Comparison

iPastels vs AI Illustwitter

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

AI Illustwitter

Features
Read full description

AI Illustwitter Photo Editor is more than just a technological innovation, it's a powerful tool for photographers and creative designer. By enabling users to manipulate and enhance image with unprecedented ease and accuracy, AI Illustwitter helps creative designers to achieve the perfect professional photo and bring their vision to life in a ways they never thought possible. AI Illustwitter makes it so simple to generate beautiful, high quality, super resolution 8K (8192x8192 pixels) images within seconds from text description. The tool can be used to generate nice AI art, beautiful images for design prototypes, illustrated images for books, social media posts, stories, news. Using state-of-the-art AI text to image models, AI Illustwitter supports you to quickly generate nice images from your prompts. The generated images then can be viewed using AI Illustwitter Augmented Reality feature. For example, your furniture designed images can be shown how it looks like in your house/room using the Augmented Reality feature. AI Illustwitter also support you to view your artwork image, video, and 3D models in Augmented Reality quickly using AR-vatar code. Highlighted features are: + Magic 3D: view your 3D in Augmented Reality and apply many beautiful effects. Harmonize the3D model with the camera view to generate realistic photo. + Amazing AI Art Generator with advanced AI Image Filters. + View artwork in Augmented Reality. + Create immersive experience with AR-vatar. + Advanced AI Image Editing features such as Generative Fill, Magic Expand, Magic Move, background remover, image super resolution upscaler, change image's background, AI image decompose into layers, AI Magic repositioning. + Magic Swap: change the main part of 2 images with a simple click. + Generative Fill: change an image with just a simple text description. + Generative Recolor: view the new color palette for your image easily within seconds. + AI Q&A: ask question and receive high quality answer with trusted data source by AI. + Generate high quality PDF Poster of your AI Art. + Generate super high-resolution 8K images. + Magic Move: move your picture to Reality instantly. + QR Art: create beautiful QR code with AI Art. + Magic Sketch: turn your Sketch into beautiful image. + Magic Transform: create beautiful variations from your image. + Sketchily: turn your artworks into beautiful pencil Sketches. + Magic Eraser: freehand erase unwanted objects in your image simply in a few seconds. + Magic Fill: change any part of your image within seconds. + AI-powered Upscale: enhance your image to high quality and super resolution 8K image (upscale 4X, 16X, and 64X) all in one go! + Magic Mix: combine your design with any specific style. + Magic Flip: quickly flip objects in your image within seconds. + Magic Motion: turn your image into video with a simple click. + Magic Video: generate realistic video from simple text description. + Magic Replace: just prompt to change an object in your image within seconds. + Magic To AR: just select your image and view it in Augmented Reality instantly. + Pdf to Super Resolution Images: convert your PDF to Super Resolution Images with a single click. + Magic Camera: real-time recolor your video with a simple click. + Magic Colors: generate beautiful images with your desired colors' schemes. For more detail about AI Illustwitter, visit our website: https://ai-illustwitter.art

Screenshots

iPastels4 screens
AI Illustwitter4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: iPastels at Free against AI Illustwitter's $599.99. iPastels also leads on ads (none vs shown) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.1). AI Illustwitter's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 6) and update cadence (every 10 days vs every 6 weeks). On device support 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

iPastels is free to download; AI Illustwitter costs $599.99 up front. iPastels sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. AI Illustwitter asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iPastels ships an update every 6 weeks, AI Illustwitter every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and November 12, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
iPastels versus AI Illustwitter: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriPastelsAI Illustwitter
PriceFree — better$599.99
Rating4.7 (2.2K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews81.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings2.2K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksEvery 10 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB262 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperNorbyteDuc Phuong Nguyen

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

AI Illustwitter

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

AI Illustwitter

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is iPastels free?
iPastels is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is AI Illustwitter free?
AI Illustwitter costs $599.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do iPastels or AI Illustwitter have ads?
AI Illustwitter shows ads; iPastels does not.
Which is updated more often, iPastels or AI Illustwitter?
iPastels ships an update every 6 weeks, and AI Illustwitter every 10 days. Most recently, iPastels was updated on November 10, 2026 and AI Illustwitter on November 12, 2026.

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