Comparison

Colors! Lite vs Paintstorm Studio Lite

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

Head to head
About

Colors! Lite

Engage in a simple yet powerful painting experience and explore a vibrant online gallery of user-created artwork. Replay your own creations or learn from others by watching their painting process.

Highlights
  • Simple painting tools
  • Online art gallery
  • Painting process playback
  • High-resolution canvas
  • Branching from existing paintings
Features
Read full description

Colors! Lite provides a fun and simple painting experience and invites the user to browse and participate in an online gallery consisting of countless beautiful paintings. If you like Colors! Lite, you should check out the full version of Colors! which allows you use unlimited save-slots, upload your works to the Colors! Gallery and export your paintings in a higher resolution. Go to http://colorslive.com/downloads_iphone to learn more. 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. Visit the Colors! Gallery to see all the amazing works other are doing in Colors!. 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!

About

Paintstorm Studio Lite

This app offers professional digital painting tools for artists of all levels. It provides extensive brush customization, stroke correction, and intuitive controls to enhance the mobile art creation experience. Discover new possibilities for digital drawing with advanced features and Apple Pencil support.

Highlights
  • Extensive brush customization
  • Stroke post-correction
  • Apple Pencil support
  • Dynamic interface
  • Mirror drawing
  • Standard tools pack
Read full description

Paintstorm Studio is the first iOS App designed not only for simple sketches, but professional digital painting of any level, genre and technique. Paintstorm helps you to discover the magnificence and unleash the full potential of Apple Pencil and brings you to a whole new level of drawing. Creating an art masterpiece has never been so mobile. A major feature of Paintstorm Studio is the array of brushes to choose from. We did our best so that you can easily and quickly adjust the brushes suitable to your painting style. Anyone who has ever painted knows it's hard to overestimate the painting tool and the importance of all the seemingly insignificant details. We tried not to miss any of them. Our goal was to create an intuitive, simple-to-use but at the same time functionally powerful tool that brings the process of digital painting to a new level, making it as comfortable as possible. - Full control of all brush options (Incredible possibilities for brush settings) - Bristle brushes of any form and kind - Stroke post correction (You can take an action on any option. Not only on the stroke thickness) - Parameters binding to the perspective - Dynamic interface (Global interface scale, panels scale, opacity, color) - Custom panels - Full controlled mask-brush (Each brush can work as mask for other brush) - Takes underlayer's color while blending - "Close gaps" function when you fill or select - Dirty brush mode - Stroke stabilizer - Usable color mixer - Different gradient strokes - Mirror drawing - Standard tools pack (Lasso, Magic wand, Crop, Fill, Gradient and etc) - Control of the random amounts - Apple Pencil support (Pressure, Tilt, Direction) Lite version restrictions: - It is not possible to load and save psd files - A watermark is added to the picture Upgrade to the full version and get rid of the limits!

Screenshots

Colors! Lite3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Colors! Lite at 71% against Paintstorm Studio Lite's 24%. Colors! Lite also leads on rating (4.6 vs 4.0) and device support (3 vs 1). Paintstorm Studio Lite's advantage is update cadence (every 4 months vs every 56 months) and ratings volume (267 vs 16). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Colors! Lite holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Paintstorm Studio Lite has 267 ratings behind it against 16, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 71% of Colors! Lite's written reviews are positive against 24% of Paintstorm Studio Lite's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Colors! Lite ships an update every 56 months, Paintstorm Studio Lite every 4 months. Both last shipped on October 23, 2026.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Colors! Lite versus Paintstorm Studio Lite: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterColors! LitePaintstorm Studio Lite
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (16 ratings) — better4.0 (267 ratings)
Positive reviews71.0% of reviews — better24.1% of reviews
Number of ratings16267 — better
Update frequencyEvery 56 monthsEvery 4 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPad
Requires iOS8.0 — better13.1
Further details — not scored
Size49 MB103 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCollecting Smiles ABSergei Komarov

Customer experience

Colors! Lite

All ratings17 ratings
Positive88.2%
Neutral5.9%
Negative5.9%
Written reviews155 reviews
Positive71.0%
Neutral11.6%
Negative17.4%

Paintstorm Studio Lite

All ratings262 ratings
Positive72.9%
Neutral7.3%
Negative19.8%
Written reviews141 reviews
Positive24.1%
Neutral13.5%
Negative62.4%

User reviews

Colors! Lite

From 16 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🎨 Intuitive and simple drawing interface
  • 🖼️ Amazing gallery with playback feature to watch artwork creation
  • 💰 Free lite version available
  • 🌈 Excellent color wheel for easy color selection
  • 📱 Works well on multiple platforms (iPhone, iPad, 3DS, DS)

Room to improve

  • 💸 Full version is expensive ($4.99-$5.00)
  • 🚫 Cannot save drawings in lite version
  • 🚫 Cannot upload to gallery in lite version
  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and freezing issues
  • 🐛 App closes unexpectedly when switching apps

Paintstorm Studio Lite

From 267 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 💎 Excellent brushes and color mixing
  • 🎨 Sophisticated drawing tools
  • 🖌️ Advanced interface like desktop apps
  • 🖥️ Powerful features on par with desktop software

Room to improve

  • 🚧 Cluttered and confusing interface
  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and performance issues
  • 💦 Annoying watermark on exported artwork
  • 🔍 Lack of clear instructions and tutorials

Bugs and requests

Colors! Lite

Reported bugs

11 issues
  • App crashes on startup or during loading
  • Cannot connect to gallery servers
  • Drawings disappear when exiting and re-entering app
  • Playback shows invisible lines or incomplete drawings
  • Undo function corrupts entire artwork
Show 6 more
  • Finger input registers in wrong location on screen
  • Playback flips screen orientation
  • Gallery navigation resets to first image when exiting
  • App incompatible with older iOS versions (3.0 requirement)
  • Occasional crashes when drawing
  • Drawing doesn't appear on screen while creating

Requested features

14 requests
  • Save functionality in lite version (at least 2-3 drawings)
  • Built-in eraser tool
  • Layers support
  • Lower price for full version ($1.99-$2.99 suggested)
  • Auto-save when exiting app
Show 9 more
  • Ability to import photos from camera roll
  • Comment feature on gallery paintings
  • Search button for gallery
  • Cross-device purchase compatibility
  • Undo/redo buttons
  • Brush customization with tilt control for both opacity and thickness
  • Pressure sensitivity on iPhone/iPad
  • Ability to view gallery without full version purchase
  • Promotional sales or free events

Paintstorm Studio Lite

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • App crashes when opening or switching between projects
  • Brush settings and color wheel disappearing unexpectedly
  • Inability to save or recover unsaved artwork

Requested features

4 requests
  • Remove watermark option
  • Ability to import photos and images
  • Better organization and customization of UI
  • More intuitive brush and tool controls

In-app purchases

None

Colors! Lite

No in-app purchases

None

Paintstorm Studio Lite

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Colors! Lite free?
Colors! Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Paintstorm Studio Lite free?
Paintstorm Studio Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Colors! Lite or Paintstorm Studio Lite?
Colors! Lite is rated higher. Colors! Lite averages 4.6 out of 5 from 16 ratings, while Paintstorm Studio Lite averages 4.0 from 267 ratings.
Do Colors! Lite or Paintstorm Studio Lite have ads?
Neither Colors! Lite nor Paintstorm Studio Lite shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Colors! Lite or Paintstorm Studio Lite?
Colors! Lite ships an update every 56 months, and Paintstorm Studio Lite every 4 months. Most recently, Colors! Lite was updated on October 23, 2026 and Paintstorm Studio Lite on October 23, 2026.

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