Kreyon vs Layer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
Kreyon
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Kreyon is a drawing, painting and comic studio for iPad and iPhone. It gives you brushes that behave like real media, a full layer system and a workspace that stays out of the way, whether you are doodling for the first time or finishing a page for a client. Free to start, one purchase for the full studio Draw, paint, letter and export for free, with no account and no ads. Kreyon Studio is a single one-time in-app purchase with no subscription. It unlocks non-destructive Adjust, the Brush Studio, more than five layers, 4K canvases and full-resolution export. If you bought the app before it became free, Kreyon Studio is already unlocked for you. Start drawing today ⢠Learn & Play: 10 colouring pages with fill that stays inside the lines, and guided lessons on your own canvas ⢠Shading course: value scale, sphere, cube and cylinder, one step at a time ⢠Figure course: the head from the front and in three-quarter view, body proportions, pose and torso muscles ⢠A command dial under your hand keeps tools, colour and layers one thumb away ⢠The app is available in English and Tamil Drawing and painting ⢠40+ brush engines and 47 stamps: pencil, ink, charcoal, watercolour, airbrush and more ⢠Brush dynamics: taper, pressure curves, and size, opacity, rotation, scatter or hue driven by pressure, tilt or speed ⢠Brush Studio: build your own brushes, or import .brushset and .abr brush files you already own ⢠Layers with folders, subfolders, blend modes, masks, clipping, alpha lock and per-layer noise for grain ⢠GPU liquify, warp, perspective and gradient map, reshaping artwork in real time ⢠Selection bar with automatic, freehand, rectangle and ellipse selection, feathering, saved selections, and freeform, distort and warp transforms Comics, characters and lettering ⢠Tools tuned for line art, character design, manga and webtoon panels ⢠An infinite canvas you can join into one scrolling book or long-form comic page ⢠10 bundled lettering fonts for titles, speech balloons and logos ⢠Character and perspective guides to plan a pose or a panel before you commit a line Sketchbooks and sharing Bind your artwork into a flipbook you can turn page by page. Choose the paper and the cover cloth, set the page weight, letter your own title, then record the book turning and share the video. Export PNG, PDF, layered PSD and a timelapse of your drawing. On iPad ⢠Apple Pencil pressure and tilt for natural, expressive line work ⢠Artwork version history: Kreyon saves checkpoints as you work and always before a merge, liquify or flatten ⢠Name milestones such as Sketch, Lineart, Flats or Final. Pinned milestones never expire ⢠Try an idea on a side path and keep it or throw it away, with your main artwork untouched ⢠Compare any two versions side by side, as an overlay, or as a map of what was added and erased Why artists choose Kreyon ⢠One purchase instead of a subscription ⢠No account and no ads ⢠Exact tools for line art, colour and comics in one canvas ⢠Guided lessons for beginners inside the same studio professionals use Projects now save as .kreyon files. Files from earlier versions (.apexo) still open. Whether you are colouring your first page or building your next comic from cover to cover, Kreyon keeps the whole process on one canvas. Made in Madurai, India, by people who draw.
Layer
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Layer Art- is a studio for layered paper art. Choose a colour, place a shape, and watch a shadow fall exactly where it should. Every piece you place is remembered. When you're finished, play the whole build back as a stop-motion film ā pieces springing into place, sliding into position, the artwork assembling from a blank page. It isn't a screen recording. Nothing is captured while you work, so there's no quality loss and no wasted space. The film is drawn fresh from your artwork, which means it's razor sharp at any size and you choose the pace afterwards. Save it, share it, or just watch it. Pick a piece up again next week and the film keeps growing with it. REAL DEPTH, NOT A DROP SHADOW Layer Art works because of light. Every shape you place sits at its own height above the page ā measured in millimetres, like foam tape behind real card. ⢠One light source for the whole piece, so nothing ever looks pasted on ⢠A soft depth shadow and a tight contact shadow, the way paper actually behaves ⢠Move the sun and every shadow in the artwork turns to follow it ⢠Three depth styles: Soft, Crisp and Flat ⢠Fine control over shadow size, distance and opacity when you want it HUNDREDS OF SHAPES Nearly 400 pieces to cut from, all vector, all recolourable, all sharp at any size. Ferns, leaves, split leaves, grass, tendrils, branches ⢠Trunks, sticks, logs, driftwood ⢠Flowers, clover, mushrooms ⢠Mountains, hills, pebbles ⢠Clouds, suns, moons ⢠Waves, fish, whales ⢠Birds, butterflies, cats, owls, bunnies ⢠Arches, frames, rings ⢠Stars, blobs, hearts, sparkles WORDS, CARDS AND MESSAGES The full alphabet and numbers, cut from paper in two styles. Not typed text ā real letterforms you colour, rotate, layer and lift like any other piece. Which makes something rather good possible: build a card, spell a message, and the timelapse becomes the reveal. The words appear one letter at a time. BUILD FROM A PHOTO Bring in a photo two ways. Trace mode sits it faintly underneath as a guide and never appears in the export. Frame mode makes it part of the artwork, so you can build a paper frame around a photo you love. A GALLERY WORTH SCROLLING Your work lives on a wall, not in a list. Cards keep each piece's real proportions and carry the same paper shadow the artwork does. Tap one and it grows into full screen, where the background takes on that artwork's own colour. THE WALL, USER SHOWCASE Users can submit there artwork for display on the wall, All artwork submitted is moderated for approval before going on the wall, all images uploaded, are kept 100% private and never shared anywhere besides inside the App. Users can report images, all reports are moderated as well, and reviewed. Then action taken. Users can also add there social media link, if maybe they are doing creative tutorials, any form of art channels. Users may wish have a look. Artwork in the Showcase, can be tapped and then watched how that user put it all together. Showcase is designed for showing of created artwork and also a great way for other users to see how it was made. PRIVACY All artwork images , created in the App stay on your device, only exception is if you choose to have your work displayed in the show case then that is submitted to a secure database as a file not an image, all images are sent by file and encrypted. For privacy. MADE FOR MAKING ⢠Curated tonal palettes, because five greens beat five hundred ⢠Merge pieces into one and move them together ⢠Layers you can drag, lock, reorder and unlock ⢠Snapping to centre lines and angles, switchable ⢠Full undo and redo ⢠Autosaves constantly ā nothing is ever lost ⢠Send an artwork to a friend as a file they can open and keep building ⢠Export a picture or a film straight to your photos
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Layer at $1.99 against Kreyon's $9.99. Layer also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1). Kreyon's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs every 3 weeks) and iOS requirement (16.0 vs 18.6). On ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Kreyon costs $9.99 and Layer $1.99 up front. Kreyon sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Layer asks for nothing beyond the download.
Kreyon ships an update every 2 days, Layer every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.
| Parameter | Kreyon | Layer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 | $1.99 ā better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days ā better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No ā better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac ā better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 ā better | 18.6 |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 65 MB | 13 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Lumivance Technologies Private Limited | adam rogan |
In-app purchases
Kreyon
- Apex Pro$9.99
Layer
No in-app purchases








