Comparison

Paint Gallery vs Penbook

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

Head to head
About

Paint Gallery

Unleash your creativity with a free and fun painting application. This app offers a wide range of tools, including pencils, brushes, text, and shape drawing, along with the ability to import and export your artwork.

Highlights
  • Pencil tool
  • Various brushes
  • Color fill
  • Text tool
  • Draw shapes
  • Import/export drawings
  • Create photo galleries
Features
Read full description

Free Fun Paint App with exciting features and easy to use interface. Enjoy the old school painting with: Pencil Various brushes Smudge Color fill tool Text Tool Draw shapes (lines, rectangles, circles and more) Import & export drawings to and from photo library Create photo galleries Share on facebook and twitter And much more… Stay tuned for exciting updates.

About

Penbook

Create custom digital notebooks with a vast library of stationery or import your own PDFs for annotation. Write naturally with a stylus and organize your notes with dynamic features like live planners and searchable handwriting.

Highlights
  • Live Paper dynamic stationery
  • Over 400 stationery types
  • Import and annotate PDFs
  • Natural handwriting with stylus
  • Searchable handwritten notes
  • Shape recognition
  • Customizable notebook covers
Features
Read full description

Write naturally with your Apple Pencil on Live Paper with Penbook. Build your perfect notebook from more than four hundred types of stationery. Then, use the best digital inking technology to pour your ideas, notes, plans, and dreams into it. Penbook's Live Paper is way smarter than ordinary stationery. Schedule your life on a monthly planner that shows a real calendar, organize your day with a day planner that shows you what time it is, and record your nutrition on a food diary that knows what day it is. Or, bring your own stationery! Import your PDFs into Penbook for quick annotation and editing. Give your notebooks colorful covers with fun art, and share them so your notes are always where you need them. FEATURES • Live Paper, the dynamic stationery that uses the smarts of your iPad and iPhone • Over 400 of academic, scientific, and planning stationeries • Import PDFs and use them as notebooks • Write naturally with your Apple Pencil, stylus, or finger • Unlimited unique cover combinations for your notes • Search your handwritten notes for words or phrases • Snap your strokes to perfect shapes with shape recognition INCLUDED STATIONERIES Penbook has a huge selection of customizable stationery. Each page of your notebook can be different, turning your iPad or iPhone into a magic notebook: • Blank stationery, with an optional date and configurable margin • Ruled paper with variable density • Graph paper with four options for square sizes • Dot stationery, either squared or isometric (offset) • Cross stationery with configurable margins and density • To Do pages with four layout options • Monthly habit paper for tracking streaks, habits, and goals • Day planner paper with a live updating timeline and calendar, and three layouts • Weekly planner paper that highlights the current time and date • Monthly planner paper that keeps track of the current day and shows you what's coming next • Yearly stationery for getting a complete overview of your next 365 days • Cornell paper for taking perfect study notes • French ruled (Séyès) paper • Penmanship practice paper • Table stationery for hand-written spreadsheets • Polar graph paper for plotting radial data • Semi-log and loglog paper for data with exponential growth or decay • Isometric stationery with equilateral (60-60-60) or isosceles (75-75-30) triangles • Perspective paper, configurable with one, two, or three vanishing points • Developer stationery with device stencils and configurable note-taking areas • Storyboard paper with 3 frame aspect ratios • Engineering paper with variable density • Chemistry paper for easily sketching molecules • Staff and tablature (music) paper with optional linked staves GET THE MOST OUT OF PENBOOK Use all of Penbook's stationery and writing features in a single notebook for free for as long as you like. Upgrade to Penbook Premium to create and export unlimited notebooks, receive access to new stationery and covers as they're designed, and get regular app updates. Penbook Premium is available by purchasing a yearly subscription or a one-time (lifetime) in-app purchase. When you choose to upgrade with the yearly subscription, you can start using Penbook Premium for free with a 7-day free trial. During the trial, cancel any time until 24 hours before the trial expires, and you will not be charged. If you do not cancel, you will be automatically billed for the yearly subscription when your free trial ends. Payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at the confirmation of purchase. Subscription automatically renews unless it is canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. You can manage and cancel your subscriptions by going to your account settings on the App Store after purchase. Our customer-first privacy policy: https://penbook.app/privacy-policy Penbook's terms of use: https://penbook.app/terms-of-use

