Comparison

Procreate Pocket vs ‎iArtbook

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

Head to head
About

Procreate Pocket

Create expressive sketches, rich paintings, and beautiful illustrations on your iPhone. This app offers a complete art studio with hundreds of brushes, advanced layering, and powerful design tools.

Highlights
  • Hundreds of handmade brushes
  • Advanced layer system
  • High resolution canvases
  • Revolutionary QuickShape feature
  • Frame-by-frame animation
  • Customizable brush studio
Read full description

App of the Year winner Procreate Pocket is the most feature-packed and versatile art app ever designed for iPhone. Procreate Pocket has everything you need to create expressive sketches, gorgeous illustrations, design concepts, enhanced photos, and beautiful animations. Offering hundreds of handmade brushes, a suite of intuitive artistic tools, and an advanced layer system. Work on the couch, on the train, at the beach, or while waiting in line for coffee. It’s a creative companion in the palm of your hand. Highlights: • Sketch ideas when inspiration strikes • Create engaging photo collages and draw-overs • Add filters and captivating effects to your images • Mark-up documents and give feedback on the fly Breakthrough brushes: • Packed with hundreds of beautifully crafted brushes • Organize your brushes into sets and libraries • Over 100 customizable settings for every brush • Import and export custom Procreate brushes • Import Adobe® Photoshop® brushes, and run them faster than Photoshop® Full-featured layering system: • Layer your art for precise control over details and composition • Create Layer Masks and Clipping Masks for non-destructive editing • Stay organized by combining layers into Groups • Select multiple layers to move or Transform objects simultaneously • Access over 25 layer blend modes for industry-grade compositing Color without compromise: • Fill your line work with ColorDrop and SwatchDrop • Disc, Classic, Harmony, Value, and Palette color panels • Import color profiles for color matching • Assign Color Dynamics to any brush Precision design tools: • Revolutionary QuickShape feature for perfect shapes • Add vector text to your illustrations • Easily import all your favorite fonts • Crop and resize your canvas for perfect composition • Perspective, Isometric, 2D, and Symmetry visual guides • Drawing Assist perfects your strokes in real time • StreamLine and stabilization smooths strokes for beautiful calligraphy and expert inking Animation and Page Assist • Easy frame-by-frame animation with customizable onion skinning • Create storyboards, GIFs, animatics, and simple animations • Sketch page-by-page concepts, or begin a comic, with Page Assist • Import, edit, and share PDFs Dramatic finishing effects: • Gradient Map — remap your image’s colors with a customizable gradient • Glitch, Chromatic Aberration, Glow, and Halftone add new dimensions to your work • Gaussian and Motion Blur filters for depth and movement, or use Sharpen for perfect clarity • Advanced Noise filter gives you more control for a classic, retro look • Adjust Hue, Saturation, or Brightness in real time • Powerful image adjustments including Color Balance, Curves, and HSB • Bring your art to life with the fun, intuitive, and creative Warp, Symmetry, and Liquify Dynamics Time-lapse replay • Relive your creative journey with Procreate’s Time-lapse Replay • Export your Time-lapse recording in 4K for high-quality video production • Share a shorter 30-second Time-lapse on your socials Reference Companion: • Keep a full canvas or reference image with you at all times • Paint on your face with AR • Color-pick right from the reference window Import assets and share your creations: • Import or export your art as Adobe® Photoshop® PSD files • Import Adobe® ASE and ACO Color Palettes • Import image files such as JPG, PNG, and TIFF • Export your working files in layered .procreate or PSD file formats • Share your art as TIFF, transparent PNG, multi-page PDF, web-ready JPEG, and animated GIFs, PNGs, and MP4s Accessibility • Global stroke stabilization, Dynamic Type, VoiceOver, and color naming

About

‎iArtbook

This app offers a robust digital art creation experience with unlimited layers, blend modes, and masks. It features advanced brush customization, calligraphy tools, and animation capabilities. Ideal for artists seeking professional-grade drawing and painting tools on their device.

Highlights
  • Unlimited layers with blend modes and masks
  • Advanced brush customization and calligraphy tools
  • Animation creation with multiple layers and export options
  • Apple Pencil support with pressure and tilt
  • Time-Lapse video recording
  • Learn to draw by copying professional art
Features
Read full description

Fun painting app, based on Unlimited Layers with Blend Modes and Masks Any brush can be used with 3 professional-level realtime technologies of calligraphy: Line Delay, Rope Stabilization and Correction, combine it for best results. With 100% calligraphy the line will be very smooth even if you are drawing with your finger Brushes can be Dry, Glossy and Wet. There are 3 types of Wet brushes: Without Pull, With Pull and Super-Precise. Any brush can instantly became Smudge-brush with Finger instrument. Textured brushes are also supported If you like to draw with simple round brush, there are quick settings for Hardness, Ovality & Rotation of your brush shape. Or, if you prefer realistic brushes, large Pro-Library of shapes (>1000 textures) can be used to create new brushes of any type Apple Pencil is fully supported, including Touch Force, Tilt, Azimuth and Predicted Points. There are settings for each Pencil ability. You also can disable finger-painting, if you never use it Gestures: 2-fingers tap for Undo and 3-fingers tap for Redo any action For color choosing there are 2 different Color Pickers and Palettes with Gradient Mixer. Use long-pressure gesture for quick color choosing Time-Lapse video recording is enabled by default FEATURES LIST: Create Animation: * Unlimited frames of animation * Multiple animation layers * Export to mp4, hevc, gif, apng Learn How to Draw by copying Professional Art: * Use any Painting or Sketch as a Lesson * Tap left side of screen to switch between your painting and the lesson * 4 lesson types: "Equal size", "First Layer", "Horizontal split", "Vertical split" Brushes: * Preinstalled professional brushes * Glossy brushes * 50+ brush settings * Shapes library * Calligraphy * Apple Pencil support * Smudge brushes with 3 different smudge technologies * Export-import of brushes * Dynamic shape * Realistic brushes * Any brush can became a smudge brush with Smudge tool Colors: * 2 Color Pickers * Color mixer * Palettes * Import/Export of palettes Interface: * Right and left handed interface * Light or dark interface * Custom interface color Layers: * Unlimited layers * Dynamic ssd/operative memory using for layers * Masks * Clear / Fill / Select / Sort / Duplicate * Blend modes * Opacity and visibility * Import any image as a layer * Transform without loosing image quality Gestures: * 2-Fingers tap for Undo * 3-Fingers tap for Redo * Long pressure for quick color choosing * Bucket Tool: Drag the Color circle onto the canvas * Only-gestures control with Swipes Advanced: * Flip canvas horizontally * Time-Lapse video recording * Transform instrument * Selection tool * PNG with transparency creation

