RoughAnimator vs Sakuga Mobile
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
RoughAnimator
Create traditional hand-drawn, frame-by-frame animations on your iPad. This app offers professional-grade tools like unlimited layers, onion skinning, and audio import, making it suitable for both beginners and experienced animators. Export your work in various formats or import it into professional animation software.
- Timeline with unlimited layers
- Onion skinning
- Audio and video import
- Custom brushes
- Apple Pencil support
- Export to video, GIF, image sequence
- Import to professional software
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A fully featured hand drawn animation application for iPad. Made by an animator, for animators. Powerful enough for professionals, simple enough for beginners. Everything you need to create traditional hand drawn frame-by-frame animation, anywhere you go! Features: - Timeline with unlimited layers and easily adjustable exposure length of individual drawings, for pose-to-pose or straight-ahead animating - Onion skinning - Preview playback - Scrub along timeline - Import audio for lip syncing - Import video for rotoscoping animation - Custom brushes - Supports Apple Pencil, Logitech Crayon - Control framerate and resolution - Export animation to Quicktime video, GIF, or image sequence - RoughAnimator projects can be imported to Adobe Flash/Animate, After Effects, and Toon Boom Harmony - Also available on desktop See a short film animated with RoughAnimator: https://youtu.be/vaHuJNNPoMM
Sakuga Mobile
This app enhances the sakuga viewing experience for artists and fans by providing tools to analyze and interact with high-quality animation sequences. Features include real-time frame counting, segment trimming, and timestamp recognition for quick scene navigation.
- Real-time frame counting
- Frame stepping
- Segment trimming for GIFs/images
- Timestamp recognition in comments
- Autoplay previews
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Sakuga from Japanese 作画 usually refers to a remarkably higher quality sequence, used to highlight a particularly important scene. Sakuga Mobile helps the sakuga community and artist who work on this scenes by adding some features to the sakugabooru expierence like: - Frames count in real time - Frames step - Trim the segment you want to get the frames images (or GIF) - Recognize time stamp on comments so you can tap on them and see right away when an artist sequence begins. - Autoplay previews ...and more!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Sakuga Mobile at Free against RoughAnimator's $7.99. RoughAnimator's advantage is ratings volume (3K vs 20) and update cadence (fortnightly vs every 2 months). On rating, review sentiment, ads 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
Sakuga Mobile is free to download; RoughAnimator costs $7.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Sakuga Mobile holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: RoughAnimator has 3K ratings behind it against 20, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 79% of RoughAnimator's written reviews are positive against 86% of Sakuga Mobile's.
RoughAnimator ships an update fortnightly, Sakuga Mobile every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | RoughAnimator | Sakuga Mobile |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $7.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (3K ratings) | 4.8 (20 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 78.6% of reviews | 85.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 3K — better | 20 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #9 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 31 MB | 35 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Jacob KAFKA | Bryan Martinez Carrizales |
Customer experience
RoughAnimator
Sakuga Mobile
Bugs and requests
RoughAnimator
Reported bugs
4 issues- Crashes when importing audio
- Onion skin not working
- Pixelated drawings when playing animation
- Laggy performance with larger projects
Requested features
8 requests- Add transparency support for exports
- Implement a text tool
- Provide more brush options and customization
- Add a ruler/shape tool
- Improve audio handling (record, import, sync)
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Implement a tween/animation feature
- Add layer grouping and organization tools
- Provide a dark mode option
Sakuga Mobile
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
RoughAnimator
No in-app purchases
Sakuga Mobile
No in-app purchases
