Comparison

Animation Creator HD Express vs Paintstorm Studio Lite

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

Head to head
About

Animation Creator HD Express

Create and animate your ideas with powerful drawing tools and intuitive frame management. Bring your imagination to life with high-quality animations, export them in various formats, and share them with others.

Highlights
  • Drawing tools
  • Frame management
  • Animation export (Video, GIF)
  • Layers
  • Onion skinning
  • Audio manager
Features
Read full description

What do you get when you combine the most popular iPad drawing apps and the #1 hottest animation app? - Animation Creator HD! Easily Create Awesome Animations any time! An "App Store Essential: Painting & Drawing" Plus, Share Animations on Cineverse* for Free! Animation Creator HD allows your creativity to come to life on your iPad or iPad Mini. Be the director! Simple, yet powerful drawing tools, color options, and easy frame management, limited only by your imagination! Create amazing, life-like animations with Retina quality and the high frame rate playback of Animation Creator HD! The only Animation Brand to hit the Top 10! Animation Creator's Amazing Honors: App Store Essentials: Painting & Drawing! #1 Paid Entertainment App! #10 Top Overall Paid Apps! Apple Staff Favorite! Apple Retail Store Featured Display! App Store 'What's Hot' in 50 Countries! Express Version Limitations: • Embedded advertisements • 2 animations • 15 frames per animation • Ultra HD 4K, 1920x1080, 1280x720 & more! • No limits, Infinite frames and animations • Export to Video and share • Export to Animated GIF and share • Email Project and share • Audio Manager tool • Import background/layer from Photo Library and Camera • Layers, highly configurable • Superior frame management • Animation scrub tool • Smooth, high-quality drawing experience • Full screen editing, no annoying tools in the way • Paint brush, with various stroke types • Pencil • Pen, with ink flow effect • Spray can • Eraser • Line • Rectangle • Fill, with adjustable tolerance • Line width selection • Circle • Select/Cut/Copy/Paste/Scale • Undo/Redo - no limit! • Frame positioning and rotation • Color selection palettes, sliders, and wheels • Zooming and panning • On the fly frame rate adjustment • 'Onion Skinning', overlay of previous/next frame * Cineverse is a cloud-based photo & video social site where users freely share and enjoy creative content with others around the world. Right to access Cineverse is offered only to registered iTunes users who are of appropriate age under applicable law in their territory, please contact miSoft or iTunes support with questions. See for yourself why Animation Creator is one of a kind! Take your animations to the next level with Audio and HD! =================================== *Please rate this app!* Your kind Ratings help keep the updates coming! Thanks to everyone for your support! =================================== New features are planned regularly, including more drawing tools, more animation sharing methods, photo importing, and much much more! Thanks to everyone for their feedback, we listen! All Data & Info ©, ™, ® 2008/2020 miSoft, LLC.

About

Paintstorm Studio Lite

This app offers professional digital painting tools for artists of all levels. It provides extensive brush customization, stroke correction, and intuitive controls to enhance the mobile art creation experience. Discover new possibilities for digital drawing with advanced features and Apple Pencil support.

Highlights
  • Extensive brush customization
  • Stroke post-correction
  • Apple Pencil support
  • Dynamic interface
  • Mirror drawing
  • Standard tools pack
Read full description

Paintstorm Studio is the first iOS App designed not only for simple sketches, but professional digital painting of any level, genre and technique. Paintstorm helps you to discover the magnificence and unleash the full potential of Apple Pencil and brings you to a whole new level of drawing. Creating an art masterpiece has never been so mobile. A major feature of Paintstorm Studio is the array of brushes to choose from. We did our best so that you can easily and quickly adjust the brushes suitable to your painting style. Anyone who has ever painted knows it's hard to overestimate the painting tool and the importance of all the seemingly insignificant details. We tried not to miss any of them. Our goal was to create an intuitive, simple-to-use but at the same time functionally powerful tool that brings the process of digital painting to a new level, making it as comfortable as possible. - Full control of all brush options (Incredible possibilities for brush settings) - Bristle brushes of any form and kind - Stroke post correction (You can take an action on any option. Not only on the stroke thickness) - Parameters binding to the perspective - Dynamic interface (Global interface scale, panels scale, opacity, color) - Custom panels - Full controlled mask-brush (Each brush can work as mask for other brush) - Takes underlayer's color while blending - "Close gaps" function when you fill or select - Dirty brush mode - Stroke stabilizer - Usable color mixer - Different gradient strokes - Mirror drawing - Standard tools pack (Lasso, Magic wand, Crop, Fill, Gradient and etc) - Control of the random amounts - Apple Pencil support (Pressure, Tilt, Direction) Lite version restrictions: - It is not possible to load and save psd files - A watermark is added to the picture Upgrade to the full version and get rid of the limits!

