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Updated July 2026 · real, multi-region App Store reviews
Head-to-head

Tayasui Sketches vs ibis Paint X

Tayasui Sketches 4.5★ · Free + IAP 40
Winner ibis Paint X
ibis Paint X 4.7★ · Free + IAP 75

ibis Paint X is the better choice for most users, offering a more robust free experience and a wider range of features, despite recent issues with its in-app browser.

Full reviews: Tayasui Sketches · ibis Paint X

Tayasui Sketches, once a beloved free app, has alienated many long-time users with recent changes to its paywall, making basic features and even creating new artworks require payment or subscription. ibis Paint X, while also having ads and paid features, offers a more comprehensive free experience and is praised for its extensive tools, though a recent update removing its in-app browser has caused significant user frustration.

Head to head

Features edge: ibis Paint XR1R7R11R13
Tayasui Sketches Tayasui Sketches is praised for its clear UI, ease of sorting drawings, and good tutorials, with users enjoying the tools for fashion sketches and general creativity R21R35. However, many essential features, including basic pens, more than one drawing, and even canvas rotation, are now behind a paywall R1R7R13R15. Users also report a lack of marker options and brush inconsistencies R11.
ibis Paint X ibis Paint X is lauded for its extensive tools, various brush sizes, layers, and undo buttons, making it suitable for beginners and advanced artists alike R103. It's particularly recommended for creating Webtoon comics . However, a recent update removed the in-app web browser, making it difficult for users to access and download new fonts, which is a significant point of frustration R61R64R67R73. Some users also feel that basic tools like flipping selections are missing .
Ease of Use tieR6R21R24R35
Tayasui Sketches Tayasui Sketches is generally considered easy to navigate and use for general sketching, with a clear UI and good tutorials R21R35. However, some users find it laggy and glitchy, especially on older devices R6R21R24.
ibis Paint X ibis Paint X is praised for being easy to learn and use, even for finger drawing on a phone R103R107R111. However, some users find it confusing and recent updates have made tasks like downloading fonts more difficult and less intuitive .
Reliability tieR4R21R24R28
Tayasui Sketches Tayasui Sketches has significant reliability issues, with frequent crashes reported by many users, sometimes making the app unusable R4R21R24R28. Users also report problems saving art and the app requiring constant internet connection R28.
ibis Paint X ibis Paint X also experiences reliability problems, including crashes and drawings being corrupted or deleted . Users report issues with photos not uploading and the online gallery not working .
Price/Value edge: ibis Paint XR1R3R4R7
Tayasui Sketches Tayasui Sketches has faced severe backlash due to recent changes in its monetization strategy. Many users, including long-time purchasers of the 'pro' or 'full version,' are now forced into subscriptions or find basic features paywalled R1R3R4R7. This is seen as a 'cash grab' and 'scam' by many R4R31R40.
ibis Paint X ibis Paint X is free with in-app purchases, offering a significant amount of functionality for free users R77. However, it is heavily criticized for frequent and intrusive ads, which many users find annoying and disruptive R63. Some advanced brushes and features are also behind a paywall R63.
Support tieR10R27R31R40
Tayasui Sketches Reviews for Tayasui Sketches do not explicitly mention customer support, but the lack of communication regarding paywall changes and the perceived disregard for long-time users' purchases suggest poor support or communication R10R27R31R40.
ibis Paint X Reviews for ibis Paint X do not explicitly mention customer support. However, the widespread frustration and calls to 'bring back the browser' R61R64R67R73 suggest that user feedback on recent changes has not been adequately addressed.
Pick Tayasui Sketches if

you value a clear, easy-to-navigate UI for basic sketching and are willing to pay for a subscription to access full features, or if you specifically enjoy its traditional art feel R21R35.

Pick ibis Paint X if

you are a beginner digital artist looking for a wide array of tools and features in a free app, are comfortable with ads, and can work around the recent in-app browser changes for fonts R77R103.

