Comparison

Lux Draw vs Sketchbook®

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

Head to head
About

Lux Draw

Create unique art with light-inspired tools and gritty textures. Draw from scratch or enhance photos with glow pens and special effects. Offers advanced features like HDR brushes and Apple Pencil support for a professional artistic experience.

Highlights
  • Live-calculated HDR brushes
  • Glow Pen, Hot Pen, Light Spheres
  • Gritty paper/canvas textures
  • Smear tool for flame art
  • Apple Pencil support
  • Multiple layers
  • Photo tracing mode (Pro)
Features
Read full description

Draw with light-inspired tools, for a unique art style! Create a drawing from scratch, or add effects to your photos. Let your creativity run wild! • LIVE-CALCULATED HDR BRUSHES • The app features live-calculated brushes and strokes, that together with HDR values make it feel like drawing with light! Drawing tools include Glow Pen, Hot Pen, Light Spheres, and more. Tip: Use the Smear tool on a photo or drawing to achieve immensely cool flame art (seriously, try it!). • GRITTY PAPER/CANVAS TEXTURES • Having a paper/canvas texture interacting in real-time with the drawing tools will give your artwork a satisfying, gritty look. You can remove or change the default-generated texture to something else. • 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++). • FINGERTIP = STROKE SIZE • CHANGE SIZE/FORCE/COLOR WHILE DRAWING • • APPLE PENCIL SUPPORT • FULL SCREEN DRAWING • SEAMLESS PATTERN EDITING MODE • • DARK MODE • LANDSCAPE • PORTRAIT • WIDE COLOR • • MULTIPLE LAYERS • PHOTO TRACING MODE (Pro feature) •

About

Sketchbook®

This app provides a professional-grade drawing and painting experience for artists and illustrators. It offers a natural drawing feel with customizable tools, layers, and guides for precision. Unlock advanced features like custom brushes and canvas resizing with an optional premium purchase.

Highlights
  • Full complement of brush types
  • Highly customizable brushes
  • Guides, rulers, and stroke tools
  • Layers with blend modes
  • Clean and unobtrusive interface
  • Custom brush creation (premium)
  • Canvas resizing (premium)
Read full description

From quick sketches to fully finished artwork, Sketchbook goes where your creativity takes you. Sketchbook is an award-winning sketching, painting, and drawing app for anyone who loves to draw. Artists and illustrators love Sketchbook for its professional-grade feature set and highly customizable tools. Everyone loves Sketchbook for its elegant interface and natural drawing experience, free of distractions so you can focus on capturing and expressing your ideas. • A full complement of brush types: pencils markers, airbrushes, smear and more that look and feel just like their physical counterparts • Brushes are highly customizable so you can create just the look you want • Guides, rulers and stroke tools support precision when you need it • Layers with a full complement of blend modes deliver the flexibility to build up and explore drawings and color • Purpose-built for sketching, the interface is clean and unobtrusive so you can focus on drawing Purchase the Premium Bundle to unlock more... • Import and export brushes • Create your own custom brushes • Resize your canvas or image • Set canvas resolution in px/inch or px/cm • Clipping masks • Time-lapse recording: choose fixed canvas view or show pan/zoom navigation • Additional layer adjustments including blur, sharpen, brightness/contrast, greyscale, and invert • Additional color harmonies • Additional custom gradients • Select color from reference images • Extract color palettes from images • Import and export color palettes • Layer grouping • Layer masking Blend Modes • Draw Outline tool • Lasso Fill tool • Export to PDF • plus more to come!

Screenshots

Lux Draw4 screens
Sketchbook®4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ratings volume: Sketchbook® at 221K against Lux Draw's 939. Sketchbook® also leads on chart position (#36 vs unranked). Lux Draw's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15). 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. Lux Draw sells 6 one-off in-app purchases and Sketchbook® 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 Lux Draw against 4.8 for Sketchbook®. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Sketchbook® has 221K ratings behind it against 939, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 82% of Lux Draw's written reviews are positive against 77% of Sketchbook®'s.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 8 level
Lux Draw versus Sketchbook®: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLux DrawSketchbook®
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (939 ratings)4.8 (221K ratings) — better
Positive reviews81.5% of reviews — better76.6% of reviews
Number of ratings939221K — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank—#36 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.0 — better15
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB144 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNorbyteSketchbook, Inc.

Customer experience

Lux Draw

All ratings939 ratings
Positive92.2%
Neutral4.7%
Negative3.1%
Written reviews92 reviews
Positive81.5%
Neutral10.9%
Negative7.6%

Sketchbook®

All ratings220,588 ratings
Positive95.8%
Neutral2.4%
Negative1.8%
Written reviews1,733 reviews
Positive76.6%
Neutral7.1%
Negative16.3%

User reviews

Lux Draw

From 939 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Excellent entertainment value
  • 👍 Creative drawing tools
  • 👍 No ads, totally free
  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 👍 Variety of brushes and colors

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional glitches and freezing issues
  • 🐛 Compatibility issues with certain devices/platforms
  • 🔧 Limited functionality compared to other drawing apps
  • 🔧 Lack of advanced features like fill tool, shapes, and text
  • 🔧 Difficulty using with mouse/trackpad on laptops

Sketchbook®

From 221K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Amazing, free, and no ads
  • 👍 Lots of brushes and customization options
  • 👍 Intuitive and easy to use
  • 👍 Great for beginners and professionals
  • 👍 Smooth performance and no lag

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional freezing and crashing issues
  • 🐛 Blurry or corrupted images when saving or copying
  • 🐛 Glitches with color selection and layers
  • 🐛 Inability to rotate canvas or access gallery easily
  • 🐛 Lack of blurring and clipping mask tools

Bugs and requests

Lux Draw

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Freezing and unresponsiveness when switching tools
  • Leaving unwanted color dots when erasing
  • Compatibility issues with certain devices

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add fill tool, shapes, and text capabilities
  • Improve compatibility with tablets and styluses
  • Provide more customization options for brushes and colors
  • Implement undo/redo functionality
  • Add ability to export/share drawings easily

Sketchbook®

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Layers randomly deleted or corrupted
  • Freezing when using certain tools like the eyedropper
  • Saving issues leading to loss of progress
  • Incompatibility with newer iPad Pro devices

Requested features

7 requests
  • Add blurring and clipping mask tools
  • Improve gallery and canvas rotation functionality
  • Allow custom font import
  • Add effects like glow, stroke, and drop shadow
  • Implement layer grouping and organization
Show 2 more
  • Add real-time collaboration features
  • Improve time-lapse recording and saving

In-app purchases

6 purchases

Lux Draw

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

Sketchbook®

One-time1
  • Premium Bundle$2.99

Questions

Is Lux Draw free?
Lux Draw is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Sketchbook® free?
Sketchbook® is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Lux Draw or Sketchbook®?
Sketchbook® is rated higher. Lux Draw averages 4.7 out of 5 from 939 ratings, while Sketchbook® averages 4.8 from 221K ratings.
Do Lux Draw or Sketchbook® have ads?
Neither Lux Draw nor Sketchbook® shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Lux Draw or Sketchbook®?
Lux Draw ships an update every 2 months, and Sketchbook® every 2 months. Most recently, Lux Draw was updated on October 24, 2026 and Sketchbook® on November 1, 2026.

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