Verithiathe honest score on any app
Updated July 2026 · real, multi-region App Store reviews
Head-to-head

Animation Desk® Draw & Animate vs Adobe Fresco

Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 4.2★ · Free + IAP 40
Winner Adobe Fresco
Adobe Fresco 4.7★ · Free + IAP 75

For a more reliable and feature-rich experience, Adobe Fresco is the better choice, despite recent UI complaints, while Animation Desk struggles with critical stability and paywall issues.

Full reviews: Animation Desk® Draw & Animate · Adobe Fresco

Adobe Fresco offers a robust drawing and animation experience with a wide range of brushes and stable performance, though recent UI changes have frustrated some users. Animation Desk, while praised for its fun and free aspects, is plagued by severe glitches, data loss, and aggressive paywalls that hinder its usability.

Head to head

Features and Tools edge: Adobe FrescoR1R2R3R4
Animation Desk® Draw & Animate Animation Desk offers basic animation features, but many essential tools like different brush types, colored onion skinning, and the ability to move selections are locked behind paywalls or are nonexistent R2R3R4. Users also report issues with importing videos and audio, limiting its utility for more complex projects R1R32.
Adobe Fresco Adobe Fresco is praised for its extensive brush variety, including vector and watercolor brushes, and its layer control . However, some users note a lack of specific brush sizes and issues with certain tools like the text tool or the ability to add images to layers after updates R64.
Ease of Use tieR29R32R42R46
Animation Desk® Draw & Animate Some users find Animation Desk simple and easy to use for basic animations, especially for beginners R29R32. However, others find the UI horrible and hard to navigate, and the app can be difficult to get started with or understand R42R46.
Adobe Fresco Adobe Fresco is generally considered easy to operate and beginner-friendly, with interactive tours for new users . However, recent UI updates, particularly the relocation of toolbars and buttons, have caused significant frustration and made the app less intuitive for long-time users R64R70R78R88.
Reliability and Stability edge: Adobe FrescoR6R8R9R10
Animation Desk® Draw & Animate Animation Desk suffers from severe and frequent glitches, including random app exits, freezing, work deletion, inverted copies of drawings, and frames getting messed up or shortened R6R8R9R10. These issues often lead to significant loss of work and frustration.
Adobe Fresco Adobe Fresco also experiences stability issues, with users reporting constant crashes, files not opening, and parts or all of progress being deleted . Some users have also reported issues with syncing and saving, leading to lost work, and the app becoming slow or unusable due to storage issues R76.
Price and Value edge: Adobe FrescoR2R4R5R13
Animation Desk® Draw & Animate Animation Desk is a free app with in-app purchases, but many users feel that too many basic features, including different brushes, saving, and even starting to play, are locked behind paywalls or subscriptions R2R4R5R13. This aggressive monetization strategy makes the free version feel very limited and frustrating.
Adobe Fresco Adobe Fresco is also a free app with in-app purchases. Users appreciate that it offers a lot of functionality for free, with some even calling it a 'freemium' app that provides 90% of what they need without payment . However, exporting or saving projects often requires signing in to an Adobe account, which some users find inconvenient or a barrier R65R67R76R96.
Pick Animation Desk® Draw & Animate if

You are looking for a very basic, free animation app to experiment with simple concepts and don't mind frequent glitches or limited features without paying R29.

Pick Adobe Fresco if

You want a robust drawing and animation app with a wide variety of brushes and good layer control, are willing to adapt to UI changes, and potentially pay for advanced features or are already part of the Adobe ecosystem .

Evidence note: The evidence for Animation Desk is heavily skewed towards negative recent reviews, highlighting significant and recurring issues with glitches and paywalls, which contrasts with its higher lifetime rating. Adobe Fresco also has recent negative reviews, primarily focused on UI changes and some stability issues, but its overall feature set and perceived value remain strong.

Frequently asked

Does Animation Desk have a lot of ads or paywalls?
Animation Desk has a significant number of paywalls and ads, with users reporting that many basic features like different brushes, colored onion skinning, and even saving work are locked behind subscriptions or in-app purchases R2R3R4R13.
Are there issues with losing work in Animation Desk?
Yes, many users report critical issues with Animation Desk randomly exiting, freezing, or deleting significant portions or all of their work, leading to hours of lost effort R6R8R9R10.
Can I use Adobe Fresco without an Adobe account?
You can use Adobe Fresco to draw without an Adobe account, but you cannot export or save your artwork to your device without logging into an Adobe (Creative Cloud) account R65R67R76R96.
Has Adobe Fresco's user interface changed recently?
Yes, Adobe Fresco has had recent UI updates that have significantly changed the layout of tools and buttons, moving them from the side to the top, which has frustrated many long-time users who find it less intuitive and harder to adapt to R64R70R78R88.

