Comparison

iPastels vs Paint World

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

Paint World

Explore a vibrant world of digital art where you can freely express your creativity through drawing. Connect with other artists by sharing your creations and engaging in visual communication.

Highlights
  • Freeform drawing tools
  • Share artwork with others
  • Visual communication with users
  • Explore user-created art
  • Social art platform
Features
Read full description

In this app, you will enter a world of painting. where you can draw as you will, and you can see pictures painted by others, and communicate with others by pictures, it is very cool, does not it?

Screenshots

iPastels4 screens
Paint World2 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: iPastels at 4.7 against Paint World's 2.3. iPastels also leads on ratings volume (2.1K vs 3) and update cadence (every 6 weeks vs every 3 months). Paint World's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 6) and review sentiment (95% vs 81%). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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. Paint World asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

iPastels holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 2.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: iPastels has 2.1K ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 81% of iPastels's written reviews are positive against 95% of Paint World's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iPastels ships an update every 6 weeks, Paint World every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and September 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
iPastels versus Paint World: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriPastelsPaint World
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (2.1K ratings) — better2.3 (3 ratings)
Positive reviews81.0% of reviews95.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2.1K — better3
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeks — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.012.0
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB28 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNorbyteColin Shockley

Customer experience

iPastels

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

Paint World

All ratings3 ratings
Positive33.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative66.7%
Written reviews20 reviews
Positive95.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative5.0%

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

Paint World

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

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
None

Paint World

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is iPastels free?
iPastels is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Paint World free?
Paint World is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, iPastels or Paint World?
iPastels is rated higher. iPastels averages 4.7 out of 5 from 2.1K ratings, while Paint World averages 2.3 from 3 ratings.
Do iPastels or Paint World have ads?
Neither iPastels nor Paint World shows ads.
Which is updated more often, iPastels or Paint World?
iPastels ships an update every 6 weeks, and Paint World every 3 months. Most recently, iPastels was updated on October 14, 2026 and Paint World on September 30, 2026.

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