Comparison

Drawing Pad vs HuePaint

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

Head to head
About

Drawing Pad

Unleash your creativity with a mobile art studio for all ages. This app offers a wide array of realistic art tools, from crayons and markers to paint brushes and colored pencils. Easily import photos as backgrounds or stickers, blend colors, and share your masterpieces.

Highlights
  • Photo-realistic art tools
  • Crayons, markers, paint brushes, colored pencils
  • Stickers and roller pens
  • Photo background import
  • Color blending tool
  • Export and sharing options
Features
Read full description

Get the app that was mentioned on TV ABC 7 CHICAGO as a top school app! Watch http://abc7chicago.com/education/back-to-school-tech-shopping-tips/952242/ short link: abc7.ws/1h5RDj9 Previously iPad App of the Week in 12 countries! (http://drawingpadapp.com/apple-features-drawing-pad-as-ipad-app-of-the-week) Drawing Pad is a mobile art studio for all ages! Create your own art using photo-realistic crayons, markers, paint brushes, colored pencils, stickers, roller pens and more! ■ ACCOLADES Winner of a Parents’ Choice Gold Award (bit.ly/parents-choice) Featured on nytimes.com (bit.ly/nytimes-drawingpad) Featured on usatoday.com (usat.ly/2x5xrKx) Featured on the iLounge 2011 Buyer's Guide 100 Essential Apps of 2010! Featured by iLounge as First runner up to kids' iPad App of the Year! Featured on Gizmodo's 2010 Gift Guide (bit.ly/gizmodo-drawingpad) Featured in November 2010 MacWorld Magazine in the UK 4 out of 5 stars Awarded Editor's Choice Award from Children's Technology Review ■ IN BOOKS Featured in the book “iPad Apps for Kids for Dummies” - by Jinny Gudmundsen Featured in the O’Reilly book “Best iPad Apps” - by Peter Meyers ■ IN MUSEUMS As seen in the Star Studio Exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art! (bit.ly/ima-museum) ■ QUOTES "Drawing Pad is a fantastic drawing app!" 9to5mac.com “Wonderful chalk tools! You can almost taste the dust!” Mickey Paraskevas, Illustrator and Creator of the Maggie and the Ferocious Beast TV show. "Drawing Pad is a fun and easy to use iPad art app for kids and adults alike. It has very visual menus giving you instant access to a broad range of useful art tools. There are amazing features for kids including downloadable colouring books and additional advanced features for more ambitious artists." Kyle Lambert - Artist - www.kylelambert.com ■ HOW TO USE DRAWING PAD Watch the video inside the App! (or drawingpadapp.com/tutorial) Tap a tool, choose a color, and start drawing. It’s really that simple. Your artwork is automatically saved in the Drawing Pad album. For brush options like size and spacing, tap the brush thumbnail at the bottom of the drawer. Import photo backgrounds by first tapping the stationary icon in the drawer, then the filmstrip. Import photo stickers by first tapping the sticker icon, then the stack of photos. Use one finger to move your photo and two fingers to rotate and resize. Blender tool allows you to soften and blend colors! ■ SHARING OPTIONS Export to the Device Camera Roll, print via AirPrint, share via Email, and other favorite apps like Instagram & Facebook. Even assign your artwork to a contact in your address book! ■ ALL THESE TOOLS ARE INCLUDED! Crayons Markers Paint Brushes Colored Pencils Sketch Pencils Roller Stamp Pens Erasures Stickers Construction Paper Blenders Text Sticker Tool Photo Background Import Photo Stickers Gradient Brushes & Crayons Advanced Brush Control Color wheel and Gradient Panel Pinch Zoom Autosave Two Coloring Books ■ EXTRA FUN Download extra coloring books via in app purchase! Restore prior "Coloring Book in app purchases" by tapping the "Redeem prior purchase" button on the Coloring Book store details page. See drawingpadapp.com/restore ■ DEMONSTRATION Video at http://drawingpadapp.com ■ CONTACT Email us at "support" -at- "drawingpadapp.com" BUY NOW! Don't have an iPad yet? Don't let it stop you! Great price today! Buy now and tell your friends. CREDITS: "Birds," "Panda Bear," and "Turtle" by Igor Cheban instagram.com/icheban "Dinosaur," and "Kitten" by Kyle Lambert www.kylelambert.com

About

HuePaint

Create digital art with realistic brushes and dynamic stroke sizes based on fingertip pressure. Offers a user-friendly interface with customizable tools and supports advanced features like layers and photo tracing.