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Paintstorm Studio Lite at 4.0 against Animation Creator HD Express's 3.1. Paintstorm Studio Lite also leads on monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases). Animation Creator HD Express's advantage is review sentiment (45% vs 24%) and iOS requirement (10.0 vs 13.1). On price, 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

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Paintstorm Studio Lite holds the better App Store score, 4.0 against 3.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 331 and 267 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 45% of Animation Creator HD Express's written reviews are positive against 24% of Paintstorm Studio Lite's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Animation Creator HD Express ships an update every 3 months, Paintstorm Studio Lite every 4 months. Both last shipped on October 23, 2026.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Animation Creator HD Express versus Paintstorm Studio Lite: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAnimation Creator HD ExpressPaintstorm Studio Lite
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.1 (331 ratings)4.0 (267 ratings) — better
Positive reviews45.2% of reviews — better24.1% of reviews
Number of ratings331 — better267
Update frequencyEvery 3 months — betterEvery 4 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPadiPad
Requires iOS10.0 — better13.1
Further details — not scored
Size19 MB103 MB
Age rating12+4+
DevelopermiSoftSergei Komarov

Customer experience

Animation Creator HD Express

All ratings328 ratings
Positive46.3%
Neutral11.3%
Negative42.4%
Written reviews283 reviews
Positive45.2%
Neutral17.0%
Negative37.8%

Paintstorm Studio Lite

All ratings262 ratings
Positive72.9%
Neutral7.3%
Negative19.8%
Written reviews141 reviews
Positive24.1%
Neutral13.5%
Negative62.4%

User reviews

Animation Creator HD Express

From 331 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Great for animation
  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 🎨 Good drawing tools
  • ⭐ Amazing app

Room to improve

  • 🔒 Limited features in free version
  • 🔒 Restricted to only 3 animations
  • 🔒 Limited to 20 frames per animation
  • 🐛 Crashes frequently
  • 🐛 Glitchy performance

Paintstorm Studio Lite

From 267 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 💎 Excellent brushes and color mixing
  • 🎨 Sophisticated drawing tools
  • 🖌️ Advanced interface like desktop apps
  • 🖥️ Powerful features on par with desktop software

Room to improve

  • 🚧 Cluttered and confusing interface
  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and performance issues
  • 💦 Annoying watermark on exported artwork
  • 🔍 Lack of clear instructions and tutorials

Bugs and requests

Animation Creator HD Express

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Zoom glitches
  • Drawing tools stop working
  • Animations flip upside down
  • Unable to export to camera roll

Requested features

6 requests
  • More frames per animation
  • Ability to save animations as video
  • Rotate canvas option
  • Import images from library
  • Longer audio clips
Show 1 more
  • Ability to export to YouTube

Paintstorm Studio Lite

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • App crashes when opening or switching between projects
  • Brush settings and color wheel disappearing unexpectedly
  • Inability to save or recover unsaved artwork

Requested features

4 requests
  • Remove watermark option
  • Ability to import photos and images
  • Better organization and customization of UI
  • More intuitive brush and tool controls

In-app purchases

None

Animation Creator HD Express

No in-app purchases

None

Paintstorm Studio Lite

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Animation Creator HD Express free?
Animation Creator HD Express is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Paintstorm Studio Lite free?
Paintstorm Studio Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Animation Creator HD Express or Paintstorm Studio Lite?
Paintstorm Studio Lite is rated higher. Animation Creator HD Express averages 3.1 out of 5 from 331 ratings, while Paintstorm Studio Lite averages 4.0 from 267 ratings.
Do Animation Creator HD Express or Paintstorm Studio Lite have ads?
Neither Animation Creator HD Express nor Paintstorm Studio Lite shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Animation Creator HD Express or Paintstorm Studio Lite?
Animation Creator HD Express ships an update every 3 months, and Paintstorm Studio Lite every 4 months. Most recently, Animation Creator HD Express was updated on October 23, 2026 and Paintstorm Studio Lite on October 23, 2026.

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