Comparison

Inspire Pro vs Brushes

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

Head to head
About

Inspire Pro

This powerful drawing and painting app offers a realistic and fast creative experience for iPad users. It features a proprietary engine for brilliant color rendering and stunning blending effects, with a vast array of customizable brushes and advanced tools.

Highlights
  • Proprietary Sorcery™ painting engine
  • 150 high-quality, customizable brushes
  • Full Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard support
  • Canvas size up to 16K (64MP)
  • Automatic canvas playback video recording
  • Full-featured color picker with saved palettes
Features
Read full description

Available exclusively on the App Store, meticulously designed to be beautifully powerful, and painstakingly engineered for iPad — Inspire Pro delivers an incredibly fast and realistic painting, drawing, and sketching experience that you can take with you wherever you go and use whenever inspiration strikes. Our proprietary painting engine Sorcery™ takes full advantage of the GPU to render brush strokes with brilliant 64-bit color, laser-sharp sub-pixel precision, and insanely fast speed. While the strokes of a wet oil paint brush look beautiful on their own, the breathtaking blending effects of a dry brush will absolutely stun you. Graze the canvas with just a bit of pressure to add a subtle blur to your artwork or use stronger pressure to actually mix existing colors on the canvas together to create new ones. Whether you are a budding artist, seasoned professional, or somewhere in-between, you will enjoy the simplicity and power of the most intuitive and compelling illustration app for iPad, Inspire Pro. Amazing Brushes • 150 high quality brushes to choose from, divided into 15 sets: Oil Paint, Airbrushes, Spray Paint, Paint Splatter, Graphite Pencils, Wax Crayons, Markers, Chalk, Charcoal, Pastels & Conté, Basic Shapes, Complex Shapes, Shape Outlines, Patterns, and Textures • All brushes can be used as a Wet Brush, Dry Brush (Blending), or Eraser • Over 20 different settings are available to customize brush strokes with powerful versatility and variation The Best Painting App for iPad • Sorcery™, the fastest 64-bit painting engine on the App Store • Full-fledged Apple Pencil support for pressure, tilt angle, orientation, and double-tap • Smart Keyboard support with over 20 context-sensitive keyboard shortcuts • Create a canvas of any size up to 16K (64MP) on iPad Pro • Dual-texture brushes • 64-bit color • All device orientations are supported all the time — switch from portrait to landscape painting with ease • 1000 levels of undo and redo are available • Touch and slide hotspots can be used to quickly change brush size, opacity, and pressure without opening a menu • The eyedropper tool can be used with a touch and hold gesture to select paint colors from the canvas • The canvas can be moved around, rotated, and zoomed in and out up to 6400% Canvas Playback Video Recording • Brush strokes are automatically recorded as you paint without any delay • You can play the video of your artwork being created stroke-by-stroke directly in the gallery • Exported videos are high quality HD at up to 1080p resolution Full-Featured Color Picker • Choose any paint color you can dream of with the intuitive color picker • HSB and RGB sliders accompany a large color circle, color square, and opacity slider • Your latest colors are saved to a palette automatically while you paint • You can also save your favorite colors to a palette with drag and drop Visit snowCanoe.com to check out more screenshots, videos, and artwork.

About

Brushes

This app offers a powerful digital painting and sketching experience with a modern interface and advanced features. Create detailed artwork with customizable brushes, layers, and color tools. Optimized for Apple Pencil and various devices.

Highlights
  • Customizable parameterized brushes
  • Advanced layer management
  • Apple Pencil support with pressure curve
  • Light and dark mode interface
  • Unlimited undo/redo
  • Cloud Drive import/export
Read full description

Brushes 4 is the latest iteration of the app that started the iPhone and iPad painting revolution. Redesigned with a clean and modern user interface, Brushes supports iPhone and iPad with optimisation for the iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone Pro and iPad with Apple Pencil. • Highlights: - Clean and modern user interface with light and dark modes. - Files based painting gallery. - New canvas interface. - Apple Pencil support with pressure curve. – Unlimited undo and redo. - Continuous auto-save. - Cloud Drive import and export. • Parameterized Brushes: - Selection of ready to use brushes with customisable settings. - Create your own custom brushes from millions of permutations. - Generate random brushes for inspiration. - Dynamic adjustment of brush size and opacity. • Layers: - Layer your artwork for greater control. – Lock and hide layers. – Use alpha lock to only paint where pixels already exist. – Adjust individual layer opacity. – Duplicate, rearrange and merge layers. – Apply layer blending modes: normal, multiply, screen, exclude. - Color fill any layer. – Invert layer color and desaturate. – Flip and arbitrarily transform layers. – Adjust the color balance per layer. – Adjust layer hue, saturation and brightness. • Colors: - Colour picker with hue ring and saturation square. - Store and recall your favourite colors in swatches. - Sample painting colors with the eyedropper tool. • Apple Pencil: - Intuitive and powerful pressure curve to match your style. - Configurable realtime pressure based adjustment of brush size and opacity. • Creation: - Preset canvas sizes for paper, photographs, iPhone and iPad screens, film and television displays. - Custom canvas size. • Import, export and sharing: - Import images directly from your camera roll. - Import PNG and JPEG images from cloud services. - Export your paintings for sharing or importing into other apps as PNG and JPEG to all cloud storage services or as photos directly to your camera roll. - Compatible with paintings created by Brushes 3 and Brushes Redux. • Light and dark appearances: - Choose between light and dark monochrome appearances, or current system setting. - Minimal use of user interface color so that tints in the user interface do not distract from or influence your artwork color choices. Acknowledgements. Thank you to Angela Ali, Jason M., Jeff Parker, Sandra Perez and Yoshiyuki Uchida for contributing artwork to the App Store screenshots. Please visit our website to see more of their artwork and for links to their portfolios. History. Brushes was originally created by Steve Sprang for iPhone in 2009 and for iPad in 2010. His last version, Brushes 3 was released in 2012, but was removed from the App Store in 2015. I took over development to modernise and support an app that has continued to be enjoyed by so many artists.