Evidence note: Recent reviews for Tayasui Sketches are heavily skewed negative due to significant changes in its monetization model, impacting its lifetime rating. ibis Paint X also has recent negative reviews concerning a specific feature removal, but its overall free offering remains more robust.

Frequently asked

Is Tayasui Sketches truly free to use?
No, while advertised as free, many basic features, including creating more than one artwork, accessing basic pens, and rotating the canvas, are now behind a paywall or subscription R1R7R15R19.
Why are users upset with recent ibis Paint X updates?
Users are primarily upset because a recent update removed the in-app web browser, making it significantly harder to download and access new fonts, especially for minors with parental controls on external browsers R61R64R67R73.
Which app is better for beginners?
ibis Paint X is generally recommended for beginner artists due to its wide range of free tools, layers, and undo functions, making it easy to learn and experiment with digital art R77R103R107R111.
Do both apps have ads?
Tayasui Sketches has ads, particularly for its 'Suite' and premium features R9R46R58, while ibis Paint X is heavily criticized for frequent and intrusive pop-up ads, especially when exiting projects R63.

What reviewers actually said

Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.

  1. [R1] Tayasui Sketches 1/5 · US Good and bad: Stupid part about this. Is that when you try to make a new artwork you have to pay and get a free trial just to get a new artwork and you have to pay .
  2. [R7] Tayasui Sketches 1/5 · US Why Pay Now?: I have had this app for many years at this point, using it for a wide variety of projects. There has always been the option to buy pro, but the free version at least provided a lot on its own. Then I go to use it today (July 6, 2026) after just using it the day before, and suddenly I now have to buy pro to access all the basic pens?! All I want is to use the ink pen (right in the mid
  3. [R11] Tayasui Sketches 4/5 · US Good: Tayasui sketches is pretty good but i wish there were more marker options
  4. [R13] Tayasui Sketches 1/5 · US Terrible: Thank you for removing every feature that makes this app good and then putting it behind a subscription service.
  5. [R6] Tayasui Sketches 3/5 · US Potential: Everything cost money can’t do anything. Laggy.
  6. [R21] Tayasui Sketches 3/5 · US Good app but could use improvements: Crashes a lot on older devices, if you don’t want your stuff to look so traditional then the app probably isn’t for you. Everyone on sketches community posts traced drawings or stolen art. They an have AI ‘art’ generator now. Other than that, the clear UI, the easiness to sort drawings, and the tutorials are very good.
  7. [R24] Tayasui Sketches 3/5 · US Used to love it but….: Was a 5 went to 3 then to 1… now it’s 3 again. I’ve used this app since 2016 and it’s been my go to drawing companion but it’s been crashing all the time and some days it just won’t start. Recently I’ve had to uninstall and reinstall multiple times just to get it open. Edit: Okay phew… after it breaking after the constant updates I think it’s worth it again. It’ll never be 5
  8. [R35] Tayasui Sketches 5/5 · US Fantastic Journey Into Creativity: Sketches is a great creative outlet with an easy to navigate menu bringing your visions to life. Give it a go and let your spirit lead the way!
  9. [R4] Tayasui Sketches 2/5 · US You deserve better than this cash grab: To have a short story, this app is god awful, crashes constantly, constantly tries to get your money, and art programs from the 2000s has more features. To have a bit of a longer story, this app is the reason I’m an artist. It was the first art program I ever used and really lead me to fall in love with art. The app was very nice about how it got its incom
  10. [R28] Tayasui Sketches 1/5 · US Used to be good: This app used to be awesome, now it costs more, constantly needs to connected to internet to work, and freezes and crashes nonstop. Update: purchased “full version” for my daughter for her birthday so she could use it offline, now they’re requiring a weekly “premium” membership for the same offline use. False advertising.
  11. [R3] Tayasui Sketches 3/5 · US Ok: It’s OK, but I think having to pay for it and subscribeTwo. It is crazy.