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] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 2/5 · US Wasn’t very satisfied: This app seems good, but I waited half an hour for a video to import, and it didn’t even show at all. Do I just need to wait for it to load, or is it not working? It made me really sad, by the fact that it wasted my time. Please fix :(
  2. [R2] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 5/5 · US Absolutely FANTASTIC: It’s so fun and there are almost NO adds im NOT exaggerating. Only thing I DONT like is that you have to pay for the different brush types that’s the only thing so if the developers could update that it’ll be like a million stars
  3. [R3] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 3/5 · US Decent enough: I feel like it’s so hard for a single animation app to actually include all the things that I feel like should come with it. Colored onion skinning and being able to move around things in a selection should be a basic essential and not behind a gamble or nonexistent!
  4. [R4] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 2/5 · US It could be better: I would have liked it if I didn’t have to pay for everything. I could only use one brush ( and the brush sucked) also it was kinda glitchy. So if you are planning on getting this app I would not recommend it. Developers please make this app more free!! It would be sooooo much better!
  5. [R29] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 5/5 · US . Best animation thing ever.: It is amazing. You should definitely download it because you can animate when ever and it’s free.
  6. [R32] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 4/5 · US Pretty cool: It was super cool to use, simple, but effective, and I really love the fact that when you’re animating, it looks like you’re doing it with an actual animation desk. Though, if you’re making a story time animation, it only lets you import music from iTunes. Still pretty good.
  7. [R42] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 3/5 · US Ugh really hard: This was really hard
  8. [R46] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 1/5 · US SOS: So, I got this app, and I can’t make an animation. I’ve tried everything. Please help. I’d love to be able to use this app. Thanks! -CozyFox26
  9. [R6] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 3/5 · US Doesn’t Save???: This app was good but while I was in the middle of animating it randomly exits me out and deletes some frames of my work. Idk what’s happening, but maybe fix it?
  10. [R8] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 4/5 · US It’s good but it’s not all that: Hey y’all so the app is good but there are some bugs it’s minor but annoying. First when I zoom in and when I try to get back out I can’t I have to exit the app and go back in. Next is like a toca boca glitch if you work on it for a while you get kicked out it happened to me and when I went back in my animation I was working on was gone. So yeah if you can fix that
  11. [R9] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 3/5 · US 2 Hours of work, GONE!: I was working hard on an animation that I really wanted to be one of my best. I had been drawing for 2 hours straight. 120 frames or so. I really loved it so far. And then, the screen froze. The app force closed and when I re-entered all of my work had erased. I was devastated. This app has done this 3 times now, and my i-Pad is never slow. Be prepared to lose your artwork.
  12. [R10] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 1/5 · US Just a bunch of glitches: I can’t go 3 slides without project destroying glitches
  13. [R5] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 4/5 · US I love it but…: I love this I have made comics and stuff but you do have to pay for certain stuff # a lot. But I still really love it.
  14. [R13] Animation Desk® Draw & Animate 1/5 · US Why?: I wanted to start my own YouTube channel and do storytime animations, but for some stupid reason, it kept making an inverted copy of my drawing upside down and inverted colors. I was going to ignore it and crop it out using my editing program, but it kept doing it over and over and it eventually messed with the original design on the bottom, and that's whenever I quit. Worst app ever, not to
  15. [R65] Adobe Fresco 5/5 · US Wonderfully wpp: It's q great app I love it but warning if u want to save ur projects u need to sign in it's not w complaint itsnjust a warning so yea wonderfull app I recommend it
  16. [R67] Adobe Fresco 2/5 · US ACCOUNT NECESSARY: I made something small and quick, went to export and I could not export without signing in to some account. I can’t even save to my own device without an account. That alone makes this app pretty useless. What a waste.
  17. [R76] Adobe Fresco 1/5 · US Saving and signing in: I didn’t sign in I made a gif and tried to save it to my photos and it wouldn’t let me no matter how much I solved the issue and then froze even tho I have good WiFi. Then I lost all my work and now can’t send the Father’s Day gif I made. This app has been very frustrating.
  18. [R96] Adobe Fresco 3/5 · GB No Export Without Adobe Account Login: The app itself has been wonderful so far. I love the brush selection, their categories and behavior. I find it easy to get started with and fun to use. You can use the app right away, no payment or login required (thank you!). But, you cannot export any of your artwork without logging into your Adobe (Creative Cloud) account. Which drastically limits the
  19. [R64] Adobe Fresco 1/5 · US Won’t add images: For whatever reason it won’t let me add images to my projects from my camera roll. On iPad, everything is up to date. You’re really starting to shi the bed adobe. The new layout is garbage too. Put the stuff back on the side. Having to scroll through the tools is garbage. You’re garbage.
  20. [R70] Adobe Fresco 2/5 · US boo: I just want to use fresco the way it used to be. The latest update really took away some features that were incredibly convenient and which made it super easy and quick create and finish projects on time. bad call, changing that. and it’s not cool that you won’t even allow us to re-download the previous version.
  21. [R78] Adobe Fresco 3/5 · US The placements suck: PLEASE LET US HAVE THE OLD PLACEMENTS FOR THE BRUSHES AND STUFF INSTEAD OF THIS GARBAGE I have used this app for years, and the placement of where the eraser and brush was was perfect, beautiful even, but now it’s just a weird and a jumbled mess I have to relearn to navigate, and I already had issues when the weird recent feature moving my stuff around, and a whole change to
  22. [R88] Adobe Fresco 1/5 · US Layout changed. Again.: There is absolutely 0 reason to constantly change your layout. I have no idea where my tools are and since I basically have to gain muscle memory for a whole new app, there’s no better time to switch to Procreate. Bye bye Adobe.

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