drawsta vs ibis Paint
drawsta is a free drawing app with no ads in it and nothing to cancel, and the tracing is built in. ibis Paint has more brushes and materials, and you pay for them with ads, a subscription, or both apps.
| Feature | drawsta | ibis Paint |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free. | Three ways, from ibis's own pricing page: the free ibis Paint X carries ads; Ad Removal is $15.99 as a one-off; and there is a separate paid app, ibis Paint, at $15.99. ibis notes prices vary by store and region. |
| Subscription | None. | Yes, optional. Premium Membership is $4.49 a month with a 7-day free trial, or $27.99 a year with a first month free. It adds 20GB of cloud storage, no ads, premium filters, vector tools and animation. |
| Platforms | iPhone and iPad. iOS 17 or later. | iPhone and iPad, iOS 15 or later. Also on Android. |
| Tracing | Tap a picture and it lands on your canvas as a ghosted layer you draw straight over. Turn the ghost off and your line is what is left. Bring your own photo and it works the same way. | Tracing, documented by ibis itself, in a lecture series that includes its lecture series includes one called “Let's Trace”, alongside a reference window for a picture you look at beside your work. You supply the picture either way. |
| Who it is for | Working artists who draw from reference: illustrators, tattooers, designers, anyone who sketches. | Manga and anime artists above all, since the screentones and fonts are the giveaway, and anyone who wants to record and share the making of a drawing. |
Choose ibis Paint if
- you draw manga or comics: 46 screentones and the comic tooling around them are not on any other app here.
- you want the deepest supply of brushes and materials to draw with: its listing counts over 130,000 brushes, 30,000+ materials and 3,000+ fonts.
- you want to record and share how a drawing was made; time-lapse is built in, and ibis puts the series past 500 million downloads.
The honest version
ibis Paint’s free tier carries ads, with a subscription and a separate paid app alongside it, all three listed on ibis’s own page. drawsta has no ads, no subscription and nothing to cancel, and the tracing is built in.
Where these claims come from
Every statement about ibis Paint on this page is from one of these, checked 9 October 2026. They are named rather than linked: a source you can look up is as checkable as one you can tap, and this page is not here to hand you a download button for somebody else. Prices move and differ by region. If something could not be verified from a listing, an official site or official documentation, it is not here.
- ibis Paint X on the App Store
- ibis Paint purchase plans