Comparison

Pastela vs HEAVYPAINT

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

Head to head
About

Pastela

This app offers a seamless drawing and illustration experience with a spacious canvas, a wide variety of brushes, and cloud-based autosave. It features screen customization for iPad users and integrates with pixiv for easy sharing of your artwork.

Highlights
  • Spacious canvas
  • Variety of brushes
  • Cloud-based autosave
  • iPad screen customization
  • Pixiv integration
  • Detailed brush customization
Read full description

− 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.

About

HEAVYPAINT

This app offers a raw digital painting experience with unique tools for creating textured art and quick studies. It's designed for artists who embrace digital chaos and seek a streamlined, mobile art studio.

Highlights
  • Unique digital brushes
  • Color Jitter for texture
  • Fast color blocking tools
  • Line Blend for gradients
  • Liquify tool
  • Minimalist interface
  • Gallery for creations
Features
Read full description

Raw digital painting with unique brushes & color chaos. The painter's painting app that celebrates digital chaos. HEAVYPAINT is unapologetically digital and a bit unhinged. It’s a celebration of digital impressionism. Whether you're sketching on the train, painting outdoors, or creating quick color studies, this is your pocket art studio. Unique Digital Tools Color Jitter: Unleash beautiful digital chaos and texture Fan Fill and Lasso Fill for fast color blockins, textured foliage, notan, organic shapes. Rake tool for softening up edges in a graphic way Line Blend for instant gradients
Liquify to adjust proportions and shapes Built for Speed & Mobility Perfect pochade box replacement for pleinair painting. Great for quick paintings on public transit, many will finger paint on their phones. Streamlined interface.Focus on pure color and shape without digital clutter. Streamlined Experience Minimalist interface puts painting first Customizable tools that adapt to your style Strong shape design tools for bold, crisp artwork Gallery to review and organize your creations + Plein air painters who want to ditch heavy supplies + Quick color studies and concept sketches + Figure painting and gesture drawing + Artists wanting to rediscover digital painting joy + Anyone seeking a uniquely digital aesthetic HEAVYPAINT balances professional capabilities with unhinged creativity. Embrace procedural randomness / crunchiness / glitchiness that digital enables. Touch grass. Ideal for pleinair painting and quick studies This app is subject to Apple's standard EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

HEAVYPAINT4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Pastela at 4.6 against HEAVYPAINT's 4.0. Pastela also leads on review sentiment (87% vs 58%) and update cadence (every 10 days vs every 5 weeks). HEAVYPAINT's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, ratings volume, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. Pastela sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month and HEAVYPAINT sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Pastela holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 100 and 66 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 87% of Pastela's written reviews are positive against 58% of HEAVYPAINT's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pastela ships an update every 10 days, HEAVYPAINT every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 4, 2026 and November 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Pastela versus HEAVYPAINT: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPastelaHEAVYPAINT
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (100 ratings) — better4.0 (66 ratings)
Positive reviews86.8% of reviews — better57.7% of reviews
Number of ratings100 — better66
Update frequencyEvery 10 days — betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size203 MB37 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerpixiv Inc.HEAVYPOLY, Inc.

Customer experience

Pastela

All ratings98 ratings
Positive92.9%
Neutral4.1%
Negative3.1%
Written reviews174 reviews
Positive86.8%
Neutral9.8%
Negative3.4%

HEAVYPAINT

All ratings66 ratings
Positive68.2%
Neutral13.6%
Negative18.2%
Written reviews78 reviews
Positive57.7%
Neutral15.4%
Negative26.9%

Bugs and requests

Pastela

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

HEAVYPAINT

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Gallery crashes
  • Artwork files not saving properly
  • Eyedropper tool not working as expected

Requested features

3 requests
  • Improved layer management
  • More customization options
  • Better color controls and eyedropper tool

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Pastela

Subscriptions4
  • Light plan$3.991 Month
  • Standard plan$7.991 Month
  • Advanced plan$15.991 Month
Show 1 more
  • Deluxe plan$23.991 Month
3 purchases

HEAVYPAINT

Subscriptions2
  • Gallery Sync Monthly7 Days trial$2.991 Month
  • Gallery Sync Yearly$19.991 Year
One-time1
  • Unlock Full Version$9.99

Questions

Is Pastela free?
Pastela is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is HEAVYPAINT free?
HEAVYPAINT is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Pastela or HEAVYPAINT?
Pastela is rated higher. Pastela averages 4.6 out of 5 from 100 ratings, while HEAVYPAINT averages 4.0 from 66 ratings.
Do Pastela or HEAVYPAINT have ads?
Pastela shows ads; HEAVYPAINT does not.
Which is updated more often, Pastela or HEAVYPAINT?
Pastela ships an update every 10 days, and HEAVYPAINT every 5 weeks. Most recently, Pastela was updated on November 4, 2026 and HEAVYPAINT on November 8, 2026.

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