Comparison

Marvel vs Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing

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

Head to head
About

Marvel

Bring your app ideas to life quickly by turning sketches and mockups into interactive prototypes. Easily design, link screens, and share your app demos on various devices. Perfect for visualizing and testing new concepts.

Highlights
  • Design apps on iPhone/iPad
  • Turn sketches into interactive prototypes
  • Link screens with touch areas
  • Add mockups from cloud services
  • Share prototypes via email, SMS, Twitter
  • Syncs to web account
Features
Read full description

Just had the next billion-dollar app idea? Grab a pen and within minutes your idea will come to life. Marvel lets you design apps on your iPhone or iPad! Turn sketches, mockups and wireframes into interactive, tappable app prototypes that allow you to demo your ideas and share with others. Play with your app ideas on the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch! It’s super simple to get started, all you need is an idea and some pen and paper. How it works: - Draw your app screens on paper, then take photos or add mockups from Dropbox/Creative Cloud (including Photoshop files!). You can even draw directly on the screen! - Link each screen together using touch areas to form your app demo…then press play! - Ready to show the world? You can share prototypes using Email, SMS or Twitter and send to any phone or desktop. Everything is synced to your Marvel web account too, so you always have access to your prototypes no matter where you are.

About

Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing

Capture and organize handwritten notes and sketches digitally. This app preserves the expressiveness of your original drawings with innovative visualization technology. Tag, annotate, and store your creations in the cloud for easy retrieval and sharing.

Highlights
  • Hybrid visualization technology
  • Image-based input options
  • Natural sketching with Apple Pencil support
  • Editable notes and drawings
  • Tagging and annotation for search
  • Cloud storage integration
  • Customizable export styles
Features
Read full description

Carbo lets you capture and organize handwritten notes and sketches, bringing handwriting in the digital age, right on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Carbo's innovative visualization technology sets you free from pixel artefacts, while preserving all expressiveness of your original drawings. Collect notes, design sketches, or whiteboard drawings. Tag and annotate your notes for easy retrieval. Store them either on the device itself or in the cloud, with native support for iCloud, Evernote, and Dropbox. Finally, turn your notes and drawings into beautiful creations using a variety of handcrafted export styles and share them with the world. KEY FEATURES • Hybrid visualization technology: note picture is cleaned up and turned into a highly accurate monochrome representation. Carbo’s innovative rendering technology offers both the advantages of vector (sharpness) and bitmap (easy editing) techniques. • Image-based input options: take a new picture, import from camera roll, or import an image from iCloud Drive. • Drawing support: highly accurate and natural sketching capabilities. Full support for Apple Pencil & 3D Touch pressure sensitivity. • Note editing: edit any part of your note, i.e. select, resize, relocate, or remove any element. Make strokes thinner or thicker. • Annotations: add descriptive text to your note. These annotations are archived along with the image, and are globally searchable. • Tag your notes. Tags are colored for easier detection, and will help you classify notes. • Notes can be stored either on your device, or in the cloud using Evernote, Dropbox, and iCloud. • Efficient file-based storage: typical note is 400KB instead of the usual 3MB JPEG of a photo. • Export styles (iOS): choose among 7 beautifully handcrafted styles and their variants to customize your notes (Blackboard/chalks combos, Blueprint, Paper with several pen styles…). • Up to 1200-dpi black-and-white high-fidelity exports for print. • Many sharing options: Twitter, Facebook, AirDrop, Mail, Messages, iCloud Drive, Open in (another app)... • Latest iOS Support: App Search, iPad multitasking, Siri 'Remind Me', 3D Touch shortcuts, modern iOS 14 photo access (browsing & searching). • macOS 11 Big Sur / Mac Catalyst (Optimized for Mac). • Universal app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. • Pro Pack 2 or Pro Plan: one-off purchase to remove the 10-note limit. PRICING You can unlock all features either through Pro Pack 2, a one-time purchase, or through Pro Plan, an affordable subscription. Pro Pack upgrade pricing is also available if you own a previous version. HELP & FEEDBACK Visit creaceed.com/carbo for more information. Send your questions and feedback to carbo@creaceed.com Terms of Use: https://creaceed.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://creaceed.com/privacy

Screenshots

Marvel4 screens
Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Marvel at none against Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing's 3. Marvel also leads on review sentiment (86% vs 55%) and rating (4.7 vs 4.3). On price, ads and device support 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. Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Marvel asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Marvel holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Marvel has 2.6K ratings behind it against 51, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 86% of Marvel's written reviews are positive against 55% of Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Marvel ships an update monthly, Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Marvel versus Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMarvelCarbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (2.6K ratings) — better4.3 (51 ratings)
Positive reviews85.8% of reviews — better54.8% of reviews
Number of ratings2.6K — better51
Update frequencyMonthly — betterEvery 4 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV — betteriPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS11.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size69 MB36 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperBallpark Labs LtdCreaceed SRL

