ToonSquid vs ZBrush
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ToonSquid
This powerful 2D art and animation studio for iPad combines traditional frame-by-frame animation with keyframe animation for layer properties. It offers a robust layer system, customizable brushes, vector shapes, and animatable effects to bring your creative visions to life.
- Traditional frame-by-frame animation
- Keyframe animation for layer properties
- Flexible layer system with blend modes
- Customizable brushes with Apple Pencil support
- Vector shapes and SVG import
- Animatable effects and bone rigging
- Symbol workflow for reusable clips
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ToonSquid is the powerful 2D art and animation studio for your iPad. Its flexible layer system allows you to combine the charm of hand-drawn traditional animation with keyframes that automatically animate layer properties over time. With a library full of beautiful, blazing-fast and fully customizable pixel and vector brushes, animatable effects, a smudge tool, animated text and vector shapes, bones with inverse kinematics, video and audio layers, camera movements, symbols and many more features, ToonSquid makes it easy to bring your vision to life. Traditional Animation - Create hand-drawn frame-by-frame animations - Control how long you want to show each drawing in the timeline - Draw in resolutions of up to 4k Keyframe Animation - Add keyframes to automatically animate layer and effects properties over time - Choose from an extensive list of customizable easing curve presets to create organic motion between keyframes - Easily loop your keyframe animation Powerful Layer System - Define the order and length of each element in your animation using layers and drawings and a flexible timeline - Organize your layers into groups for a clean workflow or to animate multiple layers at once - Use the camera layer to quickly define the visible portion of your animation in the export - Mask layers to other layers, even when their contents are animated - Choose from 27 industry-standard layer blend modes for beautiful compositing effects Fully-customizable Brushes - Draw gorgeous brush strokes with ToonSquid's state-of-the-art digital brush engine - Take full advantage of Apple Pencil's pressure and tilt sensitivity and the iPad Pro's 120Hz display for lag-free drawing - Use vector brushes to create brush strokes that are sharp at every zoom level - Edit the 60+ brush settings and import custom textures to create a brush library that is perfectly tailored to your art style - Blend your strokes together using the smudge tool - Draw in a variety of styles such as sketching, inking, wet mixing, pixel art, and more - Export and share your custom brushes with others - Import your existing library of Adobe® Photoshop® brushes Vector Shapes - Create custom shapes using the path tool by placing and editing each curve control point - Quickly add common vector shapes from the shape library - Import SVG files - Fill and stroke your shapes with beautiful gradients and edit them directly on the canvas - Animate the visible length of a path using its trim properties Animatable Effects - Create character rigs using bones and add inverse kinematics constraints - Create custom meshes to deform pixel layers when they are part of a bone rig - Animate perspective and warp effects - Apply adjustments, blur, pixelation, drop shadow, chroma key, halftone, parallax and more effects Efficient symbol workflow - Split your animation into separate clips that you can then reuse multiple times using symbols - Make edits to an animation clip and immediately see the changes in all of its symbol instances - Use frame markers to speed up your lip-syncing workflow Text - Add text layers and animate their appearance - Import your favorite fonts Color - Use ToonSquid's powerful color picker with plenty of different interfaces to choose the exact colors you need - Create custom color palettes and share them outside the application - Pick colors straight from the canvas using the pipette tool - Fill connected regions quickly with the fill tool Audio and Video - Add audio clips to your timeline and perform lip-syncing animations - Import videos, GIFs and images into your project and work with them through symbols Transform - Animate a layer's position, rotation and scale properties using keyframes - Build transform hierarchies to achieve more advanced movements - Edit your layer's motion path directly on the canvas Numerous Export Formats - Export your work in one of many common file formats such as MP4, MOV, GIF, PNG, JPEG, PSD, and more.
ZBrush
Create detailed 3D models and digital sculptures on your iPad. This app offers industry-leading sculpting tools, advanced detailing, and seamless integration with desktop versions for professionals and hobbyists alike.