Screenshots

Brushes4 screens

Verdict

The call

Inspire Pro and Brushes both sit at 4.5 stars, but that hides the real split: 81% of Inspire Pro's written reviews are positive against 57% of Brushes's. Brushes's advantage is chart position (#81 vs unranked) and device support (3 vs 1). On rating, ratings volume, update cadence 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

Inspire Pro costs $4.99 and Brushes $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Inspire Pro against 4.6 for Brushes. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 330 and 177 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 81% of Inspire Pro's written reviews are positive against 57% of Brushes's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Inspire Pro ships an update every 3 weeks, Brushes every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 7 level
Inspire Pro versus Brushes: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterInspire ProBrushes
Price$4.99$3.99 — better
Rating4.5 (330 ratings)4.6 (177 ratings) — better
Positive reviews80.8% of reviews — better57.1% of reviews
Number of ratings330 — better177
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks — betterEvery 6 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidPaid
Best chart rank—#81 — better
DevicesiPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS13.613.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size284 MB13 MB
Age rating4+4+
DevelopersnowCanoeEnvoza

Customer experience

Inspire Pro

All ratings330 ratings
Positive89.1%
Neutral3.0%
Negative7.9%
Written reviews255 reviews
Positive80.8%
Neutral3.5%
Negative15.7%

Brushes

All ratings177 ratings
Positive91.5%
Neutral2.8%
Negative5.6%
Written reviews42 reviews
Positive57.1%
Neutral9.5%
Negative33.3%

User reviews

Inspire Pro

From 330 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Realistic painting experience
  • 🎨 Variety of brushes and tools
  • 🎨 Customizable brushes
  • 🎨 Intuitive and easy to use
  • 🎨 Excellent color blending

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes and stability issues
  • 🔍 Confusing interface at times
  • 💰 Expensive with in-app purchases
  • 🎨 Lack of layers feature
  • 🎨 Limited canvas size options

Brushes

From 177 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🎨 Great for detailed drawings
  • ✨ Simple and intuitive interface
  • 💨 Fast and fun to use
  • 🖌️ Unique 'Brushes look'
  • 💰 Excellent value for price

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Brush tip issues (square instead of fade)
  • 💾 Auto-save malfunctions
  • 🎛️ Poor brush size control (fine detail)
  • ⚫ Difficulty getting a true black line
  • 🔄 Not an improvement on original

Bugs and requests

Inspire Pro

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Crashes on iPad Pro
  • Brush selection reverts to default
  • Playback feature not working as expected
  • Compatibility issues with older iPad models

Requested features

7 requests
  • Add layers feature
  • Improve brush selection and stability
  • Increase canvas size options
  • Implement palm rejection for Apple Pencil
  • Add more brush types and customization
Show 2 more
  • Improve playback and recording features
  • Integrate with more cloud storage services

Brushes

Reported bugs

9 issues
  • Brush tips not staying (switching to square)
  • Auto-save not working
  • Cannot place images from gallery
  • Brush size slider jumps
  • Circular lines icon appears unexpectedly
Show 4 more
  • App quits unexpectedly without saving
  • Canvas doesn't rotate
  • Won't load photos
  • Empty app after purchase

Requested features

6 requests
  • More save color slots
  • Full Chinese menu translation
  • Instructions/manual
  • Smudge tool
  • Documentation
Show 1 more
  • Screen rotation feature

In-app purchases

None

Inspire Pro

No in-app purchases

None

Brushes

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Inspire Pro free?
Inspire Pro costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Brushes free?
Brushes costs $3.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Inspire Pro or Brushes?
Brushes is rated higher. Inspire Pro averages 4.5 out of 5 from 330 ratings, while Brushes averages 4.6 from 177 ratings.
Do Inspire Pro or Brushes have ads?
Neither Inspire Pro nor Brushes shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Inspire Pro or Brushes?
Inspire Pro ships an update every 3 weeks, and Brushes every 6 weeks. Most recently, Inspire Pro was updated on September 22, 2026 and Brushes on September 24, 2026.

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