FishyPaint vs Paint A Fish
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
FishyPaint
Bring your drawings to life as animated fish that swim and interact in a vibrant underwater world. Personalize your experience by adding your own artwork or photos as fish and even become the diver exploring the scene. Record and share your aquatic adventures with custom soundtracks.
- Animate custom drawings as fish
- Interactive underwater world
- Personalize with own photos
- Selfie diver integration
- Video and audio recording
- Customizable fish shapes
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Your own artwork comes alive and swims with you in FishyPaint! Watch hand painted fish swim among the coral in this beautiful underwater world. Add your own fish by photographing any drawing, painting, or anything you want to use as a fish. Watch it come alive and swim inside the app! Featuring a diver - snap a selfie to see yourself as the diver, swimming alongside your own creations! Perfect for kids' artwork - realistic or abstract, anything can come to life and be a fish in FishyPaint. Touch the screen to see how the fish react and touch-drag to affect the diver too. Record video and audio too - you can tell a story about your fish, maybe sing a song, and a video of your scene is recorded to your Photo Library with that soundtrack! Features: * Animated fish swim, hide in the coral, and respond to screen touch. * Add anything as your own custom fish - a drawing you made, a toy, a photo of a real fish, or even a person. Why not? Use your imagination! * Photograph yourself to be the diver, or maybe a drawing, a friend, even your pet. Have fun with it! * Record video of your scene, with audio from the microphone. * Comes with colorful fish already in app. * Guideline of fish shape offers a starting point for custom fish, but you can also paint the shape of the fish yourself. Make it your own! * Hand painted look that mixes nicely with kids' artwork. How to use FishyPaint: Main underwater scene - Watch fish swim, and touch the screen to see them react. To add a custom fish - Tap Add Fish button. Snap a photo or import an image from your device. Your photo appears with a suggested fish cutout. Areas with blue overlay will not be part of your fish. You can move, scale, rotate, and flip your image. You can paint and erase the blue areas and create the exact fish shape you want, to fit the picture you're using. To add a custom diver - Tap Diver button. Snap a photo or import an image from your device. Your photo appears as the face of the diver. You can move, scale, or rotate your image to position it nicely within the diver's helmet. To record a video - Tap Record button. Now everything is being recorded, including audio through the device microphone. You can talk and make noise and touch the screen to affect the fish. Tapping Record button again stops the recording and saves this video to your Photo Library.
Paint A Fish
Design and paint your own virtual fish, then see it swim in a digital aquarium exhibit using augmented reality. Choose from various fish types and colors to create unique aquatic life.
- Paint custom fish designs
- Augmented reality integration
- Multiple aquarium exhibit environments
- Variety of fish species to paint
- Interactive virtual swimming
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Bring the Aquarium’s popular Paint a Fish exhibit to your own mobile device. Paint your own fish and watch it swim right in front of you or in the exhibit of your choice. Watch as your own painted shark swims next to our zebra shark in Shark Lagoon. See your own painted basslet swim in our Coral Lagoon. Look at your own painted parrotfish swimming gracefully alongside all the other colorful fish in our Tropical Reef Habitat. Choose from an assortment of colors and paint either a fairy basslet, parrotfish, or black tip reef shark any way you like. Then, with the power of augmented reality, watch it appear to swim right in front of your eyes... and in any exhibit at the Aquarium!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Paint A Fish at 2.6 against FishyPaint's 2.0. Paint A Fish also leads on ratings volume (8 vs 1). FishyPaint's advantage is review sentiment (50% vs 17%) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 4 months). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Paint A Fish holds the better App Store score, 2.6 against 2.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Paint A Fish has 8 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 50% of FishyPaint's written reviews are positive against 17% of Paint A Fish's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
FishyPaint ships an update every 3 weeks, Paint A Fish every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 11, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | FishyPaint | Paint A Fish |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.0 (1 ratings) | 2.6 (8 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews — better | 16.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 8 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 7.0 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 82 MB | 200 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Shmonster LLC | Aquarium of the Pacific |
Customer experience
FishyPaint
Paint A Fish
In-app purchases
FishyPaint
No in-app purchases
Paint A Fish
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is FishyPaint free?
Is Paint A Fish free?
Which has better reviews, FishyPaint or Paint A Fish?
Do FishyPaint or Paint A Fish have ads?
Which is updated more often, FishyPaint or Paint A Fish?
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