Sketchbook: a clean canvas with no ads and no subscription
Sketchbook gives away its full toolset and never shows an ad. We look at what it wins on against more generous rivals.
Sketchbook started as an Autodesk product for industrial design and kept the habit: a clean canvas, tools at the edges, nothing between you and the drawing.
What it gives you
No ads and no payments. This is the main thing and rare in the category: no clips, no locked brushes, no subscription prompts. Work is never interrupted.
Predictability. The toolset does not change between releases and does not grow sideways. Six months in you work the way you did on day one — for a daily tool that is a virtue.
An interface that stays out of the way. Panels hide, the canvas fills the screen, the gestures are learned in an evening.
What it costs
A modest library. Brushes number in the dozens, not the thousands. Plenty for sketching and line work, not enough for textured painting.
No specialisation. No manga tools like ibis Paint, no vector like Concepts, no animation. A general-purpose app loses to a specialised one on a narrow job.
Who it is not for
Anyone looking for brush variety: there is none here and there will not be.
And anyone who needs a specific school — comics, calligraphy, technical illustration. Sketchbook is evenly good at everything and best at nothing.