Comparison

Penbook vs Drawing Apps

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

Head to head
About

Penbook

Create custom digital notebooks with a vast library of stationery or import your own PDFs for annotation. Write naturally with a stylus and organize your notes with dynamic features like live planners and searchable handwriting.

Highlights
  • Live Paper dynamic stationery
  • Over 400 stationery types
  • Import and annotate PDFs
  • Natural handwriting with stylus
  • Searchable handwritten notes
  • Shape recognition
  • Customizable notebook covers
Features
Read full description

Write naturally with your Apple Pencil on Live Paper with Penbook. Build your perfect notebook from more than four hundred types of stationery. Then, use the best digital inking technology to pour your ideas, notes, plans, and dreams into it. Penbook's Live Paper is way smarter than ordinary stationery. Schedule your life on a monthly planner that shows a real calendar, organize your day with a day planner that shows you what time it is, and record your nutrition on a food diary that knows what day it is. Or, bring your own stationery! Import your PDFs into Penbook for quick annotation and editing. Give your notebooks colorful covers with fun art, and share them so your notes are always where you need them. FEATURES • Live Paper, the dynamic stationery that uses the smarts of your iPad and iPhone • Over 400 of academic, scientific, and planning stationeries • Import PDFs and use them as notebooks • Write naturally with your Apple Pencil, stylus, or finger • Unlimited unique cover combinations for your notes • Search your handwritten notes for words or phrases • Snap your strokes to perfect shapes with shape recognition INCLUDED STATIONERIES Penbook has a huge selection of customizable stationery. Each page of your notebook can be different, turning your iPad or iPhone into a magic notebook: • Blank stationery, with an optional date and configurable margin • Ruled paper with variable density • Graph paper with four options for square sizes • Dot stationery, either squared or isometric (offset) • Cross stationery with configurable margins and density • To Do pages with four layout options • Monthly habit paper for tracking streaks, habits, and goals • Day planner paper with a live updating timeline and calendar, and three layouts • Weekly planner paper that highlights the current time and date • Monthly planner paper that keeps track of the current day and shows you what's coming next • Yearly stationery for getting a complete overview of your next 365 days • Cornell paper for taking perfect study notes • French ruled (Séyès) paper • Penmanship practice paper • Table stationery for hand-written spreadsheets • Polar graph paper for plotting radial data • Semi-log and loglog paper for data with exponential growth or decay • Isometric stationery with equilateral (60-60-60) or isosceles (75-75-30) triangles • Perspective paper, configurable with one, two, or three vanishing points • Developer stationery with device stencils and configurable note-taking areas • Storyboard paper with 3 frame aspect ratios • Engineering paper with variable density • Chemistry paper for easily sketching molecules • Staff and tablature (music) paper with optional linked staves GET THE MOST OUT OF PENBOOK Use all of Penbook's stationery and writing features in a single notebook for free for as long as you like. Upgrade to Penbook Premium to create and export unlimited notebooks, receive access to new stationery and covers as they're designed, and get regular app updates. Penbook Premium is available by purchasing a yearly subscription or a one-time (lifetime) in-app purchase. When you choose to upgrade with the yearly subscription, you can start using Penbook Premium for free with a 7-day free trial. During the trial, cancel any time until 24 hours before the trial expires, and you will not be charged. If you do not cancel, you will be automatically billed for the yearly subscription when your free trial ends. Payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at the confirmation of purchase. Subscription automatically renews unless it is canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. You can manage and cancel your subscriptions by going to your account settings on the App Store after purchase. Our customer-first privacy policy: https://penbook.app/privacy-policy Penbook's terms of use: https://penbook.app/terms-of-use

About

Drawing Apps

Create digital art with a powerful painting engine and advanced tools. This app offers realistic brushes, layers, blend modes, and various editing capabilities for sketching, painting, and transforming images. Import and export your creations in multiple formats.

Highlights
  • Advanced painting engine with 40+ natural brush presets
  • Realistic brush interaction with paper textures
  • Layers and Photoshop blend modes
  • Selection and clipping masks
  • Transform multiple layers and use transform tool
  • Import and export drawings in JPEG and PNG formats
Features
Read full description

Superior brushes - The most advanced painting engine on tablets • 40+ natural brush presets • Brushes interact realistically with paper textures Superior tools - A place for everything • Layers and Photoshop blend modes • Selection and clipping masks Superior interface - Everything in its place • It’s simple. It’s organized. It’s out of the way. • Organized workflows: Paint - Sketch, Paint, and Blend Clone - Turn a photo into a painting Edit - Adjust color, Liquify, Pattern, Crop, or add a filter • Move your favorite tools to the top bar for quicker access Advanced features • Transform multiple layers simultaneously • Transform tool: Scale, Rotate, Flip, Distort, and Skew • Create seamless patterns with the Pattern tool • Gradient and Pattern Fill • Import images • Rotate and flip the canvas Import and export • Import and export drawings • Add images from Gallery, Camera, or search the web • Export images as JPEG, PNG. Get Drawing Apps Premium – weekly subscription for $2.99 USD. OR monthly subscription (which comes with a 3-day free trial) for $4.99 USD. OR yearly subscription for $9.99 USD • Subscription payments will be charged to your iTunes account at confirmation of your purchase and upon commencement of each renewal term. Subscription with a free trial period will automatically renew to a paid subscription. You can cancel your subscription or free trial in the iTunes settings at least 24-hours before the end of the free trial period. The cancellation will take effect the day after the last day of the current subscription period and you will be downgraded to the free service. • Please note: any unused portion of a free trial period (if offered) will be forfeited when you purchase a premium subscription during the free trial period. • Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase. Account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable. • Privacy Policy: https://drawingpad.me/privacy-policy.html • Terms: https://drawingpad.me/terms-of-use.html

