Comparison

Pastel vs SFToolkit

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

SFToolkit

Features
Read full description

Meet SFToolkit, a simple way to search, view, and customise SF Symbols on iPhone and iPad. Preview symbols live, adjust their appearance, and generate SwiftUI code without switching devices. Why you’ll love it - Browse and search the full SF Symbols library with categories. - Preview symbols live as you adjust rendering modes, animation configurations and more. - Automatically generate SwiftUI and UIKit source code for every symbol. - Copy code to the clipboard with a single tap. - Export symbols as PNGs for use in your projects. - Designed for developers, with a clean and focused interface. How it works 1. Select a category. 2. Select a symbol and customise its style. 3. Copy the code or export the icon. Perfect for - iOS developers - SwiftUI projects - Prototyping and design previews - Working away from your Mac - Anyone building apps with SF Symbols Terms of Service https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Pastel4 screens
SFToolkit3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Pastel at Free against SFToolkit's $0.99. Pastel also leads on chart position (#202 vs unranked) and update cadence (monthly vs every 2 months). On 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

Pastel is free to download; SFToolkit costs $0.99 up front. Pastel sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and SFToolkit sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pastel ships an update monthly, SFToolkit every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
Pastel versus SFToolkit: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPastelSFToolkit
PriceFree — better$0.99
Rating4.7 (1.4K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews76.2% of reviews—
Number of ratings1.4K — better—
Update frequencyMonthly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
Best chart rank#202 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size12 MB7 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSteven Troughton-SmithSNEH NILESH

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

SFToolkit

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
3 purchases

SFToolkit

One-time3
  • Small Tip$0.99
  • Medium Tip$2.99
  • Large Tip$5.99

Questions

Is Pastel free?
Pastel is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is SFToolkit free?
SFToolkit costs $0.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Do Pastel or SFToolkit have ads?
Neither Pastel nor SFToolkit shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pastel or SFToolkit?
Pastel ships an update monthly, and SFToolkit every 2 months. Most recently, Pastel was updated on October 29, 2026 and SFToolkit on October 30, 2026.

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