Customer experience

Marvel

All ratings2,557 ratings
Positive92.5%
Neutral3.6%
Negative4.0%
Written reviews1,139 reviews
Positive85.8%
Neutral4.5%
Negative9.7%

Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing

All ratings51 ratings
Positive82.4%
Neutral3.9%
Negative13.7%
Written reviews146 reviews
Positive54.8%
Neutral13.7%
Negative31.5%

User reviews

Marvel

From 2.6K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 🚀 Quick prototyping
  • 💡 Intuitive interface
  • 🔍 Useful for testing ideas
  • 👌 Great for beginners

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes and bugs
  • 🔗 Syncing and linking issues
  • 🔍 Limited functionality
  • 🖼️ Trouble with image handling
  • 🤔 Unintuitive in some areas

Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing

From 51 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Great for sketching ideas
  • 👍 Pleasantly surprised by subscription plan
  • 👍 Laser-focused on B&W scanning
  • 👍 Excellent for capturing notes
  • 👍 Manipulate scans easily

Room to improve

  • 👎 Lacking features for daily use
  • 👎 Difficult for diagrams and notes
  • 👎 Rudimentary editing tools
  • 👎 Lacks color
  • 👎 Crippled by lack of export options

Bugs and requests

Marvel

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Prototype playback not working
  • Disappearing links and hotspots
  • Compatibility issues with newer devices
  • Trouble uploading and editing images

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more transition options
  • Improve collaboration features
  • Implement scrolling and fixed elements
  • Allow more customization and branding
  • Integrate with more design tools

Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing

Reported bugs

13 issues
  • Keeps crashing on iPad
  • Update bricks app (crashes on launch)
  • Carbo keeps crashing
  • Sync problem with Evernote
  • Exporting pages (archiving) doesn't work
Show 8 more
  • Buggy on iOS 9.01 and iPhone 6S
  • iPhone keeps switching off sync with Evernote
  • App crashes frequently
  • File import from iCloud shows files but can't be opened
  • Beta Evernote sync does not work
  • Randomly selects other bits on the page
  • Clunky or doesn't quite work
  • Sync with Evernote was easy, but iPhone keeps switching off attempt to sync

Requested features

58 requests
  • Adding colors
  • More pencil sizes
  • Ability to handle multi-page docs
  • Viable export options (PDF, etc.)
  • Ability to bundle pages into PDF
Show 53 more
  • Put a title on scans
  • Copy and paste selected objects
  • Export an entire notebook as PDF
  • Desktop client for reassociating tags/annotations
  • Save notes as pictures to Photos
  • Select multiple vectors and change color/thickness
  • iCloud Drive support
  • Invert image
  • Copy/cut/paste selections
  • Export svg file
  • OneDrive cloud option
  • Scan a whole page of doodles and separate them
  • Improve paper edge detection
  • Multi-page option
  • Text box or drawing function
  • Improve captured image quality
  • Edge-detection feature
  • Better handling of lined paper
  • Sync with Evernote
  • Choice of line sizes for annotations
  • Color picker and highlighter pen
  • Support for different writing utensils on one surface
  • Multiple page support
  • Different sized pens
  • More customization for page size
  • PDF vector export
  • Filter multiple tags
  • Re-editing scanned documents
  • Cloud sync for notes
  • Copy feature for local and cloud storage
  • Save to Photos app
  • Ability to use notes as pictures
  • Select multiple vectors and change color or thickness
  • Scan entire page of doodles and separate them
  • More cloud options (OneDrive)
  • Text box or drawing function
  • Better paper edge detection
  • Multi-page option
  • Improve captured image quality
  • Edge-detection
  • Better handling of lined paper
  • Sync with Evernote
  • Choice of line sizes for annotations
  • Color picker and highlighter pen
  • Support for different writing utensils on one surface
  • Multiple page support
  • Different sized pens
  • More customization for page size
  • PDF vector export
  • Filter multiple tags
  • Re-editing scanned documents
  • Cloud sync for notes
  • Copy feature for local and cloud storage

In-app purchases

None

Marvel

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing

Subscriptions2
  • Pro Plan (Monthly)7 Days trial$3.991 Month
  • Pro Plan (Yearly)7 Days trial$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Pro Pack 2$23.99

Questions

Is Marvel free?
Marvel is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing free?
Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Marvel or Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing?
Marvel is rated higher. Marvel averages 4.7 out of 5 from 2.6K ratings, while Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing averages 4.3 from 51 ratings.
Do Marvel or Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing have ads?
Neither Marvel nor Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Marvel or Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing?
Marvel ships an update monthly, and Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing every 4 months. Most recently, Marvel was updated on October 29, 2026 and Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing on October 20, 2026.

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