Comparison

RoughAnimator vs Resprite

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Read full description

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

About

Resprite

This professional pixel art editor offers desktop-class features optimized for touch and pen input. Create pixel illustrations, animations, and game assets with an extensive toolset, advanced layers, and a high-performance renderer, all on your mobile device.

Highlights
  • High-performance drawing engine
  • Innovative palette and coloring tools
  • Advanced layers and timeline system
  • Optimized gesture and pen controls
  • Flexible interface layout
  • Import/export GIF, spritesheet, and PSD files
Features
Read full description

Resprite is a professional pixel art editor. Desktop-class features combined with touch/pen optimizations let you create efficiently anywhere. Resprite brings together a complete pixel toolset, an innovative coloring system, advanced layers and timelines, and a Metal-powered high-performance renderer so you can easily make pixel illustrations, spritesheets, GIF animations, and game art assets. Wherever you are—at home, camping, on the beach, or waiting at the gate—you can start creating. Resprite is your mobile pixel art studio. Resprite includes: - High-performance drawing engine - Innovative and efficient palette and coloring tools - Complete dithering pattern support - Flexible interface layout, always one tap away - Optimized gesture and pen controls for precision Flexible interface layout: - Arrange floating panels freely - All panels can be minimized - Shorten the distance between pen and target to boost efficiency - Cohesive pixel-styled UI All-in-one toolset: - Brushes, innovative coloring tools, three selection tools, eyedropper, paint bucket, three shape tools, plus rich sub-options - Pixel Perfect, Alpha Lock, dithering textures, and other advanced features - Place the toolbar anywhere for instant access - Copy, paste (including across files), flip horizontally/vertically, rotate, scale - Zoom and transform both canvas and image - Quick outline, HSV tuning, brightness/contrast adjustment, blur filter - Insert multi-line or vertical text, with custom fonts Convenient reference images: - Load multiple reference images - References can be zoomed and minimized - Place them anywhere Innovative palette: - Free placement layout - Linked workflow with coloring tools - Interpolate to create intermediate colors - Palette import and export - Automatically sample palettes from the canvas Import and sharing: - Import/export GIF, spritesheet, and Resprite packages - Export with scale, frame margin, spritesheet layout options, and more - Export per animation clip or by row - Import/export palettes (GPL, RPL formats) - Export PSD files - Import/export APNG animations - Export timelapse recordings of your drawing Layer and timeline system: - Comprehensive features for flexible layer-based creation - Copy, merge, flatten, rasterize, and other advanced operations - Onion Skin support - Set multiple animation clips and select them individually - Reliable performance—smooth even with hundreds of frames - Color tags, multi-level grouping, and opacity control Fast gesture operations: - Supports low-tilt and heavy-press stylus gestures - Two-finger/three-finger tap for undo/redo - Customizable pen Double-Tap actions - One-finger gestures to switch frames, play, and toggle onion skin - Long-press gesture - Flexibly map gestures to actions Pixel art in the demos comes from these artists: 史大巴、斯尔娜娜、扑倒奥利奥、吱小墨、妘归、KATLEE十三、石睐暮 PREMIUM: Your Resprite PREMIUM unlocks: - Remove export limits - Color adjustments - Stroke - Symmetry tool - Text tool All app features are available, and Premium is shared between iPad and iPhone. Customer support: Docs: https://resprite.fengeon.com/ Email: support@fengeon.com Optional in-app purchases: Charges are deducted from your iTunes account. Subscriptions renew automatically unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the current period ends. After purchase, you can manage auto-renewal anytime in your Apple ID account settings. Terms and conditions: Your use of this app is governed by the Terms at https://resprite.fengeon.com/terms and the Privacy Policy at https://resprite.fengeon.com/privacy, including future versions.

Screenshots

RoughAnimator1 screens
Resprite4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Resprite at Free against RoughAnimator's $7.99. RoughAnimator's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5) and update cadence (fortnightly vs every 5 weeks). On rating, review sentiment, 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

Resprite is free to download; RoughAnimator costs $7.99 up front. Resprite sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. RoughAnimator asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for RoughAnimator against 4.7 for Resprite. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3K and 1.5K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 79% of RoughAnimator's written reviews are positive against 80% of Resprite's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

RoughAnimator ships an update fortnightly, Resprite every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 27, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
RoughAnimator versus Resprite: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterRoughAnimatorResprite
Price$7.99Free — better
Rating4.6 (3K ratings)4.7 (1.5K ratings) — better
Positive reviews78.6% of reviews79.6% of reviews — better
Number of ratings3K — better1.5K
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
Best chart rank#9 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS13 — better16.0
Further details — not scored
Size31 MB31 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJacob KAFKAFengeon

Customer experience

RoughAnimator

All ratings2,936 ratings
Positive92.5%
Neutral3.3%
Negative4.2%
Written reviews852 reviews
Positive78.6%
Neutral9.4%
Negative12.0%

Resprite

All ratings1,441 ratings
Positive92.9%
Neutral2.4%
Negative4.7%
Written reviews285 reviews
Positive79.6%
Neutral7.0%
Negative13.3%

User reviews

RoughAnimator

From 3K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 🚀 Smooth animation
  • 💡 Useful features like camera and audio
  • 👍 Intuitive interface
  • 👍 Great for beginners

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes when importing video/audio
  • 🐛 Laggy performance with larger projects
  • 🐛 Pixelated/blurry drawings when playing animation
  • 🐛 Onion skin not working
  • 🐛 Brush issues like splotchy lines

Resprite

From 1.5K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Clean and intuitive UI
  • 🚀 Smooth and responsive
  • 💡 Customizable interface
  • 👍 Familiar Aseprite-like experience
  • 🚀 Powerful features for pixel art

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional bugs and glitches
  • 🔒 Exporting limited on free version
  • 💰 Subscription model can be expensive
  • 🔍 Unintuitive UI navigation at times

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 more
  • Implement a tween/animation feature
  • Add layer grouping and organization tools
  • Provide a dark mode option

Resprite

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Tools disappearing from the UI
  • Importing Aseprite files not working properly
  • Export function counting against trial limit even when cancelled

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add keyframe animation support
  • Implement tile set creation tools
  • Allow importing/exporting more file formats
  • Improve undo/redo functionality
  • Add cursor/crosshair display option
Show 1 more
  • Increase free export limit

In-app purchases

None

RoughAnimator

No in-app purchases

5 purchases

Resprite

Subscriptions2
  • 1 Month$1.991 Month
  • 12 Months$14.991 Year
One-time3
  • A Coffee$0.99
  • Lifetime$19.99
  • Lifetime Standard$29.99

Questions

Is RoughAnimator free?
RoughAnimator costs $7.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Resprite free?
Resprite is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, RoughAnimator or Resprite?
Resprite is rated higher. RoughAnimator averages 4.6 out of 5 from 3K ratings, while Resprite averages 4.7 from 1.5K ratings.
Do RoughAnimator or Resprite have ads?
Neither RoughAnimator nor Resprite shows ads.
Which is updated more often, RoughAnimator or Resprite?
RoughAnimator ships an update fortnightly, and Resprite every 5 weeks. Most recently, RoughAnimator was updated on October 26, 2026 and Resprite on October 27, 2026.

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