Screenshots

Paint Gallery4 screens
Penbook4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Penbook at none against Paint Gallery's shown. Penbook also leads on update cadence (every 5 days vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (46K vs 69). Paint Gallery's advantage is review sentiment (86% vs 58%) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 18.1). On price, rating, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. Paint Gallery sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Penbook sells 11 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Paint Gallery against 4.5 for Penbook. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Penbook has 46K ratings behind it against 69, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 86% of Paint Gallery's written reviews are positive against 58% of Penbook's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Paint Gallery ships an update every 2 months, Penbook every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Paint Gallery versus Penbook: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPaint GalleryPenbook
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (69 ratings) — better4.5 (46K ratings)
Positive reviews85.6% of reviews — better57.8% of reviews
Number of ratings6946K — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 5 days — better
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank—#130 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Vision Pro
Requires iOS11.0 — better18.1
Further details — not scored
Size23 MB143 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperBilal Javed BhuttaPencil Research

Customer experience

Paint Gallery

All ratings68 ratings
Positive94.1%
Neutral4.4%
Negative1.5%
Written reviews668 reviews
Positive85.6%
Neutral8.8%
Negative5.5%

Penbook

All ratings45,717 ratings
Positive88.4%
Neutral4.7%
Negative6.9%
Written reviews630 reviews
Positive57.8%
Neutral13.0%
Negative29.2%

User reviews

Paint Gallery

From 69 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Simple and easy to use
  • 🎨 Powerful drawing tools
  • 💡 Ability to import photos
  • 🎨 Wide variety of colors and brushes
  • 👍 Great for kids and beginners

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes or glitches
  • 🔒 No option to retrieve accidentally deleted drawings
  • 💡 Lack of advanced features like layers, blending, and rotation

Penbook

From 46K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Intuitive and user-friendly interface
  • 🎨 Variety of customization options for notebooks
  • 📝 Smooth writing experience with Apple Pencil
  • 🗓️ Useful calendar integration
  • 💡 Innovative features like washi tape and stickers

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes and data loss issues
  • 🔒 Lack of password protection or locking feature
  • 🔧 Glitchy zooming and ruler functionality
  • 🧭 Poor notebook and page management
  • 💰 Restrictive free version, expensive subscription

Bugs and requests

Paint Gallery

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Paintings sometimes do not display properly after painting
  • Crashes when trying to use certain tools or features

Requested features

3 requests
  • Add a physical trash can to retrieve deleted drawings
  • Implement a copy/paste and rotate/resize feature for added elements
  • Include a layer system for more advanced editing

Penbook

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Sticker resizing issues causing app freezes
  • Ruler placement and alignment problems
  • Inconsistent behavior when switching between pages
  • Calendar sync not working as expected
  • PDF import and annotation functionality not reliable

Requested features

5 requests
  • Allow custom notebook covers or images
  • Add text box and typing capabilities
  • Improve organization with folders or tags
  • Provide more customization options for templates
  • Implement a more intuitive undo/redo system

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Paint Gallery

One-time1
  • Remove Ads$1.99
11 purchases

Penbook

Subscriptions7
  • Penbook Premium5 variants$4.991 Month
  • Penbook Premium$7.991 Month
  • Penbook Premium7 Days trial3 variants$14.991 Year
Show 4 more
  • Penbook Premium7 Days trial2 variants$19.991 Year
  • Penbook Premium7 Days trial2 variants$29.991 Year
  • Penbook Premium$29.991 Year
  • Penbook Premium7 Days trial3 variants$39.991 Year
One-time4
  • Premium Lifetime (Loyalty)$29.99
  • Penbook Premium Lifetime2 variants$49.99
  • Penbook Premium Lifetime$59.99
Show 1 more
  • Penbook Premium Lifetime$69.99

Questions

Is Paint Gallery free?
Paint Gallery is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Penbook free?
Penbook is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Paint Gallery or Penbook?
Paint Gallery is rated higher. Paint Gallery averages 4.7 out of 5 from 69 ratings, while Penbook averages 4.5 from 46K ratings.
Do Paint Gallery or Penbook have ads?
Paint Gallery shows ads; Penbook does not.
Which is updated more often, Paint Gallery or Penbook?
Paint Gallery ships an update every 2 months, and Penbook every 5 days. Most recently, Paint Gallery was updated on October 26, 2026 and Penbook on October 29, 2026.

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