iPastels vs Art Set 4
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- Lifelike pastel simulation
- Realistic paper/canvas textures
- Precise color blending
- Fingertip stroke size adjustment
- Left-handed toolbar option
- Live parameter changes
- Multiple layers
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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) •
Art Set 4
Experience hyper-realistic digital art creation with advanced tools for painting and drawing. Explore a vast array of brushes, fluid simulations, and 3D paint effects. This app offers a customizable workspace and professional features for artists of all levels.
- Hyper-realistic art tools
- Fluid watercolor simulation
- 3D paint effects
- Customizable workspace
- Time-lapse video recording
- PSD export
- Layer masks
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Art Set has been No.1 iPad app in over 30 countries around the world. Now completely re-written with some of the most advanced artistic digital painting and drawing tools ever created! An 'App of Day', this giant new version has tools with incredible levels of realism and many professional features. Exclusive artistically created brushes, from real world art mediums through to the purely digital for all styles of artwork. Watch fluid Watercolor flow and run as you paint. Express your strokes in 3D giving thick gloopy paint you can even etch back into. It's also a must for any Apple Pencil owner! Art Set brushes have many additional expressions that come into play, some deeply integrated, with new levels of sensitivity you may have never experienced before! It's now free to download for the first time ever! INCLUDED FOR FREE : HYPER-REAL TOOLS - Oil Paint, Watercolors, Oil Pastel, Pencil, Biro Pen, Marker, Wax Crayon, Blenders and more! - Fluid dynamic simulation for Watercolor - 3D Paint - Custom blending achieving rich deep color - Art Set keeps track of where the canvas is wet, dry when needed - Turn on Slow Draw for drawing to lag your stroke. Create smooth curves and lines; great for calligraphy! - Blur Filter with localised quick masking - Color Wheel - User Editable Palette - Metallic Colors - Time-lapse Video Recording; share how you made your artwork stroke by stroke. - PSD Export UI - Fully customizable workspace; have just a single brush or tools on every side of your screen. - Zoom, Pan and Rotate the canvas for fine detail - Light low contrast or Dark high contrast mode - Minimalist UI for less interference with your artwork WORKFLOW - Latest graphics technology written entirely in METAL 2 - Supports the iOS Files app to manage or or transfer documents - iTunes File Sharing - Auto save - Split Screen Multitasking - use a reference image whilst you draw side by side - Export to your photo album, email, AirDrop or social networks etc. - In-depth User Guide in the app complete with video - Import photos and images at screen resolution PREMIUM PRO FEATURES - Single Upgrade Unlocks everything : 200 ADVANCED BRUSHES - Wide variety of extra hyper-real Paints, Pens, Pencils, Inks, Chalks, Pastels, Charcoal, Wet media, Stamps, Splatters, Form, Graphics, Patterns, Fabric, 3D Texture, Neon to basic Pixel and Flat Digital - You can try out all premium brushes on a test area before upgrading! DRAWING - Flood fill - Symmetry - Pixel Art - Shape primitives for Ellipse, Circle, Square, Rectangle and Line in any brush - Echo shapes for special FX - Erase mode - use any brush as an eraser - Adjust brush Size, Opacity, Flow, Grain, Loading and Dynamics LAYERS - Layer Masks - Transform, move, rotate and scale - Flip - Adjust Opacity - Layer maintains resolution whilst transformed - Blend Modes - Alpha lock - Cut, Copy and Paste, to and from other documents or other Apps - Drag and drop layers from other apps - Import from your photos CUSTOM HIGH-RESOLUTION CANVASES - Choose any resolution canvas size, the highest being dependent on your device capabilities - Set DPI and canvas dimensions in millimeters, inches or Points and Pixels - Great for pixel art or tens of millions of pixels - if device allows - Papers and Canvases from old cardboard, raw canvas, graph, squared and isometric paper COLOR - Display P3 WideColor on supported devices - Auto Color Sample, allows you to easily turn photos into paintings - Color picker - Toolbar placable HSB and RGB sliders ADJUSTMENTS - Localized adjustments, allow you to tweak all or just part of your image via quick masking - Change Hue, Saturation, Brightness, Recolor, Invert, Contrast and Blur WORKFLOW - Auto backup, saves snapshots - iOS Pasteboard or Drag and Drop to or from other apps - Import photos and images and high resolution Art Set is a wonderful creative addition to any iPad!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Art Set 4 at every 6 days against iPastels's every 6 weeks. Art Set 4 also leads on ratings volume (26K vs 2.1K). iPastels's advantage is review sentiment (82% vs 63%) and device support (4 vs 1). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases 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
Both are free to download. iPastels sells 6 one-off in-app purchases and Art Set 4 sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for iPastels against 4.6 for Art Set 4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Art Set 4 has 26K ratings behind it against 2.1K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 82% of iPastels's written reviews are positive against 63% of Art Set 4's.
iPastels ships an update every 6 weeks, Art Set 4 every 6 days. Both last shipped on September 25, 2026.
| Parameter | iPastels | Art Set 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (2.1K ratings) — better | 4.6 (26K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 81.7% of reviews — better | 63.1% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2.1K | 26K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Every 6 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 12.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 24 MB | 158 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Norbyte | LOFOPI |
Customer experience
iPastels
Art Set 4
User reviews
iPastels
From 2.1K App Store ratingsWhat 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
Art Set 4
From 26K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🎨 Realistic paint and brush simulation
- 👍 Intuitive and easy to use
- 🎨 Excellent oil paint and watercolor tools
- 🎨 Wide variety of art tools and materials
- 👍 Responsive and smooth performance
Room to improve
- 💰 Many features locked behind paywall
- 🐛 Occasional crashes and bugs
- 🔒 Lack of layer management and export options
- 🔒 Limited brush size and customization options in free version
- 🔒 Confusing UI and hidden features
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 moreShow fewer
- Add undo/redo functionality for individual strokes
Art Set 4
Reported bugs
4 issues- Crashes when opening color palette or blending
- Unexpected loss of work and canvas resets
- Inability to resize canvas or change aspect ratio
- Brush size and settings not preserved when switching tools
Requested features
6 requests- Add more free brushes and tools
- Improve layer management and export options
- Allow more brush size and customization options in free version
- Provide better documentation and tutorials
- Add undo/redo gesture support
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Improve color management and palette tools
In-app purchases
iPastels
- Tip Jar: Smallest Tip$1.00
- Tip Jar: Small Tip$2.00
- Tip Jar: Medium Tip$5.00
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Pro Upgrade$7.00
- Tip Jar: Big Tip$10.00
- Tip Jar: Biggest Tip$25.00
Art Set 4
- Unlock All$12.99
Questions
Is iPastels free?
Is Art Set 4 free?
Which has better reviews, iPastels or Art Set 4?
Do iPastels or Art Set 4 have ads?
Which is updated more often, iPastels or Art Set 4?
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