Asketch vs Sketchbook®
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Asketch
A digital sketchpad designed for both beginners and advanced artists. It offers a focused drawing experience with intuitive gesture controls, powerful zooming for detail work, and image transformation capabilities. Capture your ideas anytime, anywhere with this versatile tool.
- Gesture-based drawing interface
- Pressure-sensitive drawing support
- High-quality image zooming
- Image transformation (scale/rotate)
- 50 levels of undo/redo
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Asketch is a unique and versatile sketch pad. It allows creativity on the go, anytime, anywhere. Its deliberate simplicity makes it perfect for beginners who want to learn to draw; equally, advanced artists will find a wonderful buttery, tonal canvas for their life studies, cartoons, abstracts, landscapes and other subjects. The app is engineered to deliver rapid, but powerful image capture, facilitated by a great transform function that allows you to pick up the drawing, resize it and move it around the canvas, and a amazing zoom that lets you draw in minute detail. So if you want to put a traditional, but digital sketch pad in your pocket, this is the app for you. Features and functionality: Gesture based drawing interface: Changing the surface area of your finger on the screen controls the focus of the drawing. Supports pressure sensitive drawing on iPhones that support pressure sensitivity. Image zooming that actually works: Do amazing detail work when zoomed in. No pixelation of brushes while drawing. Image transformation: Scale/Rotate the image via a simple pinch gesture. 50 Levels of undo/redo. Swipe the undo/redo button to toggle back and forth. Hold down the button for rapid unwind/rewind.
Sketchbook®
This app provides a professional-grade drawing and painting experience for artists and illustrators. It offers a natural drawing feel with customizable tools, layers, and guides for precision. Unlock advanced features like custom brushes and canvas resizing with an optional premium purchase.
- Full complement of brush types
- Highly customizable brushes
- Guides, rulers, and stroke tools
- Layers with blend modes
- Clean and unobtrusive interface
- Custom brush creation (premium)
- Canvas resizing (premium)
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From quick sketches to fully finished artwork, Sketchbook goes where your creativity takes you. Sketchbook is an award-winning sketching, painting, and drawing app for anyone who loves to draw. Artists and illustrators love Sketchbook for its professional-grade feature set and highly customizable tools. Everyone loves Sketchbook for its elegant interface and natural drawing experience, free of distractions so you can focus on capturing and expressing your ideas. • A full complement of brush types: pencils markers, airbrushes, smear and more that look and feel just like their physical counterparts • Brushes are highly customizable so you can create just the look you want • Guides, rulers and stroke tools support precision when you need it • Layers with a full complement of blend modes deliver the flexibility to build up and explore drawings and color • Purpose-built for sketching, the interface is clean and unobtrusive so you can focus on drawing Purchase the Premium Bundle to unlock more... • Import and export brushes • Create your own custom brushes • Resize your canvas or image • Set canvas resolution in px/inch or px/cm • Clipping masks • Additional layer adjustments including blur, sharpen, brightness/contrast, greyscale, and invert • Additional color harmonies • Additional custom gradients • Select color from reference images • Extract color palettes from images • Import and export color palettes • Layer grouping • Layer masking Blend Modes • Draw Outline tool • Lasso Fill tool • Export to PDF • plus more to come!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Sketchbook® at Free against Asketch's $1.99. Sketchbook® also leads on rating (4.8 vs 4.4) and ratings volume (220K vs 224). Asketch's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On update cadence, ads, chart position 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
Sketchbook® is free to download; Asketch costs $1.99 up front. Sketchbook® sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Asketch asks for nothing beyond the download.
Sketchbook® holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Sketchbook® has 220K ratings behind it against 224, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 65% of Asketch's written reviews are positive against 77% of Sketchbook®'s.
Asketch ships an update every 2 months, Sketchbook® every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and September 27, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Asketch | Sketchbook® |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.4 (224 ratings) | 4.8 (220K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 65.3% of reviews | 76.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 224 | 220K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 6 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Best chart rank | #79 | #35 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 14 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 142 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Andrew Kern | Sketchbook, Inc |
Customer experience
Asketch
Sketchbook®
User reviews
Asketch
From 224 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Simple and easy to use
- ✨ Produces beautiful sketches
- 🎨 Realistic charcoal-like effect
- 🚀 Smooth and responsive
- 🔒 No data collection
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes and stability issues
- 🔍 Lack of instructions/tutorials
- 🎨 Limited customization options
- 💾 No save/export options
- 🔀 Confusing gesture controls
Sketchbook®
From 220K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Amazing, free, and no ads
- 👍 Lots of brushes and customization options
- 👍 Intuitive and easy to use
- 👍 Great for beginners and professionals
- 👍 Smooth performance and no lag
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional freezing and crashing issues
- 🐛 Blurry or corrupted images when saving or copying
- 🐛 Glitches with color selection and layers
- 🐛 Inability to rotate canvas or access gallery easily
- 🐛 Lack of blurring and clipping mask tools
Bugs and requests
Asketch
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes on startup
- Eraser not working as expected
- Brush strokes moving to unexpected locations
Requested features
5 requests- Ability to save and export drawings
- More brush/pencil options
- Color support
- Layers and blending tools
- Background/paper texture options
Sketchbook®
Reported bugs
4 issues- Layers randomly deleted or corrupted
- Freezing when using certain tools like the eyedropper
- Saving issues leading to loss of progress
- Incompatibility with newer iPad Pro devices
Requested features
7 requests- Add blurring and clipping mask tools
- Improve gallery and canvas rotation functionality
- Allow custom font import
- Add effects like glow, stroke, and drop shadow
- Implement layer grouping and organization
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- Add real-time collaboration features
- Improve time-lapse recording and saving
In-app purchases
Asketch
No in-app purchases
Sketchbook®
- Premium Bundle$2.99








