Comparison

Procreate vs Protaxis

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

Head to head
About

Procreate

This app provides a comprehensive digital art studio for iPad, offering tools for sketching, painting, illustration, and animation. It features a vast brush library, advanced layering, color management, and precision design tools for creative professionals and aspiring artists.

Highlights
  • Hundreds of handmade brushes
  • Advanced layer system
  • High resolution canvases
  • 3D Painting with Lighting Studio
  • Frame-by-frame animation
  • Precision design tools
  • Continuous auto-save
Read full description

Loved by creative professionals and aspiring artists alike, Procreate is the leading creative application made for iPad. Procreate has everything you need to create expressive sketches, rich paintings, gorgeous illustrations, and beautiful animations. Offering 100s of handmade brushes, a suite of industry-leading artistic tools, an advanced layer system, and the powerful Valkyrie graphics engine. It’s a complete art studio you can take anywhere. Highlights: - High resolution canvases — up to 16k by 8k on compatible iPad Pros - Beautifully intuitive interface made for iPad and Apple Pencil - Revolutionary QuickShape feature for perfect shapes - Smooth and responsive smudge sampling - 3D Painting with Lighting Studio, exportable as models, images, or animations - Powered by Valkyrie, the lightning-fast 64-bit painting engine - Speed up your workflow with keyboard shortcuts - Create art in stunning 64-bit color - Continuous auto-save — never lose work again Breakthrough brushes: - Packed with hundreds of beautifully crafted brushes - Organize your brushes into sets and libraries - Add Metallic and Roughness for painting in 3D - Brush Studio — with over 100 customizable settings - Import and export custom Procreate brushes - Import Adobe® Photoshop® brushes, and run them faster than Photoshop® Full-featured layering system: - Layer your art for precise control over details and composition - Create Layer Masks and Clipping Masks for non-destructive editing - Stay organized by combining layers into Groups - Select multiple layers to move or Transform objects simultaneously - Access over 25 layer blend modes for industry-grade compositing Color without compromise: - Fill your line work with ColorDrop and SwatchDrop - Disc, Classic, Harmony, Value, and Palette color panels - Import color profiles for color matching - Assign Color Dynamics to any brush Precision design tools: - Add vector text to your illustrations - Easily import all your favorite fonts - Crop and resize your canvas for perfect composition - Perspective, Isometric, 2D, and Symmetry visual guides - Drawing Assist perfects your strokes in real time - StreamLine and stabilization smooths strokes for beautiful calligraphy and expert inking - Use Scribble to name layers, change settings, and create text Accessibility features: - Advanced stroke stabilization - Dynamic Type, VoiceOver, and Feedback Sounds - Assignable single-touch gestures - Color naming Animation and Page Assist - Easy frame-by-frame animation with customizable onion skinning - Create storyboards, GIFs, animatics, and simple animations - Sketch page-by-page concepts or begin a comic with Page Assist - Import, edit, and share PDFs Dramatic finishing effects: - Brush in image adjustments and effects with Apple Pencil - Glitch, Chromatic Aberration, Bloom, Noise, and Halftone add new dimensions to your work - Gaussian, Motion, and Perspective Blur filters create depth and movement - Powerful image adjustments including Color Balance, Curves, HSB, and Gradient Map - Bring your art to life with the fun, intuitive, and creative Warp, Symmetry, and Liquify Dynamics Time-lapse replay - Relive your creative journey with Procreate’s Time-lapse Replay - Export your Time-lapse recording in 4K for high-quality video production - Share a shorter 30-second Time-lapse on your socials Import assets and share your creations: - Import or export your art as Adobe® Photoshop® PSD files - Import Adobe® ASE and ACO Color Palettes - Import image files such as JPG, PNG, and TIFF - Export your working files in layered .procreate or PSD file formats - Share your art as TIFF, transparent PNG, multi-page PDF, web-ready JPEG, OBJ, USDZ, and animated GIFs, PNGs, and MP4s

About

Protaxis

Features
Read full description

Design your app’s typography in real time. This app is a font playground for app developers. Try different fonts, adjust font size, line spacing, and kerning with simple gestures, and see exactly how your text looks on a real device — including Dark Mode. Instead of guessing values or going back and forth with design tools, you can fine-tune everything directly on screen and export ready-to-use SwiftUI code. What you can do • Browse and preview system and custom fonts • Adjust font size, line spacing, and kerning by tapping and dragging • See changes instantly in Light and Dark Mode • Copy or share SwiftUI code for your typography • Reset and compare different settings easily Whether you’re designing a reading app, a note app, or any text-heavy UI, this tool helps you find the perfect typography faster and with more confidence. Design it. Test it. Ship it.

Screenshots

Protaxis3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Protaxis at Free against Procreate's $12.99. Protaxis also leads on update cadence (daily vs every 2 weeks). Procreate's advantage is chart position (#102 vs unranked) and iOS requirement (16.3 vs 26.0). On ads, in-app purchases 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

Protaxis is free to download; Procreate costs $12.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Procreate ships an update every 2 weeks, Protaxis daily. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 7 level
Procreate versus Protaxis: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterProcreateProtaxis
Price$12.99Free — better
Rating4.4 (51K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews70.4% of reviews—
Number of ratings51K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
Best chart rank#102 — better—
DevicesiPadiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS16.3 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size1.1 GB6 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSavage Interactive Pty Ltdyu kawase

Bugs and requests

Procreate

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Random freezing and crashes, especially after recent updates
  • Issues with the fill bucket tool not working as expected
  • Problems with exporting animations and preserving the animation quality

Requested features

4 requests
  • Implement a proper stroke stabilizer and shape tools
  • Add the ability to import audio and sync animations to audio
  • Improve the fill bucket tool to work across layers
  • Introduce a folder system for better organization of artworks

Protaxis

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Procreate

No in-app purchases

None

Protaxis

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Procreate free?
Procreate costs $12.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Protaxis free?
Protaxis is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Procreate or Protaxis have ads?
Neither Procreate nor Protaxis shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Procreate or Protaxis?
Procreate ships an update every 2 weeks, and Protaxis daily. Most recently, Procreate was updated on November 3, 2026 and Protaxis on October 28, 2026.

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