Comparison

Pastel vs Icon Generator

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

Icon Generator

Easily create app icons in all required sizes. Select an image, choose target devices, and export the icon assets for your project. Available on iOS and iPadOS.

Highlights
  • Generate app icons in all necessary sizes
  • Select custom images for icons
  • Choose target devices for asset creation
  • Export icon assets in AppIcon.appiconset format
  • Available on iOS and iPadOS
Features
Read full description

Icon Generator helps creating all the necessary image sizes for your App icons. Simply click the designated area on the app and select the image you want to use as an icon, choose the devices you want the assets to be created for and click export. Done! The icons will be saved in a folder where you will find the AppIcon.appiconset to copy into your project. Icon Generator is also available whilst you're on the go, you can download it on iOS and iPadOS. Any issues or questions please reach out and email sam+contact@samuelblackburn.com, alternatively use the Feedback section to send an email on the Settings page.

Screenshots

Pastel4 screens
Icon Generator4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Icon Generator at none against Pastel's 3. Icon Generator also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 74%) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). Pastel's advantage is update cadence (monthly vs every 5 months) and chart position (#189 vs unranked). On price, 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

Both are free to download. Pastel sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Icon Generator asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pastel ships an update monthly, Icon Generator every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on September 27, 2026 and September 19, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Pastel versus Icon Generator: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPastelIcon Generator
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (1.4K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews73.9% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings1.4K — better—
Update frequencyMonthly — betterEvery 5 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
Best chart rank#189 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision ProiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac
Requires iOS18.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size11 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSteven Troughton-SmithSamuel Blackburn

Customer experience

Pastel

All ratings1,434 ratings
Positive93.0%
Neutral2.8%
Negative4.2%
Written reviews165 reviews
Positive73.9%
Neutral10.9%
Negative15.2%

Icon Generator

Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

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

Icon Generator

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

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

Icon Generator

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Pastel free?
Pastel is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Icon Generator free?
Icon Generator is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Pastel or Icon Generator have ads?
Neither Pastel nor Icon Generator shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pastel or Icon Generator?
Pastel ships an update monthly, and Icon Generator every 5 months. Most recently, Pastel was updated on September 27, 2026 and Icon Generator on September 19, 2026.

Other comparisons