- Digital sculpting and 3D painting
- 200+ pressure-sensitive brushes
- Sculptris Pro & Dynamic Tessellation
- Live Boolean modeling
- 3D Layers for non-destructive editing
- Seamless desktop interoperability
- Direct export for 3D printing
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ZBrush for iPad. Create stunning 3D models, digital sculptures, concept art, and detailed characters with ZBrush for iPad—the award-winning, industry-leading digital sculpting app trusted by professional artists across film, AAA games, collectibles, toy design, jewelry, illustration, and 3D design. ZBrush for iPad brings unrivaled desktop-grade digital sculpting and 3D painting power into an intuitive, touch-first mobile environment optimized for Apple Pencil. Take complete creative freedom on the go with high-poly mesh density, proprietary digital clay brushes, procedural detailing, and seamless cross-platform interoperability. Subscribers to Maxon One or ZBrush desktop can download the iPad app and sign in to activate full access instantly. A comprehensive free tier is also available to start sculpting immediately. NEW FOR IPAD • Spotlight Integration: Seamlessly load reference images directly onto the canvas, apply projection painting and texture mapping across complex mesh surfaces, and extract custom 3D geometry from 2D source imagery. • 3D Layers: Store high-resolution sculpting details, PolyPaint color channels, and masking non-destructively. Effortlessly toggle layer visibility, blend sculpt deformations, and refine feature intensity with precise slider controls. CORE SCULPTING & MODELING FEATURES • 200+ Sculpting Brushes: Pressure-sensitive digital brushes engineered for Apple Pencil and Apple Pencil Pro, supporting squeeze, roll, hover, double-tap gestures, and haptic feedback. • Sculptris Pro & Dynamic Tessellation: Add local mesh detail on the fly without manual topology management. • DynaMesh Digital Clay: Re-topologize mesh density evenly during early concept exploration. • ZRemesher: Industry-standard automatic retopology for clean, optimized edge flow. • Live Boolean: Non-destructive real-time union, subtraction, and intersection modeling. • PolyPaint: High-resolution 3D painting directly on vertex geometry without preliminary UV unwrapping. • Advanced Detailing: VDM Brushes, Surface Noise, Retopo Brush, Subdivision Modeling, NanoMesh, and ArrayMesh. DESKTOP INTEROPERABILITY & EXPORT • One-Click GoZ: Seamless transfer of ZTool and ZProject files between iPad and desktop ZBrush. • 3D Print Hub: Direct export for additive manufacturing and 3D printing workflows. HIGH-PERFORMANCE HARDWARE OPTIMIZATION Handles up to 90+ million polygons per mesh on M4 iPad hardware. Optimized for multi-touch gestures, custom hotkey bars, rapid undo/redo touch shortcuts, and real-world photogrammetry base mesh imports for high-end digital asset creation. TARGET CREATIVE USE CASES 1. Game Developers: Hero character modeling, creature design, and environment asset creation. 2. Collectibles & Toy Designers: High-detail prototyping and precise 3D print preparation. 3. Film & VFX Artists: Production-grade concept sculpting and digital asset creation. 4. Industrial & Jewelry Designers: Precision organic detailing for consumer products, apparel, and hardware. 5. 2D Illustrators & Concept Artists: Fast 3D block-outs and visual design expansion. LANGUAGE SUPPORT English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, German, French, and Portuguese (BR).
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: ZBrush at Free against ToonSquid's $9.99. ToonSquid's advantage is review sentiment (89% vs 52%) and rating (4.6 vs 4.1). On update cadence, ads 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
ZBrush is free to download; ToonSquid costs $9.99 up front. ZBrush sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. ToonSquid asks for nothing beyond the download.
ToonSquid holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1.3K and 271 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 89% of ToonSquid's written reviews are positive against 52% of ZBrush's.
ToonSquid ships an update every 2 weeks, ZBrush monthly. The most recent releases landed on November 13, 2026 and November 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ToonSquid | ZBrush |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (1.3K ratings) — better | 4.1 (271 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 88.7% of reviews — better | 52.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1.3K — better | 271 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Freemium — better |
| Devices | iPad | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 48 MB | 1.1 GB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Keiwan Donyagard | MAXON Computer GmbH |
Customer experience
ToonSquid
ZBrush
Bugs and requests
ToonSquid
Reported bugs
7 issues- Keyframing doesn't work
- Randomly ill get a warning that i have low memory
- The lasso tool thing isnt working for me
- Bug
- Whenever I use the fill bucket tool my app will randomly crash sometimes
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- When I upload my animatic as a video file and play it, it works for a couple of seconds, but then the screen goes white
- The app keeps crashing on me in certain projects
Requested features
31 requests- Custom graphs
- Bevel Shading
- Drawing to drawing transform
- Record Audio
- Extract audio from video
Show 26 moreShow fewer
- Symmetry tool
- Skew / Shear feature for keyframes & symbols
- Blending modes and filters
- Ability to select & edit/copy multiple frames at once
- Ability to rotate selected lines with the selection tool
- Ability to draw rasterised brushes outside of the box perimeters
- Audio feature where you can turn videos into audios
- Pen tip icon like Procreate and FlipaClip
- Ability to adjust an entire layer's opacity
- When playing an animation from a specific point on the timeline, returning to that point on the timeline when you pause
- Easier time selecting and moving and then unselecting specific areas
- Being able to copy and paste selected areas
- Ability to turn on brush outline
- Ability to adjust the size of the workspace
- Liquify brush
- Rigging/bone system
- Ability to reuse assets in other projects
- Rigged deformations
- Ability to flip the entire canvas for drawing
- Folders for projects or "stacks" like Procreate for sorting projects
- Ability to import .svg files
- Ability to merge all the animation layers into one
- Ability to customize the shape of deformation tool
- Ability to make vector/flash animations
- Ability to merge layers
- Ability to change opacity for frame-layers
ZBrush
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
ToonSquid
No in-app purchases
ZBrush
- ZBrush Monthly$9.991 Month
- ZBrush Annual$89.991 Year







