Top 10 Best iPad Drawing Apps for 2025
If you're an artist, designer, or digital sketch enthusiast, the iPad offers a powerful canvas to bring your ideas to life. With Apple Pencil support and a growing selection of professional-grade drawing apps, 2025 is a great time to create on the go. Here's our curated list of the best iPad drawing apps to elevate your creativity.
What to Look for in a Great iPad Drawing App
The best iPad drawing apps blend performance, ease of use, powerful brush engines, Apple Pencil responsiveness, and tools like layers, blending modes, and export features. Let’s explore the top 10 apps available now.
Top 10 iPad Drawing Apps
- Procreate – A gold standard for iPad artists. With high-resolution canvas support, 3D painting, animation assist, and powerful brush customization, it's ideal for professionals and hobbyists alike.
- Adobe Fresco – Best for those who want realistic watercolor and oil painting tools. Fresco integrates perfectly with Adobe Creative Cloud apps like Photoshop and Illustrator.
- Affinity Designer – A powerful app for creating vector and raster designs. Perfect for logo creation, UI/UX design, and illustrations.
- Autodesk SketchBook – A free yet robust app with a rich brush library, layers, and a user-friendly interface perfect for sketching and quick concepts.
- Clip Studio Paint – A favorite among comic book and manga artists. Offers precise pen tools, screentones, and comic panel creation features.
- Tayasui Sketches – Known for its minimal interface and realistic drawing tools. Great for beginners and traditional art lovers.
- ArtRage Vitae – Offers natural media painting with realistic oil paint, pencil, and pastel textures. Ideal for replicating traditional art techniques.
- Concepts – Features an infinite canvas and flexible vector-based workflow. Excellent for designers, architects, and brainstorming.
- MediBang Paint – A cloud-supported drawing app focused on manga and comics. It includes screentones, fonts, and team sharing capabilities—all for free.
- Linea Sketch – A beautifully simple drawing app with built-in color palettes, layers, and Apple Pencil support. Great for notes and casual sketching.
Best Drawing App for Beginners
Tayasui Sketches and Linea Sketch are ideal for beginners thanks to their intuitive interfaces and streamlined feature sets. They're perfect for learning the basics of digital art without being overwhelmed.
Best Drawing App for Professionals
Procreate and Affinity Designer stand out as professional-grade apps. With full creative control, advanced brush engines, and export tools, they are the top choice for serious artists.
Do You Need an Apple Pencil?
While most apps support finger drawing, the Apple Pencil significantly enhances the experience by enabling pressure sensitivity, tilt shading, and palm rejection. It's highly recommended for any serious digital art.
