Comparison

Canvas SketchBook Pro vs db'sCOMICSdb

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

Head to head
About

Canvas SketchBook Pro

Unleash your creativity with a professional yet simple drawing and sketching experience. This app offers a wide range of brushes, layers, and editing tools, optimized for touch and stylus input. Easily import and export your artwork in various formats.

Highlights
  • Creative sketching with brushes and tools
  • Advanced sketches with layers
  • Zoom for fine detail painting
  • Import/export vector images (PDF, PNG, JPEG)
  • Customizable brush generation
  • Fullscreen mode
Features
Read full description

Canvas SketchBook Pro brings a simple and professional drawing experience to anyone who wants to be creative, regardless of skill level. Optimized for iPad Pro and supports Apple Pencil! FEATURES * Draw creative sketches using fun brushes and tools * Build advanced sketches with layers * Zoom to paint fine details * Optimised also for iPad Pro and Apple Pencil * Import and export vector images in PDF, PNG and JPEG up to 4096x4096 pixels * Optional use of color or photo backgrounds * Save as transparent PNG EDITING TOOLS: - Multiple brushes, pens, and pencils - Generate unique brushes - Draw with finger or Apple Pencil (on iPad) - Eraser - Fill tool - Layer editor - Photo import - Background selector - Color tool - Image color adjustment - Move, scale, rotate - Pan and zoom - Export or share as image - Undo/redo - Fullscreen mode and many more... Privacy Policy http://apps-machine.com/privacypolicy Terms of Use http://apps-machine.com/termsofuse

About

db'sCOMICSdb

Organize and browse your comic book collection with this visually rich database app. It allows you to add details like condition, valuation, and custom cover scans. Access your collection offline and sync across devices.

Highlights
  • Create and maintain comic databases
  • Add condition, valuation, and custom scans
  • Search by creator, character, and date
  • Offline access to your collection
  • Sync across mobile and desktop
  • Open-data architecture
Read full description

A beautifully simple mobile app to create, maintain and browse comic collection databases. db'sCOMICSdb was developed by db who has dabbled in comic collecting since the 1970s. db needed a way to organize his collection and this is the result. Unique among comic-collector apps, db'sCOMICSdb is ad-free, has an open-data architecture and can be useful without internet access. It's a simple, no-nonsense, highly visual comic database! db'sCOMICSdb is available for both Mobile and Desktop platforms and designed for smooth interoperation across devices. If you find this free (and ad-free!) app to be useful we hope you'll contribute to its ongoing support via in-app purchases. With a back-end based on the open-data project, Grand Comics Database (https://comics.org), you have access to details for hundreds of thousands of comics from all over the world. To build your own database, add comics by entering Series and Issues. Now you can search through comics by creator, character and date. You can also provide details about each of your comic's condition, location and valuation and even add custom cover scans or photos. Convenient links to online resources like ebay and GCD allow you to update and monitor your collection. As you build your collections you can stash them onto your Desktop computer fixed-drive or your own online storage solution like Google Drive, Apple iCloud, Dropbox, etc. An online storage solution makes it easy to synchronize results between Desktop and Mobile sessions and it also makes it simple to share your collection with friends and with your favorite comic stores. db'sCOMICSdb has direct support for Google Drive but if your collection can be accessed via a URL it can be loaded and viewed with db'sCOMICSdb. You can view, sort and edit previously entered comics with no internet access. This is especially helpful when you're trying to remember your want-list while in the subterranean chambers of your friendly neighborhood comic store. Or perhaps during the zombie apocalypse. System Requirements The mobile app runs on modern (6th generation and newer) mobile phones. We recommend screens with at least 400 pixels of horizontal resolution. The app caches cover images for your collection and can therefore consume storage in proportion to the size of your collection. db's collection is approximately 2500 comics and we expect the app to scale to collections of at least 10000 comics. Larger collections will benefit from beefier model mobile devices. The desktop app runs on recent (post-2015 models) Windows 10 and Macintosh computers with at least 4GB RAM. For Data Geeks and Web-Slingers The central philosophy behind db'sCOMICSdb is that it's *your* collection and *your* database and it's to be stored wherever you wish. A collection is represented as a single JSON file coupled with optional custom cover-scans into a standards-compliant .zip file. The database schema is publicly available and this makes it easy for capable programmers to view and to import, export or manipulate the data. GCD Notices The Grand Comics Database Project (GCD) is a volunteer project with the goal of documenting and indexing all comics for the free use of scholars, historians, researchers, and fans. The GCD acknowledges that the all-encompassing research nature of the project may result in the posting of cover scans for comics with images that some may find objectionable. *Viewer discretion is advised.* Cover thumbnails are used for identification purposes only. All rights to cover images reserved by the respective copyright holders. All portions of the Grand Comics Database™, except where noted otherwise, are copyrighted by the GCD and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0). This includes but is not necessarily limited to our database schema and data distribution format.

Screenshots

Canvas SketchBook Pro3 screens
db'sCOMICSdb4 screens

Verdict

The call

Canvas SketchBook Pro and db'sCOMICSdb both sit at 4.0 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of db'sCOMICSdb's written reviews are positive against 22% of Canvas SketchBook Pro's. db'sCOMICSdb also leads on update cadence (every 4 months vs every 11 months) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.6). Canvas SketchBook Pro's advantage is ratings volume (46 vs 1). On price, rating, 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

Both are free to download. Canvas SketchBook Pro sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $2.99 per 6 months and db'sCOMICSdb sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.0 for Canvas SketchBook Pro against 4.0 for db'sCOMICSdb. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Canvas SketchBook Pro has 46 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 22% of Canvas SketchBook Pro's written reviews are positive against 100% of db'sCOMICSdb's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Canvas SketchBook Pro ships an update every 11 months, db'sCOMICSdb every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on August 28, 2026 and June 4, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Canvas SketchBook Pro versus db'sCOMICSdb: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCanvas SketchBook Prodb'sCOMICSdb
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.0 (46 ratings)4.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews22.2% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings46 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 11 monthsEvery 4 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.612.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size201 MB6 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperMULTI MOBILE LtdThe Lost Quill, LLC

Customer experience

Canvas SketchBook Pro

All ratings46 ratings
Positive73.9%
Neutral6.5%
Negative19.6%
Written reviews9 reviews
Positive22.2%
Neutral22.2%
Negative55.6%

db'sCOMICSdb

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Canvas SketchBook Pro

Subscriptions1
  • Sketch Premium3 Days trial$2.996 Months
4 purchases

db'sCOMICSdb

One-time4
  • Coffee Fund$1.99
  • Comic Fund$4.99
  • TPB Fund$15.99
Show 1 more
  • Key Issue Fund$74.99

Questions

Is Canvas SketchBook Pro free?
Canvas SketchBook Pro is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is db'sCOMICSdb free?
db'sCOMICSdb is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Canvas SketchBook Pro or db'sCOMICSdb?
Canvas SketchBook Pro and db'sCOMICSdb are both rated 4.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 46 and 1 ratings respectively.
Do Canvas SketchBook Pro or db'sCOMICSdb have ads?
Neither Canvas SketchBook Pro nor db'sCOMICSdb shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Canvas SketchBook Pro or db'sCOMICSdb?
Canvas SketchBook Pro ships an update every 11 months, and db'sCOMICSdb every 4 months. Most recently, Canvas SketchBook Pro was updated on August 28, 2026 and db'sCOMICSdb on June 4, 2026.

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