Colors! vs subflow
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Colors!
Offers a straightforward yet powerful painting tool with an integrated online gallery. Users can share their creations, receive feedback, and learn from other artists by viewing their painting processes.
- Simple painting tools
- Integrated online gallery
- Share paintings on social media
- Playback recording of paintings
- High-resolution painting
- Participate in painting challenges
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Colors! provides a fun and simple painting experience and invites the user to browse and participate in an online gallery consisting of countless beautiful paintings. SIMPLE BUT POWERFUL Designed to have a quick and non-intrusive workflow, Colors! provides the tools you need, without any of the distractions. INTEGRATED GALLERY Half of the fun of painting is to show others the result. In Colors! you can easily upload your works to the vibrant Colors! community, or just share it on Facebook/Twitter. Get feedback, make friends and participate in our regular painting challenges. PLAYBACK ANY PAINTING Colors! always records the full painting process. View your own playback, and branch it off at any point to take it in a different direction. Or view the playback of any painting in the gallery to learn from other artists. HIGH RESOLUTION Taking full advantage of the Retina screens, you can paint in 2048x1536 resolution and export your finished painting in even higher!
subflow
Create dynamic music visualizations for any setting. Control modes, speed, and beat patterns with intuitive screen gestures. Advanced users can leverage UDP and OS2L for complex control with DJ software.
- Gesture-based control for modes, speed, and beats
- Beat pattern customization
- UDP command sequencing
- OS2L integration with DJ software
- Color customization via long press
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Crisp visualizations for your music stage or living room. Tap left or right edge of screen to change modes. Vertical swipes change speed. Tap the upper half of the screen several times to set a beat pattern. Tap the lower half to cancel or to add single beats. Horizontal swipes fine-tune the beat alignment. Long press will change color. You can also send more complex command sequences over UDP, and you can control via OS2L using most DJ software. See http://subflow.org/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: subflow at Free against Colors!'s $4.99. subflow also leads on rating (4.3 vs 3.1) and update cadence (every 6 days vs every 5 weeks). Colors!'s advantage is iOS requirement (8.0 vs 16.6). On review sentiment, ratings volume, 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
subflow is free to download; Colors! costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
subflow holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 3.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 26 and 17 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 73% of Colors!'s written reviews are positive against 67% of subflow's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Colors! ships an update every 5 weeks, subflow every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Colors! | subflow |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.1 (26 ratings) | 4.3 (17 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 73.1% of reviews — better | 66.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 26 — better | 17 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Every 6 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Apple TV |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 16.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 49 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Collecting Smiles AB | Ello Skelling Productions |
Customer experience
Colors!
subflow
Bugs and requests
Colors!
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes when accessing gallery
- Black color appearing as white
- Paintings disappearing or getting corrupted
Requested features
5 requests- Add layers and more advanced drawing tools
- Improve zoom and canvas size
- Implement pressure sensitivity and Apple Pencil support
- Add ability to import photos and use as reference
- Expand gallery and sharing features
subflow
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Colors!
No in-app purchases
subflow
No in-app purchases