Highlights
  • Live-calculated brushes and strokes
  • Dynamic stroke size based on fingertip pressure
  • Adjustable parameters while painting
  • Left-handed toolbar option
  • Multiple layers
  • Photo tracing mode (Pro feature)
Features
Read full description

Paint and create beautiful works of art using this app’s expressive painting tools and workflow-friendly user interface. • COLORFUL PAINTING TOOLS • HuePaint features live-calculated brushes and strokes that interact in real time with a canvas texture that is uniquely generated for each picture. • FINGERTIP = STROKE SIZE • When you paint, the app measures how much of your finger is touching the screen and changes the stroke size accordingly. Apply just the corner of your fingertip for a thin line, or the whole fingerprint area for a broad stroke. A 2nd tool assigned to your finger will still use this feature, so don’t ignore it just because you have an Apple Pencil! • LEFT-HANDED? • Just swipe the toolbar over to the other side! • PARAMETERS CAN BE CHANGED LIVE • Use any buttons or controls to change/adjust color, size, force, simultaneously while painting. • UNIVERSAL PURCHASE • If you choose to buy the Pro upgrade, this one-time in-app purchase will unlock all Pro features in the app on all available platforms (iPad-iPhone-Mac)! • METAL • The engine is based on Metal, with 128-bit color and floating-point arithmetic. • SWIFT • The app was developed entirely using Swift (earlier versions used C++). • APPLE PENCIL SUPPORT • FULL SCREEN PAINTING • • DARK MODE • LANDSCAPE • PORTRAIT • WIDE COLOR • • MULTIPLE LAYERS • PHOTO TRACING MODE (Pro feature) •

Screenshots

HuePaint4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: HuePaint at Free against Drawing Pad's $5.99. HuePaint also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.2) and device support (4 vs 1). Drawing Pad's advantage is review sentiment (83% vs 69%) and chart position (#122 vs unranked). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

HuePaint is free to download; Drawing Pad costs $5.99 up front. Drawing Pad sells 11 one-off in-app purchases and HuePaint sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

HuePaint holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 123 and 164 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 83% of Drawing Pad's written reviews are positive against 69% of HuePaint's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Drawing Pad ships an update monthly, HuePaint every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 17, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
Drawing Pad versus HuePaint: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDrawing PadHuePaint
Price$5.99Free — better
Rating4.2 (123 ratings)4.7 (164 ratings) — better
Positive reviews82.7% of reviews — better69.4% of reviews
Number of ratings123164 — better
Update frequencyMonthly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#122 — better—
DevicesiPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS11.0 — better12.0
Further details — not scored
Size223 MB23 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMurtha Design LLCNorbyte

Customer experience

Drawing Pad

All ratings123 ratings
Positive80.5%
Neutral4.1%
Negative15.4%
Written reviews583 reviews
Positive82.7%
Neutral7.0%
Negative10.3%

HuePaint

All ratings164 ratings
Positive93.9%
Neutral1.2%
Negative4.9%
Written reviews36 reviews
Positive69.4%
Neutral11.1%
Negative19.4%

Bugs and requests

Drawing Pad

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Crashes and deletes drawings
  • Undo button erases too much work
  • Drawings disappear from album
  • Sticker placement issues
  • Incompatible with newer iPads

Requested features

10 requests
  • Add layers feature
  • Implement zoom/pan functionality
  • Add text tool
  • Provide more advanced drawing tools
  • Include more adult-oriented coloring books
Show 5 more
  • Improve sticker/stamp UI
  • Add sound effects
  • Implement auto-save feature
  • Add ability to mix/create custom colors
  • Provide more brushes/pencils (e.g. HB-9B pencils)

HuePaint

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

11 purchases

Drawing Pad

One-time11
  • Occupations Coloring BookFree
  • More Fun Coloring BookFree
  • Fairy Tale Coloring BookFree
Show 8 more
  • Sea Life Coloring BookFree
  • Winter Holiday Coloring BookFree
  • Farm Coloring BookFree
  • Dinosaur Coloring BookFree
  • Robots Coloring BookFree
  • Space Coloring BookFree
  • Halloween Coloring BookFree
  • Adult Coloring Book 1Free
6 purchases

HuePaint

One-time6
  • Tip Jar: Smallest Tip$1.00
  • Tip Jar: Small Tip$2.00
  • Tip Jar: Medium Tip$5.00
Show 3 more
  • Pro Upgrade$6.00
  • Tip Jar: Big Tip$10.00
  • Tip Jar: Biggest Tip$25.00

Questions

Is Drawing Pad free?
Drawing Pad costs $5.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Is HuePaint free?
HuePaint is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Drawing Pad or HuePaint?
HuePaint is rated higher. Drawing Pad averages 4.2 out of 5 from 123 ratings, while HuePaint averages 4.7 from 164 ratings.
Do Drawing Pad or HuePaint have ads?
Neither Drawing Pad nor HuePaint shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Drawing Pad or HuePaint?
Drawing Pad ships an update monthly, and HuePaint every 2 months. Most recently, Drawing Pad was updated on September 24, 2026 and HuePaint on September 17, 2026.

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