Comparison

Inspire Pro vs Realistic Paint Studio

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

Realistic Paint Studio

This digital art software offers a familiar art station experience with realistic brushes, pencils, and markers. It allows users to create art in drawing, watercolor, and oil painting styles with a unique color engine and diverse canvas textures. Step-by-step tutorials and live demonstrations guide users through the creative process.

Highlights
  • Realistic color engine
  • Drawing, Watercolor, Oil Painting styles
  • Realistic brushes and tools
  • Realistic canvases with diverse textures
  • Live demonstration of drawing methods
  • Step-by-step tutorials
Read full description

Realistic Paint Studio is a unique digital art software. The program combines the simplicity of traditional tools and pioneering innovations in digital art. No special education is required to work in Realistic Paint Studio. The interface is designed to show a familiar art station with real paper, brushes, pencils, pens, and markers, etc. instead of a complicated and hard-to-understand graphic editor. With Realistic Paint Studio you will forget that you are using a digital editor, being completely absorbed in the art process! Easy-to-use, yet powerful engine allows to draw and paint in any desirable style! - "Realistic color" - Unique color engine! - 3 creative styles: Drawing, Watercolor, Oil Painting "Realistic brushes" carefully designed to convey all the nuances of real brushes, pencils, pens, markers, etc. - “Realistic showcase” - You can instantly have a look at your picture within a beautiful scene - “Realistic Canvases” - 15 types of sketchbooks, paper sheets, and canvases with 45 different textures scanned from real materials. - “Realistic palettes” - Most of the brushes have their own palette's presets. - “Live demonstration” - Instant demonstration of drawing methods for the selected tool - Live liquid watercolor drops - Step by step tutorials - Сoloring with the edge control function

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Inspire Pro at none against Realistic Paint Studio's 12. Inspire Pro also leads on price ($4.99 vs $11.99) and review sentiment (81% vs 67%). Realistic Paint Studio's advantage is rating (4.7 vs 4.5) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 13.6). On ratings volume, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Inspire Pro costs $4.99 and Realistic Paint Studio $11.99 up front. Realistic Paint Studio sells 12 one-off in-app purchases. Inspire Pro asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Realistic Paint Studio holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 330 and 735 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 81% of Inspire Pro's written reviews are positive against 67% of Realistic Paint Studio's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Inspire Pro ships an update every 3 weeks, Realistic Paint Studio every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 20, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Inspire Pro versus Realistic Paint Studio: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterInspire ProRealistic Paint Studio
Price$4.99 — better$11.99
Rating4.5 (330 ratings)4.7 (735 ratings) — better
Positive reviews80.8% of reviews — better67.3% of reviews
Number of ratings330735 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks — betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPadiPad
Requires iOS13.611.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size284 MB1005 MB
Age rating4+4+
DevelopersnowCanoeAleksandr Komarov

Customer experience

Inspire Pro

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

Realistic Paint Studio

All ratings735 ratings
Positive92.8%
Neutral4.4%
Negative2.9%
Written reviews343 reviews
Positive67.3%
Neutral16.3%
Negative16.3%

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

Realistic Paint Studio

From 735 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🎨 Realistic and immersive painting experience
  • 👍 Intuitive and user-friendly interface
  • 🎨 Excellent brush dynamics and color blending
  • 🎨 Wide variety of traditional media tools
  • 🎨 Aesthetically pleasing presentation

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and stability issues
  • 🔋 High battery consumption
  • 🔒 Limited export options (no PSD, no transparent background)
  • 🔒 Restricted canvas size and resolution
  • 🔒 Lack of customization for brushes and tools

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

Realistic Paint Studio

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Crashes when using the camera feature
  • Inconsistent behavior with the undo/redo function
  • Issues with the color mixing in the palette
  • Delayed response and lag when using Apple Pencil

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add support for PSD export with layers
  • Implement canvas rotation and resizing options
  • Allow for more brush customization and pressure sensitivity
  • Improve color picker and palette functionality
  • Introduce a simple, distraction-free canvas mode

In-app purchases

None

Inspire Pro

No in-app purchases

12 purchases

Realistic Paint Studio

One-time12
  • Artistic brushFree
  • Mechanical penFree
  • Glitz penFree
Show 9 more
  • Glass penFree
  • Fountain penFree
  • Calligraphy brushFree
  • Hieroglyph brushFree
  • Diamond brushFree
  • Album with six color sheetsFree
  • All brushes from the VIP boxFree
  • Dragon brush$0.99
  • Crystal brush$0.99

Questions

Is Inspire Pro free?
Inspire Pro costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Realistic Paint Studio free?
Realistic Paint Studio costs $11.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Inspire Pro or Realistic Paint Studio?
Realistic Paint Studio is rated higher. Inspire Pro averages 4.5 out of 5 from 330 ratings, while Realistic Paint Studio averages 4.7 from 735 ratings.
Do Inspire Pro or Realistic Paint Studio have ads?
Neither Inspire Pro nor Realistic Paint Studio shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Inspire Pro or Realistic Paint Studio?
Inspire Pro ships an update every 3 weeks, and Realistic Paint Studio every 5 weeks. Most recently, Inspire Pro was updated on September 22, 2026 and Realistic Paint Studio on September 20, 2026.

Other comparisons