ve created in other software or downloaded in .aco, .pal, and .gpl formats. // SHAPES AND LINES. The line tool makes it easy to create perfectly straight lines, which can optionally be locked to angles used in isometric art. The rectangle and ellipse tools help in creating basic shapes, which can be automatically filled with color, and the aspect ratio can be locked to create squares and circles. // POWERFUL COLOR REPLACEMENT. It might look like an old bucket, but this is actually a supercharged color replacement tool. You can use it like a standard bucket tool, or replace all instances of a particular color with another. This can be configured to affect just the layer you’re working on, all layers of the current frame, or all layers on all frames. Turning on erase mode to removes all pixels of a given color. It’s a great way to work with limited color palettes. // SELECTION. Cut, copy, paste, move, flip, and rotate anything that you draw with a simple, intuitive interface. Touch and hold the paste icon to quickly tile an area with an image from the clipboard. // IMPORT AND EXPORT. Pixaki makes it easy to work with other desktop and mobile apps, as well as output for game engines and social media sharing. • Photoshop files: Import and export layered PSDs. Export an animation, and the layers for each frame are put into groups. • Animated GIFs: Import and export animated GIFs. Export supports magnification, perfect for crisp images online. • Sprite sheets: Perfect for use in your game, with a configurable number of columns. Also supports magnification. • ZIP archives: Save a PNG of each frame packaged into a ZIP file. Great for game engines and video production. • PNGs: Export supports nearest-neighbor upscaling for crisp social media sharing. • Other images: Any image format supported by iOS can be imported into Pixaki — things like TIFFs and even JPEGs (yuck). • Palettes: Supports Adobe Photoshop’s .aco files, GIMP’s .gpl files, and the JASC .pal format.
SpritePixels
Create pixel art with intuitive multi-touch controls for fluid painting and precise editing. Zoom in for detail, copy and paste sections, and customize extensive color palettes. Save and export your creations as high-resolution PNGs.
- Multi-touch painting
- Zoomable canvas
- Drag-and-drop copying
- Area fill tool
- Rectangular region copy
- Customizable 16-color palettes
- Large canvas size
- iCloud sync
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Designed for multi-touch! No more pecking one pixel at a time – fluidly paint pixel art using several touches at once. Tap a tile to zoom in and work with precision. The companion mini-view shows what it looks like at normal size. Drag any tile to instantly copy it to another tile. Great for making similar versions of a sprite. Press and hold with one touch to fill an area. Press and hold with two touches to lift and copy a rectangular region. Customize a palette of up to an incredible 16 colors! Expand your canvas to a staggering 512 by 512 pixels! Press and hold any color in the palette to adjust it to any of a mind-blowing 4,096 possible values! Experiment with color sets by pressing and holding the palette to replace an entire row of colors. Save your work in iCloud and resume it from another device. Export your art as a pixel-perfect PNG image.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Pixaki 3 (Legacy) at 66% against SpritePixels's 0%. Pixaki 3 (Legacy) also leads on update cadence (every 5 weeks vs every 15 months) and ratings volume (90 vs 1). SpritePixels's advantage is price ($0.99 vs $24.99) and rating (5.0 vs 4.0). On ads, in-app purchases, 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
Pixaki 3 (Legacy) costs $24.99 and SpritePixels $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
SpritePixels holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pixaki 3 (Legacy) has 90 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 66% of Pixaki 3 (Legacy)'s written reviews are positive against 0% of SpritePixels's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Pixaki 3 (Legacy) ships an update every 5 weeks, SpritePixels every 15 months. The most recent releases landed on October 22, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Pixaki 3 (Legacy) | SpritePixels |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $24.99 | $0.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.0 (90 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.2% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 90 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks — better | Every 15 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 48 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Rizer Creative Ltd | Steve Barnes |
Customer experience
Pixaki 3 (Legacy)
SpritePixels
Bugs and requests
Pixaki 3 (Legacy)
Reported bugs
17 issues- App crashes frequently, sometimes losing recent work
- Eraser tool acts as pencil, drawing instead of erasing
- Color picker stops working
- Screen freezes when changing image size
- Tool automatically switches to dropper or eraser unexpectedly
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- Layers become non-transparent after certain actions
- Crashes when animation has more than 10 frames
- Copy/paste duplication issues
- GIF export produces incorrect colors and artifacts
- Grid settings reset when clicking outside window
- Pen tool occasionally fails to paint
- Double-tap Apple Pencil gesture cannot be disabled
- Long press with Apple Pencil triggers unwanted actions
- File naming issues with periods (.)
- Undo functionality fails after crashes
- Reference layer color picker not working
- Eyedropper delay too long and cannot be adjusted
Requested features
28 requests- Lasso tool for free-form selection
- Free rotation (not just 90-degree increments)
- Magic wand/color-based selection tool
- Layer grouping and layer naming
- Clipping masks and layer blending modes
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- Gradient and dithering tools
- Tile map and tileset editor
- Symmetry and mirror tools
- Canvas rotation during drawing
- Alpha lock functionality
- Text/type tool
- Resize and scale selections
- Batch export functionality
- Brush opacity control
- Pattern and textured brushes
- Improved palette management system
- Animation timeline improvements
- Copy/paste between projects
- Keyboard shortcuts support
- Palm rejection technology
- Dedicated preview window
- Layer visibility toggle improvements
- Pixel-perfect line drawing
- Gradient mapping
- More built-in color palettes
- Isometric grid options
- Better Apple Pencil integration
- Drag and drop file management
SpritePixels
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Pixaki 3 (Legacy)
No in-app purchases
SpritePixels
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Pixaki 3 (Legacy) free?
Is SpritePixels free?
Which has better reviews, Pixaki 3 (Legacy) or SpritePixels?
Do Pixaki 3 (Legacy) or SpritePixels have ads?
Which is updated more often, Pixaki 3 (Legacy) or SpritePixels?
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