Calligraphy Calm vs Calligraphy Guidelines
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Calligraphy Calm
Create realistic ink paintings and calligraphy with a fluid, tapered line effect. Explore minimalist art inspired by East Asian traditions, adding ornamental borders and red stamps. Enjoy a calming creative experience on your iPhone and iPad.
- Realistic fluid ink painting effect
- Dynamic tapered line brushes
- Merge ink colors with paper texture
- Ornamental borders
- Chinese chop-style red stamps
- Save artwork to device gallery
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Calligraphy Calm - Ink Painter is a minimalist art app in the tradition of Chinese and Japanese painting and calligraphy. Create a realistic, fluid ink painting effect on your iPhone and iPad with the swipe of your finger! Practice the art of simplicity and capture the essence of your subject. OUR BRUSHES Our brushes create a dynamic 'tapered' line effect, which produces a beautifully organic feel for handwritten typography and drawing. Try overlaying brush strokes and you will find the ink colors merge with the paper texture. Move your finger QUICKLY to increase the thickness of the line and SLOWLY to get a really thin line. This is what makes our brushes unique. Bigger brushes produce a rougher line texture. SPECIAL FEATURES To keep the app in line with Asian traditional painting you can add: • Ornamental borders to frame your art or calligraphy • Red stamps in the style of Chinese chops (choose from 22 designs) HOW TO ENJOY CALLIGRAPHY CALM 1) Use the painting tools for calligraphy writing or art. 2) Get into the flow of minimalist painting and feel calm. 3) Save your progress to the gallery * 4) Download your best designs to your device Photos for safe keeping. *Please note - Your paintings are saved to your device. Deleting the app will delete your saved artwork. FREE version: • 3 brushes • 3 ink colors + black • 4 paper textures • Eraser tool • Save 6 paintings to your Gallery screen • Download images to your Camera Roll To unlock all ink colors, all papers and tools please upgrade to the PRO version. PRO upgrade: • Save unlimited paintings to your device • 34 inks colors (with gradient depth) • 2 pens + 4 brushes • All paper textures • Eraser tool (use it in combination with the brushes) • Remove the watermark logo on image downloads • Remove Ads Paint your way to calm :)
Calligraphy Guidelines
Generate custom guidesheets for calligraphy practice or professional work. Tailor every aspect of your practice templates, from line styles and spacing to pen types and page layouts. Export your designs as high-resolution PNG or vector PDF files.
- Customizable guidesheet generation
- Support for various script styles
- Adjustable line styles and colors
- Multiple page layouts and orientations
- Instant preview of designs
- Export to PDF and PNG
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Calligraphy Guidelines is a comprehensive generator to design your guidesheets for daily handwriting practice or professional penman work and export them to PDF or high-res PNG formats. Productivity tool number one for every penman! No more buying expensive practice pads! Create and print worksheets on demand. A universal collection of adjustable settings in the application allows the creation of worksheets and templates for any script style Copperplate, Spencerian, Gothic, Italic, and so on. Note: Calligraphy Guidelines application is not for writing on your device. If you wish to train calligraphy using your device, then check out our application "Calligraphy: Cursive Writing". Customize every aspect of calligraphy rulers with the Calligraphy Guidelines app: * Choose Pointed pen or Broad pen guidesheets style. * Select one of 6 popular page layouts, such as A5, A4, A3, US Letter, US Legal and US Junior. * Choose Portrait or Landscape page orientation. * Define left, top, right, and bottom margins. * Select x-height size starting from 2mm. * Set Broad pen width starting from 2mm to 8mm. * Adjust spacing ratios for ascender, descender, and height of interline space. * Select your favorite style for ascenders, descenders, waistlines, and baselines from Solid, Dotted, and Dashed lines. Hide any of the lines using the Hidden style. * Choose a color for each type of line. * Define slant lines angle in diapason from 30 to 90 degrees for pointed pen; select color, and adjust repeating frequency for both pointed pen and broad pen nibs. * Watch your changes with an instant preview. * Export as a high-resolution 300 dpi PNG image. * Export, share or print as a vector PDF file. The free version without a subscription allows customizing all settings for both pointed pen and broad pen nibs and previewing the resulting guidesheet on the screen. With the subscription, you'll get access to exporting and printing vector PDF files with the designed guidesheet, and exporting high-resolution PNG files. *Calligraphy Guidelines Subscription* • Calligraphy Guidelines app requires a subscription to export and print PDF files, or export high-res PNG files. • Once your purchase is confirmed, you will be charged through your iTunes account. • The subscription will automatically renew. • You can manage your subscription and turn off auto-renewal at any time in your App Store account, but at least 24 hrs before the end of the current period. Terms of use: https://calligraphy.app/guidelines/termsofuse/ Privacy policy: https://calligraphy.app/guidelines/privacy/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Calligraphy Guidelines at none against Calligraphy Calm's shown. Calligraphy Guidelines also leads on rating (3.7 vs 3.4) and review sentiment (60% vs 41%). Calligraphy Calm's advantage is update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 3 months) and ratings volume (50 vs 15). On price, 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
Both are free to download. Calligraphy Calm sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Calligraphy Guidelines sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Calligraphy Guidelines holds the better App Store score, 3.7 against 3.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 50 and 15 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 41% of Calligraphy Calm's written reviews are positive against 60% of Calligraphy Guidelines's.
Calligraphy Calm ships an update every 3 weeks, Calligraphy Guidelines every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Calligraphy Calm | Calligraphy Guidelines |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.4 (50 ratings) | 3.7 (15 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 40.5% of reviews | 60.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 50 — better | 15 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 24 MB | 36 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Frosby Designs Ltd. | Vladislava Rudetskaia |
Customer experience
Calligraphy Calm
Calligraphy Guidelines
In-app purchases
Calligraphy Calm
- Calligraphy Calm PRO$2.99
Calligraphy Guidelines
- Guidelines Weekly$1.997 Days
- Guidelines Monthly$2.991 Month
Questions
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Is Calligraphy Guidelines free?
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