Comparison

ArtRage 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

ArtRage

This app offers a realistic digital painting experience, simulating the behavior of real-world art supplies like oils, watercolors, and pencils. It allows for smearing, blending, and texture application, making it accessible for aspiring artists without the mess or expense of traditional materials.

Highlights
  • Realistic paint simulation (oils, watercolors, etc.)
  • Smearing and blending capabilities
  • Layer support with blend modes
  • Import images as reference or tracing
  • Apple Pencil pressure and tilt support
  • Customizable interface
Features
Read full description

The most advanced simulation of real paint on iOS! Get creative on a digital canvas with smearing, blending oils, delicate watercolor, and much more! Ever wanted to try painting your masterpiece but were put off by the mess and expense? Now you can! ArtRage isn't just about color: It knows how much paint you've used so you can smear it around to spread it over the canvas. It knows how wet your paint is so you can blend it with other paints. It even knows about the roughness of your paper so your pencils can be used for soft shading. It's not just a special effect either - ArtRage is a live simulation of the properties of real artistic media that lets you can get creative with colors and textures using tools you already know how to use! ArtRage takes full advantage of the features of your device like larger canvases on iPad Pro, Apple Pencil support for pressure & tilt, and 3D touch on your iPhone. Join the ArtRage community: Forums: forums.artrage.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/artrage Features: Real world painting tools: Oils, Watercolors, Paint Rollers, Pencils, Crayons and more. Each tool has a range of familiar properties such as how much thinner is applied to the paint, or how soft a pencil tip is. Tools apply texture as well as color, and blend under the brush. Add Layers to your painting and work on individual elements without damaging others. ArtRage supports a wide range of Layer Blend Modes, and layer contents can be scaled moved and rotated independently. Import images, converting them to oil for smearing or as Reference Images pinned to the canvas as a visual guide. Load photos as Tracing Images which are overlaid on the canvas, and have ArtRage select colors automatically as you paint. The interface has been designed to maximize your creative space without hiding away critical functions such as tool and color selection. As you paint, it gets out of the way so that you don’t have to stop and manually adjust panels. Record your paintings! The ArtRage Script system lets you record strokes while you paint for playback in desktop versions of the product at higher resolution. Import and Export using external services such as Dropbox, and iCloud Drive. Share your images on Facebook, Twitter, and any other sharing app on your device. Tools: • Oil Brush, Watercolor, Airbrush, Palette Knife, Paint Roller, Paint Tube, Inking Pen, Pencil, Marker Pen, Chalk, Crayon, Glitter Tube, Gloop Pen, Eraser, Flood Fill. • Paint simulation monitors the physical properties of your paints to allow natural blending, smearing, and other real world behavior. • Preset support to save your favorite settings for later use. • Supports the Apple Pencil's Pressure and Tilt properties, and 3D Touch where available to add realism to the simulated paint strokes. Layers: • Unlimited layers with Photoshop standard blend modes, visibility and opacity controls. Scale, rotate, and position layer contents independently. Utilities: • Record your paintings as Scripts then play them back in a desktop version of ArtRage. • Unlimited Undo / Redo. Load photos as References or Tracing images. Store color samples for later use. Files: • Create paintings up to 2048 x 2048 or 4096 x 4096 on iPad Pro. • Control the texture and color of the canvas to create different effects. Canvas presets can be stored to save your favorite settings for later. • Export PTG, JPG or PNG to services such as Email, iOS11 Files, Adobe Creative Cloud, Dropbox, and more. Share images on Facebook or Twitter. Import photos to a new file or a layer, with camera support. Interface: • Easy access pods provide functionality without getting in the way. Elements vanish as you paint so you can paint underneath. Multi-Touch shortcuts for canvas manipulation, Undo/Redo, and Brush Size. • Adapts to suit iPhone layouts. Stylus & Input Support: • Apple Pencil Pressure & Tilt. • Supports 3D Touch. • Includes support for Wacom, Adonit, Adobe, and Pogo styluses.

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!

Screenshots

ArtRage4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Paintstorm Studio Lite at Free against ArtRage's $2.99. Paintstorm Studio Lite also leads on rating (4.0 vs 3.5). ArtRage's advantage is review sentiment (57% vs 24%) and update cadence (monthly vs every 4 months). On ratings volume, 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

Paintstorm Studio Lite is free to download; ArtRage costs $2.99 up front. 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 3.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 171 and 262 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 57% of ArtRage'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

ArtRage ships an update monthly, Paintstorm Studio Lite every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard8 real differences · 3 level
ArtRage versus Paintstorm Studio Lite: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterArtRagePaintstorm Studio Lite
Price$2.99Free — better
Rating3.5 (171 ratings)4.0 (262 ratings) — better
Positive reviews57.3% of reviews — better24.1% of reviews
Number of ratings171262 — better
Update frequencyMonthly — betterEvery 4 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
Best chart rank#123 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPad
Requires iOS10.0 — better13.1
Further details — not scored
Size62 MB103 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAmbient Design Ltd.Sergei Komarov

Customer experience

ArtRage

All ratings171 ratings
Positive57.9%
Neutral11.7%
Negative30.4%
Written reviews737 reviews
Positive57.3%
Neutral14.8%
Negative28.0%

Paintstorm Studio Lite

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

User reviews

ArtRage

From 171 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🎨 Realistic paint simulation
  • 👍 Intuitive and easy-to-use interface
  • 💡 Variety of tools and customization options
  • 🎨 Blending and mixing of colors works well
  • 🎨 Simulates traditional media like oil, watercolor, and pastels

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes and freezes
  • 🐛 Laggy performance, especially with larger brushes
  • 🔍 Limited canvas size and resolution
  • 🐛 Bugs with layer handling and saving progress
  • 🔍 Missing some basic features like shapes and text

Paintstorm Studio Lite

From 262 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

ArtRage

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Crashes and loss of unsaved work
  • Bugs with color picker and blending tools
  • Inconsistent behavior when switching between tools

Requested features

5 requests
  • Ability to resize and rotate canvas
  • Improved palm rejection and touch controls
  • Larger brush sizes and more customization options
  • Support for higher resolution canvases and export
  • Autosave and cloud sync functionality

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

ArtRage

No in-app purchases

None

Paintstorm Studio Lite

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ArtRage free?
ArtRage costs $2.99, 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, ArtRage or Paintstorm Studio Lite?
Paintstorm Studio Lite is rated higher. ArtRage averages 3.5 out of 5 from 171 ratings, while Paintstorm Studio Lite averages 4.0 from 262 ratings.
Do ArtRage or Paintstorm Studio Lite have ads?
Neither ArtRage nor Paintstorm Studio Lite shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ArtRage or Paintstorm Studio Lite?
ArtRage ships an update monthly, and Paintstorm Studio Lite every 4 months. Most recently, ArtRage was updated on October 16, 2026 and Paintstorm Studio Lite on October 15, 2026.

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