ibis Paint X: a thousand brushes, paid for with ads
ibis Paint X hands out more brushes and layers than paid rivals and charges for it in advertising. We look at who that trade suits.
ibis Paint X is built around generosity: layers, blend modes, over a thousand brushes and recorded time-lapses — everything other apps charge for on day one.
What it gives you
A brush library paid rivals do not have. There are more than a thousand, from pencil to watercolour texture. For someone who does not yet know what they want to draw with, that matters more than any other feature.
Tools built for anime and manga: perspective rulers, symmetry, fill-by-outline, screentones. The set is assembled around one school of drawing, and the app is more honest for it than the general-purpose ones.
Process recording. Time-lapse is captured automatically, with no setup — and it is what people share more often than the finished piece.
What it costs
Advertising. The free version shows clips in exchange for temporary access to some brushes and filters. The mechanic is exactly as irritating as intended, and a subscription removes it.
The interface. Dense, small buttons, nested menus — the price of having many tools. On a phone it is felt more than on a tablet.
Who it is not for
Anyone who draws with a finger now and then. The abundance gets in the way here: reaching a plain pencil means walking past nine hundred brushes.
And anyone thrown off by ads mid-work. Sketchbook does less but never interrupts.
The rest of the picks are in our roundup: Best drawing apps for phone and tablet in 2026.
The full breakdown is in: How to draw on your phone without buying anything.
The direct comparison is in: Procreate vs ibis Paint X: paying for a standard, or not paying at all.
Common questions
- Is ibis Paint X available on Android?
- Yes, the app ships for both iPhone and Android. We last checked both stores on August 27, 2026.
- What languages does ibis Paint X support?
- Of the languages this site covers, the App Store lists: Russian, Spanish, English, German. The store page shows the full list for your region.
- Is ibis Paint X free?
- ibis Paint X is free to download, with some features behind a subscription. What the free tier covers is visible on first launch, before you pay anything.