Comparison

iPastels vs Doodle Magic

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

Head to head
About

iPastels

This app offers a realistic digital painting experience with lifelike pastel simulation and interactive textures. It allows for precise color blending and adjustable stroke sizes, catering to both beginners and experienced artists. Explore your creativity without the cost of traditional art supplies.

Highlights
  • Lifelike pastel simulation
  • Realistic paper/canvas textures
  • Precise color blending
  • Fingertip stroke size adjustment
  • Left-handed toolbar option
  • Live parameter changes
  • Multiple layers
Features
Read full description

A painting app for all artists, whether you’re experienced or just starting out. Perfect for creating beautiful works of art or a quick sketch whenever and wherever you have a burst of inspiration. You can also try out ideas and compositions before starting on a new painting in real life, or practise and refine your skills, all without the added cost of art supplies. • LIFELIKE PASTEL SIMULATION • The app features live-calculated brushes and strokes, making a realistic pastel simulation possible. Painting tools include soft pastels, oil pastels, pastel pencils, smudge tool, and more. • REALISTIC PAPER/CANVAS TEXTURES • When creating a new picture, a unique, non-repeating paper texture is generated that will interact in real-time with the live-calculated strokes you paint. You can change the default-generated texture to, for example, canvas, which goes great with oil pastels! • PRECISE COLOR BLENDING • When painting, especially with soft pastels, use Smudge or the Cotton Swab to blend and smoothen the colors right on the paper, as you would in real life. With oil pastels, in addition to smudging, the blending is often done by the pastel sticks themselves (for best results, reduce the force or use a similar or lighter color). If you use an Apple Pencil, it will feel incredibly realistic if you use the stylus to draw and use your finger to Smudge (assigned as a 2nd tool)! • FINGERTIP = STROKE SIZE • When you paint, 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! • LEFT-HANDED? • Just swipe the toolbar over to the other side! • PARAMETERS CAN BE CHANGED LIVE • Use any buttons or controls to change/adjust color, size, force, simultaneously while painting. • 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++). • APPLE PENCIL SUPPORT • FULL SCREEN PAINTING • SEAMLESS PATTERN EDITING MODE • • DARK MODE • LANDSCAPE • PORTRAIT • WIDE COLOR • • MULTIPLE LAYERS • PHOTO TRACING MODE (Pro feature) •

About

Doodle Magic

Unleash your creativity with a magical doodle game. Replay your drawings as animated cartoons and explore a variety of colorful brushes and patterns. This app offers a simple yet imaginative way to create unique artwork and relive your artistic process.

Highlights
  • Cartoon playback of doodle process
  • Magical paintbrushes (rainbow, neon, pearl)
  • Random color variations
  • 10+ doodle patterns
  • My Gallery for saved drawings
  • Mandala and kaleidoscope creation
Features
Read full description

It's the most magical doodle game. Playback the doodle process as a cartoon. There’re many beautiful brush tools,10+doodle patterns. The simplest doodle way, free your imagination now! “Cartoon” mode : playback the doodle process as a cartoon. Many Magical paintbrushes:rainbow ,neon ,pearl and more. Radom color variation ,there’re full of pleasant surprise. 10+differents doodle patterns, just create the style which you like. My Gallery : to show your drawing as an artist! Doodle Magic is a very interesting doodle game which is very easy to control! It provide a creative doodle world for everyone! You just need to drawing which you like ,that you can create a very wonderful Mandala flowers,and the magical kaleidoscope patterns! And the most important is you can playback the doodle process as a cartoon! You can enjoy the joy of doodle. Easy to operate, easy to graffiti! Each works that you create are unique and wonderful! Get more childlike innocence ,Get more joy ! Don’t miss the best interesting doodle game ! DOWN LOAD NOW !

Screenshots

iPastels4 screens
Doodle Magic4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: iPastels at none against Doodle Magic's shown. Doodle Magic's advantage is ratings volume (12K vs 2.1K). On price, rating, review sentiment and update cadence 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. iPastels sells 6 one-off in-app purchases and Doodle Magic sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. 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 iPastels against 4.7 for Doodle Magic. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Doodle Magic has 12K ratings behind it against 2.1K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 81% and 81% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iPastels ships an update every 6 weeks, Doodle Magic monthly. Both last shipped on October 19, 2026.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
iPastels versus Doodle Magic: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriPastelsDoodle Magic
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (2.1K ratings)4.7 (12K ratings)
Positive reviews81.0% of reviews81.1% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2.1K12K — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksMonthly — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.012.0
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB108 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNorbyte炳甲 梁

Customer experience

iPastels

All ratings2,142 ratings
Positive91.6%
Neutral4.3%
Negative4.1%
Written reviews231 reviews
Positive81.0%
Neutral7.8%
Negative11.3%

Doodle Magic

All ratings12,010 ratings
Positive91.6%
Neutral4.3%
Negative4.1%
Written reviews386 reviews
Positive81.1%
Neutral5.4%
Negative13.5%

User reviews

iPastels

From 2.1K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 🎨 Realistic pastel simulation
  • 💡 Useful for beginners and professionals
  • 🌈 Wide range of colors and shades
  • 🔍 Good blending and smudging tools

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes or glitches
  • 🔒 Limited free features, need to pay for more
  • 🔍 Lack of zoom or detailed control
  • 🎨 Difficulty finding/reusing specific colors
  • 🔀 Confusing layer management

Doodle Magic

From 12K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🎨 Relaxing and creative drawing experience
  • 👍 Easy to use and intuitive interface
  • 🌈 Vibrant and colorful designs
  • 💡 Unique and satisfying drawing patterns
  • 🤩 Helps users feel like an artist

Room to improve

  • 🙄 Excessive advertisements
  • 🎨 Limited color options
  • 🔍 Difficult to save or share drawings
  • 🐛 Occasional crashes or freezing issues

Bugs and requests

iPastels

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Crashes when importing images
  • Layers sometimes disappear or get lost
  • Undo button deletes entire drawing sections

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add color picker tool
  • Improve layer management and visibility
  • Implement pressure-sensitive brush support
  • Provide more paper/canvas texture options
  • Allow saving and recalling custom palettes
Show 1 more
  • Add undo/redo functionality for individual strokes

Doodle Magic

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Controls stop working after purchasing ad-free version
  • Drawings disappear or cannot be accessed after exiting the app

Requested features

4 requests
  • Allow users to choose their own colors
  • Expand drawing tools and brush options
  • Improve saving and sharing functionality
  • Reduce the frequency of advertisements

In-app purchases

6 purchases

iPastels

One-time6
  • Tip Jar: Smallest Tip$1.00
  • Tip Jar: Small Tip$2.00
  • Tip Jar: Medium Tip$5.00
Show 3 more
  • Pro Upgrade$7.00
  • Tip Jar: Big Tip$10.00
  • Tip Jar: Biggest Tip$25.00
1 purchases

Doodle Magic

One-time1
  • Remove Advertisement$1.99

Questions

Is iPastels free?
iPastels is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Doodle Magic free?
Doodle Magic is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, iPastels or Doodle Magic?
iPastels and Doodle Magic are both rated 4.7 out of 5 on the App Store, from 2.1K and 12K ratings respectively.
Do iPastels or Doodle Magic have ads?
Doodle Magic shows ads; iPastels does not.
Which is updated more often, iPastels or Doodle Magic?
iPastels ships an update every 6 weeks, and Doodle Magic monthly. Most recently, iPastels was updated on October 19, 2026 and Doodle Magic on October 19, 2026.

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