Comparison

iPastels vs Mandalas Drawing Studio

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

Mandalas Drawing Studio

Create intricate mandala paintings with a simple virtual canvas. Enjoy a clean, modern interface designed to keep you focused on your creativity. Produce high-quality vector drawings with smooth zoom and sharp graphics, all without any advertisements.

Highlights
  • Create beautiful mandala paintings
  • Simple virtual canvas
  • High quality vector based drawings
  • Smooth zoom with sharp graphics
  • No ads for uninterrupted drawing
Features
Read full description

Create beautiful mandalas with just a few simple strokes. Mandalas: Drawing Studio turns every line you draw into a perfectly symmetrical pattern. Choose how many rotations you want, start drawing, and watch an intricate mandala bloom around the center. No artistic training required. Focus on your drawing and let your creativity flow. SYMMETRY DOES THE WORK • Set your number of rotations and every stroke is repeated around the canvas instantly • Mirror mode for perfectly balanced, reflected designs • On-screen guides show your symmetry axes while you draw, and step aside when you don't need them TOOLS THAT STAY OUT OF YOUR WAY • Brush, paint roller and eraser — that's all it takes • Full-spectrum color picker with transparency support • Adjustable line width and canvas background color • A clean, modern editor designed for both iPhone and iPad MADE FOR APPLE PENCIL • Hover preview shows exactly where your stroke will land before you touch the canvas • Squeeze your Apple Pencil Pro for a quick tool palette — switch tools and undo without breaking your flow • Low-latency drawing that keeps up with your hand TRUE VECTOR ARTWORK • Every stroke is a vector, so you can zoom as deep as you like and your artwork never looks pixelated • Export high-resolution images to share, post or print • Export SVG vectors to use in Illustrator, Affinity, Figma or your cutting machine WORK IN LAYERS • Build up a piece in layers, and show or hide them as you go • Undo and redo freely as you build up your drawing YOUR FILES, YOUR WAY • Your mandalas live in the Files app and iCloud Drive — open, rename, duplicate and organize them however you like • No account, no sign-up, and it works completely offline NO ADS. NO SUBSCRIPTION. Draw whenever and wherever you want. There are no ads anywhere in Mandalas: Drawing Studio, and premium features — layers, HD image export and alternative app icons — are unlocked with a single one-time purchase. Never a subscription. Mandalas: Drawing Studio is made by an independent developer, and every purchase goes directly into making it better.

Screenshots

iPastels4 screens
Mandalas Drawing Studio3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is device support: iPastels at 4 against Mandalas Drawing Studio's 2. iPastels also leads on iOS requirement (12.0 vs 17.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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 Mandalas Drawing Studio 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 Mandalas Drawing Studio. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2.2K and 3.1K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 81% of iPastels's written reviews are positive against 84% of Mandalas Drawing Studio's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
iPastels versus Mandalas Drawing Studio: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriPastelsMandalas Drawing Studio
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (2.2K ratings)4.7 (3.1K ratings) — better
Positive reviews81.0% of reviews84.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2.2K3.1K — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksEvery 6 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS12.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB7 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNorbyteMarco Antônio Pompei

Customer experience

iPastels

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

Mandalas Drawing Studio

All ratings3,084 ratings
Positive94.0%
Neutral3.5%
Negative2.5%
Written reviews219 reviews
Positive84.0%
Neutral6.4%
Negative9.6%

User reviews

iPastels

From 2.2K 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

Mandalas Drawing Studio

From 3.1K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Fun and entertaining
  • 🧘‍♀️ Calming and relaxing
  • 👍 Simple and intuitive
  • 💯 Excellent for meditation
  • 🎨 Allows creative expression

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes or bugs
  • ✏️ Needs better line smoothing
  • 🎨 Limited color/tool options in free version
  • 💾 Difficulty saving/exporting designs
  • 🔍 Zooming in could be improved

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

Mandalas Drawing Studio

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Saving issues resulting in lost progress
  • Inconsistent performance after updates
  • Difficulty accessing certain settings

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add a fill tool
  • Improve undo/redo functionality
  • Allow saving designs as vector files
  • Provide more color customization options
  • Enhance the zoom and panning capabilities

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

Mandalas Drawing Studio

One-time1
  • Premium Features Package$2.99

Questions

Is iPastels free?
iPastels is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Mandalas Drawing Studio free?
Mandalas Drawing Studio is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, iPastels or Mandalas Drawing Studio?
Mandalas Drawing Studio is rated higher. iPastels averages 4.7 out of 5 from 2.2K ratings, while Mandalas Drawing Studio averages 4.7 from 3.1K ratings.
Do iPastels or Mandalas Drawing Studio have ads?
Neither iPastels nor Mandalas Drawing Studio shows ads.
Which is updated more often, iPastels or Mandalas Drawing Studio?
iPastels ships an update every 6 weeks, and Mandalas Drawing Studio every 6 weeks. Most recently, iPastels was updated on October 26, 2026 and Mandalas Drawing Studio on October 20, 2026.

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