DynBrushes vs Pastela
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
DynBrushes
Create photorealistic oil paintings on your device with a wide array of brushes that simulate real-world textures and stroke effects. Features a realistic paint blending algorithm and customizable canvases. Display your finished artwork in virtual scenes.
- Photorealistic oil painting creation
- Wide range of oil paint brushes
- Realistic paint blending algorithm
- Customizable canvas parameters
- Virtual scene display for artwork
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This is an oil painting software that can be used to create almost photorealistic oil paintings on a computer. It comes with a wide range of oil paint brushes that can achieve various textures and stroke effects of oil paintings. Additionally, it features a blending algorithm that simulates the mixing of physical paints. The software includes multiple canvases, allowing you to adjust various parameters such as lighting and texture according to your preferences. You can also place your artwork in virtual scenes to admire it.
Pastela
This app offers a seamless drawing and illustration experience with a spacious canvas and a variety of brushes. It features cloud-based autosave, iPad-specific customization, and integration with pixiv for easy sharing. Enhance your creative process with powerful tools and flexible options.
- Spacious canvas
- Variety of brushes
- Cloud-based autosave
- iPad customization
- pixiv integration
- Layer management
- Filters
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− Enhance your drawing experience, day by day.− With a spacious canvas, a variety of brushes, and cloud-based autosave, Pastela has everything you need for a smooth illustration process. Draw freely, anytime, anywhere. ____ Pastela features ■ An experience tailored for iPad users - Screen customization options that suit your dominant hand - Move panels to fit your creative style ■ A wide range of illustration tools - An extensive collection of brushes, including pencils, G pens, round pens, watercolors, sprays, markers, and more - Detailed brush customization options - Bucket tool: fill closed path, lasso fill - Easily set layer names from a list with one tap - Many filters including chromatic aberration and Gaussian blur ■ Cloud storage (*1) - Automatically save your work to the cloud - Restore data to any previous version - 1 GB of cloud storage included * To learn more about Pastela, please check out the official website. ■ pixiv account integration (*2) - Post your work directly to pixiv - With Pastela Plus (*3), you can even update your pixiv posts with new versions of your art. (*1) To use cloud sync, you need to log in with your pixiv account. (*2) To post your work from Pastela to pixiv, you need to log in with your pixiv account. (*3) To learn more about Pastela Plus, please check out the official website.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Pastela at Free against DynBrushes's $7.99. Pastela also leads on ratings volume (98 vs 1) and review sentiment (87% vs 78%). DynBrushes's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 4) and ads (none vs shown). On 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
Pastela is free to download; DynBrushes costs $7.99 up front. Pastela sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. DynBrushes asks for nothing beyond the download.
DynBrushes holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pastela has 98 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 78% of DynBrushes's written reviews are positive against 87% of Pastela's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
DynBrushes ships an update every 9 days, Pastela every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | DynBrushes | Pastela |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $7.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | 4.6 (98 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 77.8% of reviews | 86.8% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 98 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 9 days — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 249 MB | 204 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | ColorfulPhone | pixiv Inc. |
Customer experience
DynBrushes
Pastela
In-app purchases
DynBrushes
No in-app purchases
Pastela
- Light plan$3.991 Month
- Standard plan$7.991 Month
- Advanced plan$15.991 Month
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- Deluxe plan$23.991 Month









