Wax vs Pixelart Studio
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Wax
Create 3D models, characters, and scenes on your mobile device. Sculpt, paint, and animate your creations with intuitive tools and modifiers. Save and share your projects in editable formats.
- 3D modeling with vertex, edge, and face editing
- Sculpting and painting tools with symmetry
- Keyframe animation with timeline and curve editor
- Editable project files for cross-device work
- Import OBJ and GLB/glTF models
- Export to OBJ, STL, PNG, MP4, GLB, and USDZ
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Make 3D props, characters and scenes on iPhone and iPad. Start with a shape, import a model, or open one of five editable examples. MODEL Edit vertices, edges and faces. Extrude faces, inset details, bevel edges and add loop cuts. Mirror, Subdivision Surface, Array and Smooth modifiers stay editable. SCULPT AND PAINT Push, pull and smooth a mesh with brushes, symmetry and masks. Paint colors onto the mesh, add image textures, and place reference images in your scene. Apple Pencil pressure can control brush size and strength. ANIMATE Keyframe position, rotation and scale. Adjust timing on the timeline and motion in the curve editor. Add cameras to frame your scene. KEEP YOUR PROJECT EDITABLE Save and share .waxproject files with the full scene, including materials, textures, modifiers and animation. Open them on another device to keep working. Older .wax projects still open, and importing a project creates a separate copy. Import OBJ and self-contained GLB or glTF models. GLB/glTF files must contain their own mesh data and textures; separate buffer and image files are not supported. Model import does not bring in animation. Use Wax project files to transfer an editable Wax scene. FREE TO USE Modeling, sculpting, painting, animation, modifiers, model import and unlimited projects are free. Export editable Wax projects, OBJ, STL, SDS and PNG images without buying Pro. WAX PRO • Combine shapes, cut holes and find intersections with booleans. • Rebuild a mesh for sculpting with voxel remesh. • Export animations and turntables as MP4 videos. • Export GLB files with materials and animation for use in other 3D apps, games and the web. • Export USDZ files to view your models in AR. Wax Pro is a one-time purchase with Family Sharing. No subscription. LEARN BY EDITING Open a robot, spacecraft, painted creature, speaker or animated example and change it yourself. A guided tour, gesture help, keyboard shortcuts and a left-handed layout are included. No account is required. Projects are stored on your device and are available in Files.
Pixelart Studio
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You are not going to believe what fits inside this app. Pixel Art Studio is a pixel art and animation studio built from scratch for iPad and Mac. The feel is inspired by Procreate, the output is pure pixels: no blur, no interpolation, every pixel exactly where you put it. And then it keeps going, way past what a pixel editor is supposed to do. ONE TAP AND THE SHAPE IS PERFECT Scribble a wobbly line, hold the pencil at the end of the stroke, and QuickShape turns it into a flawless line, rectangle, ellipse or polygon, snapped to the classic pixel art angles. Believe it: you can draw an isometric cube, a cylinder, a staircase or a rounded box in one gesture, extrude it to any height, and never nudge a single pixel by hand. Independent brush axes, spray, pressure shading, glow, blur and a silhouette brush that closes your outline and floods it the moment you lift the pencil. Four axis symmetry, Lock Alpha, one coat of paint per pixel, and Smart Nudge that snaps shapes to their neighbours. ANIMATION TOOLS FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE This is where it stops behaving like a pixel editor. Leave frames empty between two drawings and Tweening fills them in, reading how your art moved, scaled and rotated, object by object. Two sketches become a full animation. Layer Loop is the loopOut of After Effects: two frames of a blinking eye on Cycle, Ping-pong or Reverse, and that layer animates the entire scene by itself, forever. Infinite Scroll slides a layer with wrap around, one full lap every N frames, on X or Y. Paint one strip of clouds, get an endless sky. Offset Assist is the Photoshop Offset filter, live under your pen, so seamless tiles are built, not guessed. Add per layer frames, onion skinning, animation tags, a scrub bar with playhead, folders, blend modes and Parallax Assist playing depth right inside the canvas. SELECT LIKE MAGIC Tap an object and the whole object is selected. Tap a color and it is selected across the layer, connected or not. Freehand and polygon lasso, exact color matching, additive wand, 9 slice scaling in the Unity Sliced style, rotation, mirroring, and a move handle with 1px arrows because pixel art is precision. Erase or transform the same selection across every frame at once. A TILESET STUDIO HIDING INSIDE Build a tileset, stamp a map with it, edit one tile and watch every copy in the map update. Then export PNG plus Tiled .tsj and .tmj, one tile layer per app layer, ready to drop into your engine. Ask around: almost nobody does this. EXPORT LIKE A PRO PNG, JPG, GIF, image sequence and sprite sheet with a configurable grid. MP4 in 4:5, 9:16, 1:1, 16:9 or the canvas ratio, with a safe area drawn over the canvas and loop repetition inside the file. Ship everything, the current frame or a single tag. Opens and saves .aseprite, so your work is never locked in. Record a time lapse of the session and publish your process. IPAD AND MAC Apple Pencil with pressure, two and three finger gestures, project tabs, automatic backup of your library and preview broadcast to another screen. On Mac, the same app with keyboard shortcuts, hover hints and wheel zoom. Your projects and your .aseprite files travel between both. One tap. Perfect pixels. Animation that thinks for you. Maximum effort!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Wax at Free against Pixelart Studio's $12.99. Pixelart Studio's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On 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
Wax is free to download; Pixelart Studio costs $12.99 up front. Wax sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Pixelart Studio asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Wax | Pixelart Studio |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $12.99 |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | — | Every 10 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 5 MB | 9 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | John Haas | Leonardo Amora |
In-app purchases
Wax
- Wax Pro$14.99
Pixelart Studio
No in-app purchases








