Paint Codex vs Paco
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Paint Codex
This app helps miniature and model painters document their creative process. Organize projects, record every step with custom phases, and build a personal gallery of your work. Export your progress to share with clients or the community.
- Create custom paint doctrines
- Record painting steps and phases
- Capture progress via camera/gallery
- Export projects as .paintcodex files
- Offline-first design for privacy
- Personal gallery for completed work
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Paint Codex, by Battle Servo Studios, is your all-in-one companion for miniature and model painters — from weekend hobbyists to professional commission artists. Document every step of your painting process, stay organized across projects, and build a personal archive of your creative journey. Features • Create detailed Paint Doctrines to record every phase of your work • Start with classic preset painting phases like Building, Priming, and Highlights — or rename, add, and reorder them to fit your own creative process and style. Paint Codex is made for hobbyists of all levels. • Capture progress directly from your camera or device gallery • Export projects as ".paintcodex" files to archive, share, or trade with other painters • Offline-first design — your data stays private on your device • Free plan supports up to 3 Doctrines; upgrade to Premium for unlimited projects, export functionality, and other Your Personal Gallery Paint Codex doubles as a showcase for everything you’ve created or collected. Scroll through your personal Gallery to revisit the models, armies, and art you’ve brought to life — or admire Paint Doctrines you’ve imported from your favorite artists. Take awesome cover photos for each project — they become your Gallery cards and visual trophies of your progress and passion. A Powerful Tool Built to Empower Artists — from Hobbyists to Professionals Beyond tracking colors and steps, Paint Codex gives artists a new creative asset. Export detailed paint breakdowns to share with clients, fans, and collectors — showing the depth of craft behind every project. Use your ".paintcodex" files as part of your professional toolkit: • Bundle them with finished models or tutorials • Share them with your community as premium educational content • Build trust and transparency with clients by revealing your process By helping painters document, share, and leverage their creativity, Paint Codex supports a more sustainable future for artists — and helps the hobby continue to grow. Built on an original system designed by Battle Servo Studios — a patent-pending framework made to preserve and share artistic workflows like never before. Subscription Details: Paint Codex Premium unlocks unlimited gallery card slots, and export functionality allowing you to share your work with your friends and collect as many Paint Doctrines as you like! Subscription options: Monthly ($2.99) or Annual ($24.99) Subscriptions automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Payment is charged to your Apple ID account upon purchase. Manage or cancel your subscription in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://sites.google.com/view/battleservostudios/privacy-policy?authuser=0 Developed by Battle Servo Studios LLC Privacy-friendly • No ads • Patent pending
Paco
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Paco is a paint conversion table and list keeper for miniature painters. Found a recipe that calls for a paint you do not own? Paco shows you the closest equivalents across Citadel, Vallejo and The Army Painter, ranked by how close the match actually is, not by a guess, but by a measured colour distance between the two paints. BUILD YOUR LISTS Keep a list per army, per project, or per shelf. Give each one a name, an emblem and a banner colour, and add paints to it as you go. Lists are grouped by paint category so a long one stays readable. SEARCH THE CATALOGUE Fuzzy search across every paint in the catalogue by name or brand. Filter to a single brand when you already know what you are shopping for. Every result shows its swatch, its hex value, and the equivalents in the other two ranges with a delta score for each — so you can tell a near-perfect substitute from a rough one at a glance. WORKS WITH THE RADIO OFF Paco ships the whole catalogue inside the app. There is no loading screen, no sign-in and no "you appear to be offline". It quietly checks for an updated catalogue when you open it, and if that check fails — no signal, aeroplane mode, hobby shop basement — nothing about the app changes. NO ACCOUNTS, NO ADS, NO TRACKING There is no sign-up, because there is nothing to sign up to. Paco has no analytics, no advertising and no crash reporting. Your lists live on your device and are never uploaded. The app talks to exactly one host, for the public paint colour tables it is built on, and it sends nothing about you with it. Paco is free, and every part of it is. No feature is locked, limited or nagged about. — The Paint Codex design is by Lukas Stordeur (github.com/LukasStordeur). Paint data is derived from the open colour database at github.com/Arcturus5404/miniature-paints (MIT), published by the Miniature Painter Pro team. Paco is an independent app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Games Workshop Limited, Acrylicos Vallejo S.L., or The Army Painter ApS. Citadel, Vallejo and The Army Painter are trademarks of their respective owners, used here only to identify the paint ranges the app converts between.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Paco at none against Paint Codex's 2. 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
Both are free to download. Paint Codex sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Paco asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Paint Codex | Paco |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (8 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 8 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Freemium | — |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 63 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Mitch Zavala | Musashi |
In-app purchases
Paint Codex
- Paint Codex Premium (Monthly)$1.991 Month
- Paint Codex Premium (Annual)$14.991 Year
Paco
No in-app purchases









