Comparison

Pastel vs RegEx Lab

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

Head to head
About

Pastel

Easily capture, organize, and use color palettes for your creative projects. Analyze photos to extract dominant colors, or manually select them. Seamlessly sync your library across devices and export colors in various code formats or as pixel bitmaps.

Highlights
  • Capture color palettes from photos
  • Manual color selection
  • Drag and drop colors to other apps
  • iCloud sync across devices
  • Export colors in code formats (RGB, hex, Swift)
  • Create custom wallpapers
Features
Read full description

Capture and collect color palettes with Pastel! Pastel is an app for amateur developers & artists (like us!) that lets you build up a library of color palettes to use in your projects. With drag & drop on iPad, drag colors out into other apps that support dropped colors, like Pages and Keynote, or many third-party apps from your favorite developers, so you can use your Pastel library as your master color collection across apps. Seamlessly sync your library across devices with iCloud. Analyze photos from the photo library or from Files to determine their dominant colors — choosing specific colors manually if you wish — and save their color palettes to Pastel. Includes a variety of color pickers, like wheel, RGB sliders, and crayons, or pick named colors from your color library that you curate yourself. On iPad, drag and drop from the sidebar to any palette. Copy a variety of developer-focused code representations, like RGB, hex, Objective-C, Swift and SwiftUI. Paste hex codes into the sliders color picker. Copy a pixel bitmap representation of a palette to paste into your favorite pixel editor, share a screen-sized version to set as your wallpaper or Apple Watch face, or export a palette to Procreate®. Create beautiful, colorful wallpapers in various different 2D & 3D styles using Pastel's wallpaper creator. In the free version, try out the built-in library, and add your own palettes up to a limit of 8 items total. Upgrade to the unlimited version using in-app purchase. --- Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy policy: https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/privacy

About

RegEx Lab

This app allows users to test and experiment with regular expressions. It offers syntax highlighting, customizable match colors, and a detailed results list. Features include a replace function, dark and light themes, and a helpful cheatsheet for quick reference.

Highlights
  • Regex syntax highlighting
  • Match and capture group highlighting
  • Customizable highlight colors
  • Results list view
  • Replace feature
  • Dark and light themes
  • Regular expression cheatsheet
Features
Read full description

RegEx Lab - test regular expressions • Highlighting of regex syntax and of matches and capture groups. • Choose the color of the match highlights • Results List View which lists all the matches and capture groups. • Replace feature • Dark theme (by default) based on the Solarized color palette • Themes to choose from (light/dark) • A handy cheatsheet which tells you about the different operators, option flags and metacharacters. • An extra row of keyboard keys for common special characters • Undo / Redo quick access buttons • Support for Dynamic Type (iOS Settings Text Size) • Export / Import feature Questions, suggestions, issues? regexlab@sovio.co Made by Nikolay Suvandzhiev

Screenshots

Pastel4 screens
RegEx Lab3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Pastel at Free against RegEx Lab's $0.99. Pastel also leads on ratings volume (1.4K vs 172). RegEx Lab's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and review sentiment (95% vs 76%). On rating, update cadence, ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Pastel is free to download; RegEx Lab costs $0.99 up front. Pastel sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. RegEx Lab asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Pastel against 4.8 for RegEx Lab. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pastel has 1.4K ratings behind it against 172, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 76% of Pastel's written reviews are positive against 95% of RegEx Lab's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly monthly. Both last shipped on November 1, 2026.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Pastel versus RegEx Lab: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPastelRegEx Lab
PriceFree — better$0.99
Rating4.7 (1.4K ratings)4.8 (172 ratings) — better
Positive reviews76.2% of reviews95.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings1.4K — better172
Update frequencyMonthlyMonthly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
Best chart rank#195#64 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision ProiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac
Requires iOS18.014.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size12 MB5 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSteven Troughton-Smithsovio

Customer experience

Pastel

All ratings1,443 ratings
Positive92.9%
Neutral2.8%
Negative4.3%
Written reviews202 reviews
Positive76.2%
Neutral10.4%
Negative13.4%

RegEx Lab

All ratings172 ratings
Positive96.5%
Neutral1.2%
Negative2.3%
Written reviews60 reviews
Positive95.0%
Neutral1.7%
Negative3.3%

User reviews

Pastel

From 1.4K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Intuitive and clean interface
  • 🚀 Efficient color management
  • 💡 Ability to import colors from photos
  • 🎨 Great for designers and artists
  • 📦 Seamless integration with Procreate

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Disappearing custom palettes
  • 🔍 Lack of color picker functionality
  • 🤔 Confusing widget behavior
  • 🔀 Issues with rearranging colors in palettes

RegEx Lab

From 172 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Beautifully designed UI
  • 🚀 Simple and easy to use
  • ⚡ Gets regular expression tasks done quickly
  • 💡 Useful offline Regex tool
  • 🛠️ Essential text tool for devs and writers

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Files are hidden and not found in Files app
  • 🐛 Export option makes a mess
  • 🐛 Mac version has no effort put into it
  • 🐛 Takes a long time for load screen to go away
  • 🐛 'Select this match' option often doesn't work

Bugs and requests

Pastel

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Palettes disappearing after OS updates
  • Delays and freezes when using color wheel
  • Inconsistent behavior on different devices/OSes

Requested features

5 requests
  • Color contrast analysis tools
  • CMYK color support
  • Easier way to copy/paste color codes
  • Improved palette organization and management
  • Integration with more design apps

RegEx Lab

Reported bugs

14 issues
  • iPad's Files app cannot find the app or Regex files
  • Export option creates messy files
  • Mac version lacks developer effort
  • Slow load screen when creating new expressions
  • Select this match option is unreliable
Show 9 more
  • Replace function is difficult to understand
  • Cheat sheet accessibility issues
  • Poor highlighting options
  • Keyboard behavior issues
  • Import functionality is broken
  • Highlighted errors persist
  • Difficulty with sequential regex application
  • Lack of named group support
  • Interface is entirely in English

Requested features

11 requests
  • Make app and Regex files visible in Files app
  • Improve export option for Regex files
  • Add a button to clear the text window
  • Allow simultaneous viewing of text and replacement text
  • Add a button to copy and replace text on the previous screen
Show 6 more
  • Add more examples to the cheat sheet
  • Add a user manual
  • Automatically jump to matched text
  • Add a Chinese language option
  • Add 'snippets' or templates
  • Add a special keyboard for common expressions

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Pastel

Subscriptions2
  • Pastel (One Month)14 Days trial$1.991 Month
  • Pastel (One Year)14 Days trial$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Pastel (Legacy Purchase)$19.99
None

RegEx Lab

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Pastel free?
Pastel is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is RegEx Lab free?
RegEx Lab costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Pastel or RegEx Lab?
RegEx Lab is rated higher. Pastel averages 4.7 out of 5 from 1.4K ratings, while RegEx Lab averages 4.8 from 172 ratings.
Do Pastel or RegEx Lab have ads?
Neither Pastel nor RegEx Lab shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pastel or RegEx Lab?
Pastel ships an update monthly, and RegEx Lab monthly. Most recently, Pastel was updated on November 1, 2026 and RegEx Lab on November 1, 2026.
Which is more popular, Pastel or RegEx Lab?
Pastel currently peaks at #195 in the App Store charts, and RegEx Lab at #64. Chart position reflects recent download velocity rather than total install base.

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