Comparison

Image Playground vs makeART

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

Head to head
About

Image Playground

Easily generate unique images using text descriptions, your photos, and pre-set concepts. Explore various artistic styles and express yourself creatively. Seamlessly integrate your creations into messages and other apps.

Highlights
  • Create images from concepts and descriptions
  • Utilize your photo library
  • Choose from curated artistic styles
  • Generate Genmoji
  • Integrated with ChatGPT for advanced styles
  • Easy-to-use interface with previews
  • Integrated across apps like Messages
Features
Read full description

Bring Your Ideas to Life With Image Playground, you can create high-quality images in pretty much any style. Whether you’re making a photorealistic nature scene, a fun image of your friends, or a stylized version of a familiar photo, you can get started using simple text descriptions, photos, and people from your Photos library. Then choose the style you want, or select ‘Any Style’ to describe how you want it to look. And Image Playground is designed with your privacy in mind, with models that run on Private Cloud Compute, so your photos are never stored or shared, even with Apple. Modify Images with Ease You can easily iterate on your images, so you can make just the image you want. Simply describe the changes you want to make to update the scene and characters—like transforming the background, changing the style, or adding something entirely new. You can also refine specific parts of your image by tapping or circling an object to move it, resize it, or swap it out. Every version of your image is saved, so you don’t need to worry about losing something along the way. Integrated Across Your Apps Image Playground is integrated seamlessly across the apps you use every day. In Messages, you can make a fun image to send to a friend or create a custom background for your conversation. You can craft the perfect contact poster for your friends and family, or generate completely original Lock Screen wallpapers directly in Settings. Bring your presentations, mood boards, and documents to life with images in apps like Keynote, Freeform, and Pages, or design invitation backgrounds in the Invites app. And with the ability to choose your aspect ratio, you can use images wherever you need them—like a landscape image for your small business’s website or a portrait image for your flyer. Image Playground is available in the following languages: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Vietnamese.

About

makeART

Transform your device into a digital canvas with an interactive art studio. Create stunning artwork using intuitive touch controls, a vast library of assets, and AI-powered styles. Save your creations to a personal gallery and share them on social media.

Highlights
  • Intuitive touch creation
  • Customization suite
  • Freestyle mode with millions of assets
  • Infinite art styles
  • Personal gallery for saving
  • Social media ready content
  • Professional quality artwork
Features
Read full description

Tap the canvas and art appears. makeART is a collage art studio for iPhone and iPad. Mix art pieces, photos, gifs and stickers into art that looks like you. Start with curated art styles or make your own, then layer it, animate it, draw on it and share it. TAP TO MAKE ART • Pick an art style, then tap or swipe: pieces land where your finger goes • Shuffle for a fresh mix, or change every piece at once • Size and opacity sliders, plus undo and redo • Move, scale and rotate any piece CURATED + DESIGNED ART STYLES TO MIX • glass, flowers+time, new classics, rain, neomesh, freestyle and more • Several variants inside each style • Search art styles by name and jump back into recent canvases MAKE YOUR OWN ART STYLE • Mix art pieces, photos and gifs from every style into a set that is all yours • Name it, save it, and make art with it like any other style • Build mood boards, vision boards and scrapbook pages from your own pieces COLLAGE PHOTOS, GIFS + STICKERS • Add photos from your library • Search gifs and stickers from GIPHY and photos from Unsplash • Cut the subject out of a photo and use it like a sticker • Make images with Image Playground on supported devices LAYERS, TEXT + BACKGROUNDS • Background, pieces, overlay and text layers • Drag pieces to reorder them • Backgrounds in solid colors, gradient meshes (iOS 18 and later) or your own photo • Tap any piece to swap it, add filters, duplicate it or change its order, with a live preview BRING YOUR ART TO LIFE • Animations: appear, bounce, change, cloud, grow, rotate, shift, thunder and wave • Animation is part of the makeART+ membership • Record a time-lapse video of your art coming together DRAW ON YOUR ART • Sketch right on top of your pieces with your finger • Use Apple Pencil on iPad SAVE, KEEP EDITING + SHARE • Save to your gallery and reopen any artwork to keep editing • Download to Photos • Share in sizes for Instagram posts and Stories, TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook and X • Choose fill or fit and a background color before you share makeART+ MEMBERSHIP Choose monthly or annual. Membership includes: • Every art style and variant • Unlimited art styles of your own • Animation • Every saved version of your art • Unlimited gallery • All filters, tools and canvases • Sharing with no watermark We read every note: thoughts@makeartapp.com Designed by humans who love art and tech. Standard Apple Terms of Use (EULA): http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/appstore/dev/stdeula

Screenshots

Image Playground4 screens
makeART4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: makeART at 100% against Image Playground's 20%. makeART also leads on rating (4.7 vs 2.6) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months). Image Playground's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and ratings volume (5K vs 11). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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. makeART sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $7.99 per month. Image Playground asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

makeART holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 2.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Image Playground has 5K ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 20% of Image Playground's written reviews are positive against 100% of makeART's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Image Playground ships an update every 2 months, makeART every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 27, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Image Playground versus makeART: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterImage PlaygroundmakeART
PriceFreeFree
Rating2.6 (5K ratings)4.7 (11 ratings) — better
Positive reviews19.8% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings5K — better11
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.217 — better
Further details — not scored
Size9 MB425 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperApple Inc.Make Art Inc.

Customer experience

Image Playground

All ratings4,969 ratings
Positive38.4%
Neutral5.5%
Negative56.1%
Written reviews1,244 reviews
Positive19.8%
Neutral5.5%
Negative74.7%

makeART

All ratings11 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Image Playground

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Constant downloading issues
  • App crashes frequently
  • Inability to generate desired images

Requested features

3 requests
  • More customization options
  • Improved AI image generation
  • Faster access to the app

makeART

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Image Playground

No in-app purchases

2 purchases

makeART

Subscriptions2
  • makeART+ Monthly Membership$7.991 Month
  • makeART+ Annual Membership$39.991 Year

Questions

Is Image Playground free?
Image Playground is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is makeART free?
makeART is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Image Playground or makeART?
makeART is rated higher. Image Playground averages 2.6 out of 5 from 5K ratings, while makeART averages 4.7 from 11 ratings.
Do Image Playground or makeART have ads?
Neither Image Playground nor makeART shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Image Playground or makeART?
Image Playground ships an update every 2 months, and makeART every 3 weeks. Most recently, Image Playground was updated on November 1, 2026 and makeART on October 27, 2026.

Other comparisons