Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad vs Looom
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad
Unleash your creativity by drawing, sketching, and painting directly on your photos or pre-designed backgrounds. This app offers a vast collection of stamps and stencils to enhance your artwork, making it easy for beginners and experienced artists alike to create impressive designs.
- Draw on photos or backgrounds
- Over 1400 decorative stamps
- Smudge tool for blending
- Stencils for precise shapes
- Beginner-friendly drawing tools
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Doodle Buddy is for everyone -- from the serious artist to someone just starting out. • Draw on your pics or dozens of included backgrounds. • Over 1400 stamps :-) to decorate your drawings and pics. • Smudge works just like your finger on chalk, but your fingers don't get dirty! • Stencils make it easy to draw perfect circles, squares, triangles or even intricate snowflakes. If you think you suck at drawing, try Doodle Buddy. You’ll be surprised at the amazing stuff you can make. If you’re already into drawing, you’ll have fun with Doodle Buddy too. It’s a simple, artistic medium that’s not quite like anything else. Stretch yourself within its constraints, and see what you can make. Doodle Buddy is where art meets fun.
Looom
Create hand-drawn animations with a playful, instrument-like interface. This robust app focuses on loopable animation, offering a dynamic, non-destructive workflow for both beginners and professionals. Explore lines, shapes, and colors in a delightful environment designed for learning and experimentation.
- Hand-drawn animation creation
- Loopable animation focus
- Musical interface inspiration
- Dynamic non-destructive workflow
- Fluid time control
- Infinite canvas
- SVG native file format
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A new way to create hand-drawn animation. So playful you’ll think it’s a toy, but it's secretly a robust app with a reimagined UI for animators and creators. Taking inspiration from music creation tools, using Looom feels more like playing an instrument than operating software - exploring lines, shapes and colors through loopable time and rhythm. Looom is all about looping animation with a smile. It was designed for professionals and beginners of any age and is already being used by some influential indie animators. A delightful environment to learn, experiment, practice and create drawn animation. Wonderfully musical, Next-gen dynamic non-destructive workflow. FLUID TIME No first frame or last. Looom’s threads are independent in length and speed, always tweak-able. INFINITE CANVAS Lets you go as deep or as far as you want thanks to a completely resolution-independent vector engine. OPEN-ENDED Looom uses SVG as it’s native file format. Your work can be viewed in browsers and opened in desktop animation software.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad at Free against Looom's $9.99. Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad also leads on rating (4.7 vs 3.9) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 4 months). Looom's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 4) and ads (none vs shown).
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad is free to download; Looom costs $9.99 up front. Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Looom asks for nothing beyond the download.
Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad has 16K ratings behind it against 121, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 73% of Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad's written reviews are positive against 62% of Looom's.
Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad ships an update every 2 weeks, Looom every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad | Looom |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $9.99 |
| Rating | 4.7 (16K ratings) — better | 3.9 (121 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 73.4% of reviews — better | 61.9% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 16K — better | 121 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | — | #73 — better |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 160 MB | 43 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Doodle Buddy Labs | IORAMA AB |
Customer experience
Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad
Looom
User reviews
Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad
From 16K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🎨 Excellent drawing tools
- 🎨 Variety of backgrounds and stencils
- 🎨 Fun and engaging for all ages
- 🎨 Saves drawings to camera roll
- 🎨 No internet required
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional crashes and glitches
- 🔍 Lack of zoom/magnification feature
- 🔍 Difficulty with precise drawing
- 💰 Intrusive ads and in-app purchases
- 🔄 Frustrating undo/erase functionality
Looom
From 121 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 💡 Innovative and unique animation interface
- 🎨 Intuitive drawing experience once learned
- 🎬 Real-time animation playback while drawing
- 📱 Works seamlessly on iPad and iPhone
- 🎯 Simple and minimalist design approach
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent crashes losing user work
- 😕 Non-intuitive UI despite minimalist design
- 🎨 Limited to single color per layer/thread
- 🖌️ Only one basic brush option available
- 📤 Extremely cumbersome export process
Bugs and requests
Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad
Reported bugs
5 issues- Drawings disappearing after shaking device
- Diagonal lines appearing unexpectedly
- Inability to move or resize text boxes
- Inconsistent behavior with undo/redo
- Compatibility issues with iOS 8 and newer
Requested features
5 requests- Add color picker tool
- Implement layers for drawings
- Introduce custom stamp creation
- Allow portrait mode on iPad
- Provide option to disable shake-to-erase
Looom
Reported bugs
12 issues- App crashes mid-animation causing work loss
- Grey screen on launch preventing app opening
- Drawing not registering properly
- Frame navigation swiping goes wrong direction
- Accidental marks appearing from sensitive touch controls
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- Eraser functionality not working on some devices
- Zoom controls triggering timeline instead
- Disappearing artwork when switching frames
- Export controls not grabbable on iPad Pro
- Accidental deletion of projects with no recovery option
- Non-Apple Pencil input not recognized without settings change
- Performance issues and stuttering
Requested features
23 requests- Better export options (GIF, video, SVG with proper formatting)
- Increase frame limit beyond 24 frames
- More than 5 layers/threads
- Multiple colors and brush sizes per layer
- Frame duplication and copy-paste functionality
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- Undo/redo gesture support (two-finger tap)
- Shape tools (circles, rectangles, lines)
- Background image import for reference tracing
- Hex color input and color picker tool
- Partial eraser (erase parts of lines, not entire lines)
- Double-tap Apple Pencil to toggle eraser
- Layer naming and hiding capabilities
- Adjustable frame rate and FPS control
- Sound/audio support
- Ability to rearrange frame order
- Onion skin customization (forward and backward)
- Static/pinned layers
- Higher resolution export options
- Video import for rotoscoping
- Pressure sensitivity support
- Animation scene management
- Seamless looping export
- Left-hand mode accessibility
In-app purchases
Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad
- Small Stack of Doodle Bucks$1.99
- Medium Stack of Doodle Bucks$3.99
- Hide ads$7.99
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- Big Stack of Doodle Bucks$11.99
Looom
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad free?
Is Looom free?
Which has better reviews, Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad or Looom?
Do Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad or Looom have ads?
Which is updated more often, Doodle Buddy Draw for iPad or Looom?
Other comparisons