  12. [R10] Tayasui Sketches 1/5 · US Subscription only?: I purchased to unlock the app several years ago, but now I have to pay a monthly or weekly subscription to ever use it again. This was the best drawing app, but now it’s unusable without forking over more money which I will NIT be doing to a money hungry dev.
  13. [R27] Tayasui Sketches 3/5 · US Love the app but…: I love the app. I’m been drawing with for a long time. I purchased the pro version a while back but now is asking for a subscription. I really don’t like how everything is a subscription now and when I purchased the pro is supposed to be for ever.
  14. [R31] Tayasui Sketches 1/5 · US Scam: I purchased this app back when it came out and now they’re charging monthly and requiring “premium” to use offline. I bought the “full version” for like $25+ years ago and apparently that deal is off now? What is a “premium” drawing subscription? What a joke.
  15. [R40] Tayasui Sketches 1/5 · US I'm not paying again: well, this is getting annoying. If you pay for the app, is it ok for them to charge you again? welcome to the future, now even drawing apps are following this scheme of pay for play. I bought the previous version, and now what, you don’t count because we changed strategies, sowwy? this has become the sesspool of stupid AI icons, like we wouldn’t notice, and I knew this was co
  16. [R15] Tayasui Sketches 3/5 · US It’s okay: It’s okay because it needs to be purchased to draw more than one drawing😕
  17. [R19] Tayasui Sketches 1/5 · US Terrible: I cant draw more than one drawing untill I delete the other
  18. [R61] ibis Paint X 1/5 · US Uhmmmm why??: I would’ve rated this a 5 but ever since ibis paint x took away the google feature I can’t get the fonts I want to. Please bring that back. I also don’t really know why but it won’t let me view the online gallery. Please fix this and thank you. (This update honestly sucks tho plz bring back the google feature and online gallery)
  19. [R64] ibis Paint X 1/5 · US new update: this new update sucks for like half the people that use your app. a lot of us are minors without web browsers and now we can't access our comics. please bring back the in app web browser. idk who told you guys that this was a good idea
  20. [R67] ibis Paint X 1/5 · US Dawg: Brochacho bring back the browser 👅 I am not researching about my oc lore on safari anyway stream Mitski 🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥
  21. [R73] ibis Paint X 1/5 · US Bro: I can’t goon no more bring the browser back✌️
  22. [R77] ibis Paint X 5/5 · US Best drawing app ever!: Ok so I’ve had this app the minute I found out about digital art. If you’re a beginner artist then I recommend this app 100%! This app is the best app on my iPad (other then TikTok and Roblox) love you ibis paint X!
  23. [R103] ibis Paint X 5/5 · US IbisPaint is useful!: IS THE BEST this app is really easy for me and I’m literally doing it on a phone with a finger but I like how you can do layers and have undo buttons and different types of brushes And this app is very useful
  24. [R107] ibis Paint X 5/5 · US <3: It’s so much fun 💙💙💙 and easy to learn how to play
  25. [R111] ibis Paint X 5/5 · US Perfect: I LOVE this app so much I usually am bad at finger drawing but this CHANGED my finger drawing I improved so much I really recommend this if you are bad at finger drawing TIP: you can press the lock on the brush your want and at the very bottom of it it say watch ad or smthn I have NO problems with it and I hope you do too
  26. [R9] Tayasui Sketches 3/5 · US Good but can be better: I love the game but I don’t like the ads that you have to deal with every day.
  27. [R46] Tayasui Sketches 1/5 · US In app purchase: The drawing utensils are very limited because of how little amount of them you can use,and is very annoying when I try to draw without a ad.
  28. [R58] Tayasui Sketches 1/5 · US Terrible and doesn’t work: It won’t stop bombarding you with ads for the Tayasui Suite, but it keeps crashing whenever I try to use it in my most recent drawing, and too many features that used to be free are now paywalled. It’s a greedy and nonfunctional app. If you’re an artist thinking of finding a digital drawing program, do NOT use this one.
  29. [R63] ibis Paint X 3/5 · US Eh: Good but not good. Too many ads and most good stuff you gotta pay for. Just make it a paid app at this rate.

Synthesized from 120 recent App Store reviews · updated July 2026 · View on the App Store