Crayon Maestro vs Brushes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Crayon Maestro
This app simulates wax crayon drawing with realistic stroke variations based on fingertip pressure. It offers a dynamic color palette, adjustable drawing parameters, and full Apple Pencil support for creating detailed art and sketches. Pro features like photo tracing are available via a one-time purchase.
- Fingertip-based stroke size adjustment
- Live parameter changes (color, size, force)
- Full Apple Pencil support
- Customizable color palette
- Multiple layers
- Photo tracing mode (Pro feature)
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This full-fledged wax crayon simulator lets you create art, whether a complete drawing or just a sketch, with a striking resemblance to its real life counterpart. • FINGERTIP = STROKE SIZE • When you draw, the app measures how much of your finger is touching the screen and changes the stroke size accordingly. Apply just the corner of your fingertip for a thin line, or the whole fingerprint area for a broad stroke. A 2nd tool assigned to your finger will still use this feature, so don’t ignore it just because you have an Apple Pencil! • PARAMETERS CAN BE CHANGED LIVE • Use any buttons or controls to change/adjust color, size, force, simultaneously while drawing. • APPLE PENCIL • Full support for Apple Pencil and Apple Pencil 2. In addition, you can assign a second drawing tool, such as Eraser, to the finger. • EASY AND QUICK TO USE COLOR PALETTE • Changing the color is only a tap away. The colors in the palette can be rearranged, adjusted, added and removed. • UNIVERSAL PURCHASE • If you choose to buy the Pro upgrade, this one-time in-app purchase will unlock all Pro features in the app on all available platforms (iPad-iPhone-Mac)! • METAL • The engine is based on Metal, with 128-bit color and floating-point arithmetic. • SWIFT • The app was developed entirely using Swift (earlier versions used C++). • FULL SCREEN DRAWING • SEAMLESS PATTERN EDITING MODE • • DARK MODE • LANDSCAPE • PORTRAIT • WIDE COLOR • • MULTIPLE LAYERS • PHOTO TRACING MODE (Pro feature) •
Brushes
This app offers a powerful digital painting and sketching experience with a modern interface and advanced features. Create detailed artwork with customizable brushes, layers, and color tools. Optimized for Apple Pencil and various devices.
- Customizable parameterized brushes
- Advanced layer management
- Apple Pencil support with pressure curve
- Light and dark mode interface
- Unlimited undo/redo
- Cloud Drive import/export
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Brushes 4 is the latest iteration of the app that started the iPhone and iPad painting revolution. Redesigned with a clean and modern user interface, Brushes supports iPhone and iPad with optimisation for the iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone Pro and iPad with Apple Pencil. • Highlights: - Clean and modern user interface with light and dark modes. - Files based painting gallery. - New canvas interface. - Apple Pencil support with pressure curve. – Unlimited undo and redo. - Continuous auto-save. - Cloud Drive import and export. • Parameterized Brushes: - Selection of ready to use brushes with customisable settings. - Create your own custom brushes from millions of permutations. - Generate random brushes for inspiration. - Dynamic adjustment of brush size and opacity. • Layers: - Layer your artwork for greater control. – Lock and hide layers. – Use alpha lock to only paint where pixels already exist. – Adjust individual layer opacity. – Duplicate, rearrange and merge layers. – Apply layer blending modes: normal, multiply, screen, exclude. - Color fill any layer. – Invert layer color and desaturate. – Flip and arbitrarily transform layers. – Adjust the color balance per layer. – Adjust layer hue, saturation and brightness. • Colors: - Colour picker with hue ring and saturation square. - Store and recall your favourite colors in swatches. - Sample painting colors with the eyedropper tool. • Apple Pencil: - Intuitive and powerful pressure curve to match your style. - Configurable realtime pressure based adjustment of brush size and opacity. • Creation: - Preset canvas sizes for paper, photographs, iPhone and iPad screens, film and television displays. - Custom canvas size. • Import, export and sharing: - Import images directly from your camera roll. - Import PNG and JPEG images from cloud services. - Export your paintings for sharing or importing into other apps as PNG and JPEG to all cloud storage services or as photos directly to your camera roll. - Compatible with paintings created by Brushes 3 and Brushes Redux. • Light and dark appearances: - Choose between light and dark monochrome appearances, or current system setting. - Minimal use of user interface color so that tints in the user interface do not distract from or influence your artwork color choices. Acknowledgements. Thank you to Angela Ali, Jason M., Jeff Parker, Sandra Perez and Yoshiyuki Uchida for contributing artwork to the App Store screenshots. Please visit our website to see more of their artwork and for links to their portfolios. History. Brushes was originally created by Steve Sprang for iPhone in 2009 and for iPad in 2010. His last version, Brushes 3 was released in 2012, but was removed from the App Store in 2015. I took over development to modernise and support an app that has continued to be enjoyed by so many artists.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Crayon Maestro at Free against Brushes's $3.99. Crayon Maestro also leads on review sentiment (76% vs 57%). Brushes's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 6) and chart position (#41 vs unranked). On rating, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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
Crayon Maestro is free to download; Brushes costs $3.99 up front. Crayon Maestro sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Brushes asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Crayon Maestro against 4.6 for Brushes. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 225 and 177 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 76% of Crayon Maestro's written reviews are positive against 57% of Brushes's.
Crayon Maestro ships an update monthly, Brushes every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Crayon Maestro | Brushes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $3.99 |
| Rating | 4.6 (225 ratings) | 4.6 (177 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 76.0% of reviews — better | 57.1% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 225 — better | 177 |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 6 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | — | #41 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 22 MB | 13 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Norbyte | Envoza |
Customer experience
Crayon Maestro
Brushes
Bugs and requests
Crayon Maestro
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Brushes
Reported bugs
9 issues- Brush tips not staying (switching to square)
- Auto-save not working
- Cannot place images from gallery
- Brush size slider jumps
- Circular lines icon appears unexpectedly
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- App quits unexpectedly without saving
- Canvas doesn't rotate
- Won't load photos
- Empty app after purchase
Requested features
6 requests- More save color slots
- Full Chinese menu translation
- Instructions/manual
- Smudge tool
- Documentation
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- Screen rotation feature
In-app purchases
Crayon Maestro
- Tip Jar: Smallest Tip$1.00
- Tip Jar: Small Tip$2.00
- Pro Upgrade$3.00
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- Tip Jar: Medium Tip$5.00
- Tip Jar: Big Tip$10.00
- Tip Jar: Biggest Tip$25.00
Brushes
No in-app purchases