Screenshots

Penbook4 screens
Drawing Apps4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Penbook at every 5 days against Drawing Apps's monthly. Penbook also leads on ratings volume (46K vs 5.2K). Drawing Apps's advantage is iOS requirement (14.0 vs 18.1). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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. Penbook sells 11 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Drawing Apps sells 15 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Penbook holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Penbook has 46K ratings behind it against 5.2K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 58% of Penbook's written reviews are positive against 63% of Drawing Apps's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Penbook ships an update every 5 days, Drawing Apps monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 19, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Penbook versus Drawing Apps: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPenbookDrawing Apps
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (46K ratings) — better4.4 (5.2K ratings)
Positive reviews58.0% of reviews62.5% of reviews — better
Number of ratings46K — better5.2K
Update frequencyEvery 5 days — betterMonthly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Vision ProiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS18.114.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size142 MB163 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPencil ResearchGang Ji

Customer experience

Penbook

All ratings45,502 ratings
Positive88.4%
Neutral4.7%
Negative6.9%
Written reviews628 reviews
Positive58.0%
Neutral12.9%
Negative29.1%

Drawing Apps

All ratings5,150 ratings
Positive84.1%
Neutral5.7%
Negative10.2%
Written reviews392 reviews
Positive62.5%
Neutral11.5%
Negative26.0%

User reviews

Penbook

From 46K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Intuitive and user-friendly interface
  • 🎨 Variety of customization options for notebooks
  • 📝 Smooth writing experience with Apple Pencil
  • 🗓️ Useful calendar integration
  • 💡 Innovative features like washi tape and stickers

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes and data loss issues
  • 🔒 Lack of password protection or locking feature
  • 🔧 Glitchy zooming and ruler functionality
  • 🧭 Poor notebook and page management
  • 💰 Restrictive free version, expensive subscription

Drawing Apps

From 5.2K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Allows users to draw anything they want
  • 💡 Provides a creative outlet for young artists
  • 👍 Easy to use and intuitive interface
  • 👍 Good for quick creative ideas
  • 👍 Satisfying drawing experience

Room to improve

  • 💰 Requires payment for many features and tools
  • 🤖 Excessive pop-ups and ads
  • 🐛 Bugs and glitches (e.g., random layer deletion, screen freezing)
  • 🔍 Limited free brushes and tools
  • 🤔 Confusing or unintuitive controls

Bugs and requests

Penbook

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Sticker resizing issues causing app freezes
  • Ruler placement and alignment problems
  • Inconsistent behavior when switching between pages
  • Calendar sync not working as expected
  • PDF import and annotation functionality not reliable

Requested features

5 requests
  • Allow custom notebook covers or images
  • Add text box and typing capabilities
  • Improve organization with folders or tags
  • Provide more customization options for templates
  • Implement a more intuitive undo/redo system

Drawing Apps

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Frequent crashes and app closures
  • Layers not working as expected
  • Drawing tools not responsive or accurate
  • Difficulty navigating the app

Requested features

5 requests
  • More free brushes and tools
  • Ability to save and export drawings
  • Undo/redo functionality improvements
  • Color customization options
  • Tracing feature for photos

In-app purchases

11 purchases

Penbook

Subscriptions7
  • Penbook Premium5 variants$4.991 Month
  • Penbook Premium$7.991 Month
  • Penbook Premium7 Days trial3 variants$14.991 Year
Show 4 more
  • Penbook Premium7 Days trial2 variants$19.991 Year
  • Penbook Premium7 Days trial2 variants$29.991 Year
  • Penbook Premium$29.991 Year
  • Penbook Premium7 Days trial3 variants$39.991 Year
One-time4
  • Premium Lifetime (Loyalty)$29.99
  • Penbook Premium Lifetime2 variants$49.99
  • Penbook Premium Lifetime$59.99
Show 1 more
  • Penbook Premium Lifetime$69.99
15 purchases

Drawing Apps

Subscriptions9
  • DrawingApps Premium - Weekly$2.997 Days
  • DrawingApps Gold - Weekly$3.997 Days
  • Drawing App Black Friday Offer3 Days trial$5.991 Month
Show 6 more
  • DrawingAppsPremium Trial Month3 Days trial$7.991 Month
  • DrawingApps Premium - Monthly$7.991 Month
  • DrawingApps Gold Trial Monthly3 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • DrawingApps Gold - Monthly$9.991 Month
  • DrawingApps Premium - Yearly3 Days trial$39.991 Year
  • DrawingApps Gold - Yearly3 Days trial$59.991 Year
One-time6
  • 300 Coins$5.99
  • 900 Coins$14.99
  • 1200 Coins$19.99
Show 3 more
  • Lifetime Lite Drawing Pass$49.99
  • 5000 Coins$59.99
  • Lifetime PRO Drawing Pass$69.99

Questions

Is Penbook free?
Penbook is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Drawing Apps free?
Drawing Apps is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Penbook or Drawing Apps?
Penbook is rated higher. Penbook averages 4.6 out of 5 from 46K ratings, while Drawing Apps averages 4.4 from 5.2K ratings.
Do Penbook or Drawing Apps have ads?
Neither Penbook nor Drawing Apps shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Penbook or Drawing Apps?
Penbook ships an update every 5 days, and Drawing Apps monthly. Most recently, Penbook was updated on October 20, 2026 and Drawing Apps on October 19, 2026.

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