Screenshots

Procreate Pocket4 screens
‎iArtbook4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: ‎iArtbook at Free against Procreate Pocket's $5.99. ‎iArtbook also leads on update cadence (every 8 days vs every 3 months) and device support (3 vs 1). Procreate Pocket's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and chart position (#1 vs #97). On rating, ratings volume and ads 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

‎iArtbook is free to download; Procreate Pocket costs $5.99 up front. ‎iArtbook sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Procreate Pocket asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 3.8 for Procreate Pocket against 3.8 for ‎iArtbook. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 13K and 11K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 61% of Procreate Pocket's written reviews are positive against 44% of ‎iArtbook's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Procreate Pocket ships an update every 3 months, ‎iArtbook every 8 days. Both last shipped on October 20, 2026.

Scorecard8 real differences · 3 level
Procreate Pocket versus ‎iArtbook: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterProcreate Pocket‎iArtbook
Price$5.99Free — better
Rating3.8 (13K ratings)3.8 (11K ratings)
Positive reviews61.1% of reviews — better43.7% of reviews
Number of ratings13K — better11K
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 8 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
Best chart rank#1 — better#97
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS26.012.3 — better
Further details — not scored
Size1.1 GB388 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSavage Interactive Pty LtdAlexander Kondrashov

Customer experience

Procreate Pocket

All ratings12,727 ratings
Positive69.3%
Neutral8.3%
Negative22.4%
Written reviews2,094 reviews
Positive61.1%
Neutral13.6%
Negative25.3%

‎iArtbook

All ratings11,478 ratings
Positive67.8%
Neutral9.5%
Negative22.7%
Written reviews3,520 reviews
Positive43.7%
Neutral16.0%
Negative40.3%

User reviews

Procreate Pocket

From 13K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Excellent drawing app for iPhone
  • 👍 Customizable brushes and palettes
  • 👍 Convenient for on-the-go sketching
  • 👍 Affordable price point
  • 👍 Seamless integration with iPad version

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and bugs
  • 🔍 Limited features compared to iPad version
  • 🔍 Lack of undo/redo buttons
  • 🔍 Pixelated output when transforming layers
  • 🔍 Difficult to draw precise lines and shapes

‎iArtbook

From 11K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Great free alternative to Procreate
  • 👍 Variety of brushes and textures
  • 🎨 Excellent for drawing and animation
  • 💡 Ability to create custom brushes

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and glitches
  • 🔍 Confusing UI and navigation
  • 📤 Ads for premium features too frequent
  • 🎨 Limited selection of basic brushes

Bugs and requests

Procreate Pocket

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Imported images/brushes not showing up
  • Layers merging unexpectedly
  • Color issues when tracing or filling
  • Navigation bar disappearing during use

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add blending and smudge tools
  • Increase layer limit and canvas size
  • Implement dark mode option
  • Add text and fill tools
  • Improve undo/redo functionality

‎iArtbook

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Layers glitching and creating unwanted artifacts
  • Inability to save or export artwork properly
  • Brush and tool settings not persisting between sessions

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add symmetry tool
  • Implement layer folders and management
  • Include audio support for animations
  • Improve selection and transformation tools

In-app purchases

None

Procreate Pocket

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

‎iArtbook

One-time3
  • iArtbook Pro for iPhone$7.99
  • Upgrade to iArtbook Pro$12.99
  • iArtbook Pro for iPad$12.99

Questions

Is Procreate Pocket free?
Procreate Pocket costs $5.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is ‎iArtbook free?
‎iArtbook is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Procreate Pocket or ‎iArtbook?
Procreate Pocket and ‎iArtbook are both rated 3.8 out of 5 on the App Store, from 13K and 11K ratings respectively.
Do Procreate Pocket or ‎iArtbook have ads?
Neither Procreate Pocket nor ‎iArtbook shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Procreate Pocket or ‎iArtbook?
Procreate Pocket ships an update every 3 months, and ‎iArtbook every 8 days. Most recently, Procreate Pocket was updated on October 20, 2026 and ‎iArtbook on October 20, 2026.
Which is more popular, Procreate Pocket or ‎iArtbook?
Procreate Pocket currently peaks at #1 in the App Store charts, and ‎iArtbook at #97. Chart position reflects recent download velocity rather than total install base.

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