Comparison

Sketchbook® vs Doodle Magic

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

Head to head
About

Sketchbook®

This app provides a professional-grade drawing and painting experience for artists and illustrators. It offers a natural drawing feel with customizable tools, layers, and guides for precision. Unlock advanced features like custom brushes and canvas resizing with an optional premium purchase.

Highlights
  • Full complement of brush types
  • Highly customizable brushes
  • Guides, rulers, and stroke tools
  • Layers with blend modes
  • Clean and unobtrusive interface
  • Custom brush creation (premium)
  • Canvas resizing (premium)
Read full description

From quick sketches to fully finished artwork, Sketchbook goes where your creativity takes you. Sketchbook is an award-winning sketching, painting, and drawing app for anyone who loves to draw. Artists and illustrators love Sketchbook for its professional-grade feature set and highly customizable tools. Everyone loves Sketchbook for its elegant interface and natural drawing experience, free of distractions so you can focus on capturing and expressing your ideas. • A full complement of brush types: pencils markers, airbrushes, smear and more that look and feel just like their physical counterparts • Brushes are highly customizable so you can create just the look you want • Guides, rulers and stroke tools support precision when you need it • Layers with a full complement of blend modes deliver the flexibility to build up and explore drawings and color • Purpose-built for sketching, the interface is clean and unobtrusive so you can focus on drawing Purchase the Premium Bundle to unlock more... • Import and export brushes • Create your own custom brushes • Resize your canvas or image • Set canvas resolution in px/inch or px/cm • Clipping masks • Time-lapse recording: choose fixed canvas view or show pan/zoom navigation • Additional layer adjustments including blur, sharpen, brightness/contrast, greyscale, and invert • Additional color harmonies • Additional custom gradients • Select color from reference images • Extract color palettes from images • Import and export color palettes • Layer grouping • Layer masking Blend Modes • Draw Outline tool • Lasso Fill tool • Export to PDF • plus more to come!

About

Doodle Magic

Unleash your creativity with a magical doodle game. Replay your drawings as animated cartoons and explore a variety of colorful brushes and patterns. This app offers a simple yet imaginative way to create unique artwork and relive your artistic process.

Highlights
  • Cartoon playback of doodle process
  • Magical paintbrushes (rainbow, neon, pearl)
  • Random color variations
  • 10+ doodle patterns
  • My Gallery for saved drawings
  • Mandala and kaleidoscope creation
Features
Read full description

It's the most magical doodle game. Playback the doodle process as a cartoon. There’re many beautiful brush tools,10+doodle patterns. The simplest doodle way, free your imagination now! “Cartoon” mode : playback the doodle process as a cartoon. Many Magical paintbrushes:rainbow ,neon ,pearl and more. Radom color variation ,there’re full of pleasant surprise. 10+differents doodle patterns, just create the style which you like. My Gallery : to show your drawing as an artist! Doodle Magic is a very interesting doodle game which is very easy to control! It provide a creative doodle world for everyone! You just need to drawing which you like ,that you can create a very wonderful Mandala flowers,and the magical kaleidoscope patterns! And the most important is you can playback the doodle process as a cartoon! You can enjoy the joy of doodle. Easy to operate, easy to graffiti! Each works that you create are unique and wonderful! Get more childlike innocence ,Get more joy ! Don’t miss the best interesting doodle game ! DOWN LOAD NOW !

Screenshots

Sketchbook®4 screens
Doodle Magic4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Sketchbook® at none against Doodle Magic's shown. Sketchbook® also leads on ratings volume (221K vs 12K) and chart position (#33 vs unranked). Doodle Magic's advantage is update cadence (monthly vs every 2 months) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15). On price, rating, review sentiment and in-app purchases 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. Sketchbook® sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Doodle Magic sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Sketchbook® against 4.7 for Doodle Magic. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Sketchbook® has 221K ratings behind it against 12K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 77% of Sketchbook®'s written reviews are positive against 81% of Doodle Magic's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Sketchbook® ships an update every 2 months, Doodle Magic monthly. Both last shipped on November 12, 2026.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
Sketchbook® versus Doodle Magic: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSketchbook®Doodle Magic
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (221K ratings) — better4.7 (12K ratings)
Positive reviews76.6% of reviews81.1% of reviews — better
Number of ratings221K — better12K
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsMonthly — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#33 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS1512.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size144 MB108 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSketchbook, Inc.炳甲 梁

Customer experience

Sketchbook®

All ratings220,588 ratings
Positive95.8%
Neutral2.4%
Negative1.8%
Written reviews1,733 reviews
Positive76.6%
Neutral7.1%
Negative16.3%

Doodle Magic

All ratings12,010 ratings
Positive91.6%
Neutral4.3%
Negative4.1%
Written reviews387 reviews
Positive81.1%
Neutral5.4%
Negative13.4%

User reviews

Sketchbook®

From 221K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Amazing, free, and no ads
  • 👍 Lots of brushes and customization options
  • 👍 Intuitive and easy to use
  • 👍 Great for beginners and professionals
  • 👍 Smooth performance and no lag

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional freezing and crashing issues
  • 🐛 Blurry or corrupted images when saving or copying
  • 🐛 Glitches with color selection and layers
  • 🐛 Inability to rotate canvas or access gallery easily
  • 🐛 Lack of blurring and clipping mask tools

Doodle Magic

From 12K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🎨 Relaxing and creative drawing experience
  • 👍 Easy to use and intuitive interface
  • 🌈 Vibrant and colorful designs
  • 💡 Unique and satisfying drawing patterns
  • 🤩 Helps users feel like an artist

Room to improve

  • 🙄 Excessive advertisements
  • 🎨 Limited color options
  • 🔍 Difficult to save or share drawings
  • 🐛 Occasional crashes or freezing issues

Bugs and requests

Sketchbook®

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Layers randomly deleted or corrupted
  • Freezing when using certain tools like the eyedropper
  • Saving issues leading to loss of progress
  • Incompatibility with newer iPad Pro devices

Requested features

7 requests
  • Add blurring and clipping mask tools
  • Improve gallery and canvas rotation functionality
  • Allow custom font import
  • Add effects like glow, stroke, and drop shadow
  • Implement layer grouping and organization
Show 2 more
  • Add real-time collaboration features
  • Improve time-lapse recording and saving

Doodle Magic

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Controls stop working after purchasing ad-free version
  • Drawings disappear or cannot be accessed after exiting the app

Requested features

4 requests
  • Allow users to choose their own colors
  • Expand drawing tools and brush options
  • Improve saving and sharing functionality
  • Reduce the frequency of advertisements

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Sketchbook®

One-time1
  • Premium Bundle$2.99
1 purchases

Doodle Magic

One-time1
  • Remove Advertisement$1.99

Questions

Is Sketchbook® free?
Sketchbook® is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Doodle Magic free?
Doodle Magic is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Sketchbook® or Doodle Magic?
Sketchbook® is rated higher. Sketchbook® averages 4.8 out of 5 from 221K ratings, while Doodle Magic averages 4.7 from 12K ratings.
Do Sketchbook® or Doodle Magic have ads?
Doodle Magic shows ads; Sketchbook® does not.
Which is updated more often, Sketchbook® or Doodle Magic?
Sketchbook® ships an update every 2 months, and Doodle Magic monthly. Most recently, Sketchbook® was updated on November 12, 2026 and Doodle Magic on November 12, 2026.

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