Strip Designer vs Comic Life
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Strip Designer
Create your own comic books using photos, text, stickers, and drawings. Design custom layouts, add speech balloons, and apply filters to tell your stories. Export your creations as high-quality PDFs or share them directly with friends.
- 100+ page templates
- Custom panel layouts
- Customizable speech balloons
- 3D warped text
- 150+ stickers
- Photo filters and effects
- Drawing and masking tools
- PDF export
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Create amazing comic books with your photos and share with friends and family. Tell exciting stories with balloons, stickers, drawings, and warped 3D lettering. Strip Designer offers the complete comic creation experience on iOS and macOS. And no in-app purchases -- Everything is included! You'll begin by selecting one of the many included comic book page templates or create your own custom layout. Next, you'll add photos from the camera, your album, or create a drawing. Apply filters, or even paint on and mask your photos for atmosphere, style and retouching. Add balloons and text anywhere you want and in any direction and size. Play with the colors and fonts until you get the perfect look. Add stickers like "Boom", "Splash", or "Bang" to spice up the action -- Even create your own library using photos from your photo-album and the built-in masking and drawing tools. Use 3D warped text with thick borders and gradient color-fill to give your comic the extra super-hero feel. Download and add additional free fonts easily within the app, to give your text a unique look! While you work, you can freely pan and zoom to control even tiny details. Once you have finished your masterpiece you can save it to your photo album or share it with your friends. Use PDF to share entire comic books in high-quality. -- All from within Strip Designer. Key Features: • More than a 100 page templates with 1 to 9 photo cells • Multipage books • Create your own panel layout with up-to 12 cells or use one of the standard layouts • Many balloon types with customizable tails and heads • Balloons can have multiple tails and be combined • Flexible text options with per-letter colors and fonts • Adjust ballon size, rotation, color, and transparency • Add text (3D, warped, and perspective) for a superhero vibe • Use any iOS font or install additional fonts for unique touch • More than 150 stickers to insert for additional impact • Page effects to give your pages old look • Dropbox and WebDAV download/upload support • Export to PDF to create real comic books • Import PDFs (for both cells and custom stickers) • Control scale, position, and rotation of photos • Integrated drawing and masking tools to create your own drawings, paint on photos, or make your own stickers • Auto mask and feather photos (to remove background) • Many different cell styles • Photo filters • Fluidly pan and zoom to manage even the smallest details • Insert maps for additional context • iCloud sync across devices • Support for iOS's third party document providers • Layers view to lock or reorder layers • Shared iPad (for education) setup through MDM configuration No in-app purchases -- Everything is included! - What the reviewers say - "Strip Designer is worth every penny it costs, and then some. I would pay a couple more bucks for Lifestrips. It's stable, it's easy, it's fun, and for all that I couldn't come up with anything witty for my comic text, I love the look of my comics. Someone with a better imagination than I apparently have could really do fabulous things with this app. I rate it a solid five stars out of five.", Pamela Flora, iPhoneography - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "We were simply blown away by this application and the detail that has gone into the editing options and templates. We enjoyed the fact that a comic can be created very easily with photos and simple text effects, however there is real opportunities to really drill down into the editing options where the user can explore the apps true potential. There are many comic strip applications available on the Appstore but this is by far one of the best and great value for money. This app comes highly recommended by The Educational Appstore.", - See more at: http://www.educationalappstore.com/app/strip-designer#sthash.2KqjbU5Q.dpuf" --------------------------
Comic Life
Create comic books and graphic novels from your photos. Add speech balloons, captions, and sound effects to tell your stories. This version is for volume purchase program customers and will not receive further feature enhancements.
- Create comic books
- Add speech balloons
- Add captions
- Add sound effects
- Use photos
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*** If you've already purchased Comic Life you can now upgrade at a discount *** *** by purchasing the Comic Life 3 Upgrade Bundle. You will receive credit for *** *** your Comic Life purchase. *** * Please note: Due to an App Store limitation, App Store Bundles do not work with the Volume Purchase Program for Education. * This version is being provided for volume purchase program customers in order to fulfill their outstanding orders. No further feature enhancements are planned for this version.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Strip Designer at 4.9 against Comic Life's 3.6. Strip Designer also leads on review sentiment (88% vs 61%) and price ($3.99 vs $4.99). Comic Life's advantage is iOS requirement (8.0 vs 15). On ratings volume, update cadence, 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
Strip Designer costs $3.99 and Comic Life $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Strip Designer holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 3.6. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 73 and 46 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 88% of Strip Designer's written reviews are positive against 61% of Comic Life's.
Strip Designer ships an update every 2 months, Comic Life every 6 weeks. Both last shipped on October 18, 2026.
| Parameter | Strip Designer | Comic Life |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 — better | $4.99 |
| Rating | 4.9 (73 ratings) — better | 3.6 (46 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 87.8% of reviews — better | 60.9% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 73 — better | 46 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 6 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15 | 8.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 97 MB | 194 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Vivid Apps | plasq LLC |
Customer experience
Strip Designer
Comic Life
User reviews
Strip Designer
From 73 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use
- 🚀 Intuitive interface
- 💡 Customizable fonts and stickers
- 👍 Versatile for various projects
- 🚀 Consistent updates
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional crashes or bugs
- 🐛 Issues with saving/loading projects
- 🐛 Problems with image quality or resolution
- 💡 Lack of advanced features (e.g., motion lines, more stickers)
Comic Life
From 46 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use
- 🚀 Powerful features
- 💡 Great for creating comics
- ❤️ Fun and creative
- 🎨 Lots of customization options
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes frequently
- 🔍 Unintuitive user interface
- 💰 Overpriced for the functionality
- 🔌 Unreliable autosave
- 🤯 Loses work/projects
Bugs and requests
Strip Designer
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes when trying to change comic name
- Issues with photo import and orientation
- Problems with text resizing in speech bubbles
Requested features
5 requests- Ability to create and save custom templates
- Option to organize projects into folders
- More advanced drawing/editing tools
- Improved navigation for browsing past projects
- Wireless printing or export options
Comic Life
Reported bugs
4 issues- Crashes on opening/editing
- Text/image manipulation issues
- Compatibility problems with newer iOS versions
- Unreliable saving and loading of projects
Requested features
5 requests- More templates and layouts
- Ability to import/export to desktop version
- Higher resolution export options
- Customizable fonts and text formatting
- Improved alignment and snapping tools
In-app purchases
Strip Designer
No in-app purchases
Comic Life
No in-app purchases









