7 BEST Procreate Alternatives for Android (2023)

ByAlyssa Walker Hours Updated

Procreate is a robust, professional, powerful, easy-to-use digital application for creating and editing digital graphics. Its massive suite of art tools and various other features make it a handy tool for digital artists, photographers, and content creators.

However, procreate has some significant flaws, like it is only available on an iPad. It does not support vector shapes and masks.

We have curated a list of the 7 best Procreate alternatives for you. Our research process includes evaluating software based on supported platforms, the number of brushes, customer support, and the ability to make custom brushes.

Best Procreate Alternative

Name Key Features Number of brushes Supported Platforms Free Trial Link
Adobe Fresco Vector brush option and provides watercolors 10 iPhone, iPad, Windows Lifetime Free Basic Plan Learn More
Clip Studio Paint Built-in animation software 18 Windows, macOS, iPad, iPhone, Android, and Chromebook 3 months Learn More
Sketchbook Color swatches, rulers and guides, and stroke stabilizer 23 Windows, macOS, iOS, Android Lifetime free basic plan Learn More
Inkscape Transforms scripts into digital formats 10 Windows, Linux, macOS Lifetime free Learn More
Adobe Photoshop Cropping images and adding or removing things from images 8 Windows, macOS 7 days Learn More
Expert Advice:

“When selecting a Procreate alternative, look for drawing apps with several brushes and supported platforms. It is always recommended to choose the app that best suits your use cases, such as digital art creation, photo editing, color grading, etc.”

1) Adobe Fresco – Best for collaborating in real time

Adobe Fresco offers a simple and intuitive interface for experienced and novice digital graphic creators. It offers features like vector layers, brushes, and other tools. It also allows you to change colors without tracing an outline and effortlessly select relevant areas of your image.

You can mimic watercolors and oils by using vector and raster brushes on your canvas. It lets you animate layers frame by frame or guides your drawing along a motion path. You can quickly push or pull pixels of an object using liquify tool without compromising the quality.

Adobe Fresco

Features:

  • It automatically syncs your projects between all your desktop and mobile devices using Adobe’s Creative Cloud
  • It allows you to push, pull, pucker, inflate, or exaggerate any section of your drawing to create distortion effects
  • Ability to move, copy, or delete multiple documents or folders at once
  • Provides 10 categories of brushes
  • It has integrations with Adobe Creative Cloud, Photoshop, Illustrator and the entire Adobe Suite.
👍 Pros 👎 Cons
You may design graphics with text by adding and altering text layers. Lacks the ability to create/develop new brushes.
Easily select elements from a vast library of widgets and bright shapes. Does not have a chrome OS version.
It gives you access to both vector and pixel brushes and live brushes.

How does Adobe Fresco compare to Procreate?

  • Adobe Fresco lets you easily animate your drawings using motion tools
  • Adobe Fresco provides a lot more UI customizing options in comparison to Procreate.

Key Specs:

Supported platforms: iPhone, iPad, Windows
Pricing: Free Basic Plan

Visit Adobe Fresco >>

2) Clip Studio Paint – Best for exporting database schema

Illustrators can use clip studio paint to organize their work by creating thumbnail grids, drawing precise lines, and changing the colors of images or artwork layers. It lets you fine-tune your graphics by doing the line spacing and thickness. You can draw with various options, such as saturated lines, streamlines, and other effect lines.

It lets you immediately pick colors from reference images using the sub-view menu. Its central panel allows easy access to tools, brushes, poses, and many more. You can also customize it and adapt it to fit your preferred use case. Clip Studio plain also allows you to buy brushes created by other artists in their marketplace.

Clip Studio Paint

Features:

  • Built-in support for multiple painting styles and brushes to mimic effects like oil paint, watercolor, cell-shading, etc.
  • Allows you to design your brushes to paint in your preferred style or to add textures for a more traditional look.
  • You can easily change pen pressure settings and recreate the natural, high-quality lines of pen and paper.
  • It provides a comprehensive set of pre-configured tools to help you start quickly.
  • You can choose from 18 different brushes.
  • It provides a robust API that allows you to build effortless integrations with various other services.
👍 Pros 👎 Cons
Allows you to create, test, and compare various color schemes using its AI-driven tools It provides no support for audio in animation.
They upload weekly free tutorials to help you improve your skills. It has limited text and fonts.
Supports sketching complex 3D figures.
Easily share your artwork to social media directly from the app.

How does Clip Studio Paint compare to Procreate?

  • Procreate can create graphics, but Clip Studio Paint is better if you want to create an illustration with many revisions
  • You can create your default templates in Clip Studio Paint, but Procreate does not provide you with similar functionality

Key Specs:

Supported platforms: Windows, macOS, iPad, iPhone, Android, and Chromebook
Pricing: $0.99 per month
Free trial: Yes, three months

Link: https://www.clipstudio.net/en/

3) Sketchbook – Best for creating color palettes and designs

Autodesk Sketchbook is a full-featured design and creativity software that allows you to create digital graphics on an iPad or tablet. You can use its various features to pick brushes, choose colors, move, rotate, and arrange things to work with layers.

It allows you to create flipbooks and import from and export to other apps like Photoshop. It offers a user-friendly interface with tools for color-filling, using rulers, symmetry, and more to enhance the drawing process. It is one of the strong replacements for Procreate, which also support a stylus, allowing you to make precise drawings.

Sketchbook

Features:

  • Easily create effects similar to traditional materials using pressure-sensitive features.
  • A screenshot tool is also included for annotations and to add notes for review.
  • It offers an easy-to-adjust brush size by utilizing a keyboard shortcut or a specialized toolbox.
  • It provides up to 1000 frames in a single flipbook, so you can use layers to separate main subjects.
  • It provides 23 different brushes
  • You can use its robust API to integrate with apps
👍 Pros 👎 Cons
Allows you to export several formats such as PNG, JPG, BMP, and many more. It does not provide scaling of objects and grids.
SketchBook supports graphic tablets and other input devices extensively. It does not allow you to open several frames.
You can quickly draw mandala-like designs by adding multiple points of symmetry.

How does Sketchbook compare to Procreate?

  • Sketchbook has better support for creating drawing on a piece of paper, whereas procreate lacks any such support
  • It offers a free version and more operating system flexibility, while procreate is a paid iOS app

Key Specs:

Supported platforms: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android
Pricing: Lifetime free basic plan

Link: https://www.sketchbook.com/

4) Inkscape – Best for using with machine design

Inkscape is a free-to-download program for creating and altering vector graphics. It is open-source software and encourages its active community to develop and program functionality-improving extensions and add-ons to troubleshoot bugs. Inkscape offers a vector drawing program that enables you to create works of art like photorealistic drawings and statistical charts.

It provides plenty of in-depth online tutorials on using its tools for editing/making digital graphics. It also lets you quickly draw pictures and effortlessly vectorize them to make corrections.

Inkscape

Features:

  • Easy and quick manipulation of text, shapes, or even images in the 2D domain.
  • Lets you edit existing vectors and perform various file format conversions for industrial and creative purposes.
  • It can digitally transform any handwritten script into a typo, sketch, or drawing.
  • You get to choose from 10 different brushes.
  • It has integrations with Pop!_, Graphic Tracer Professional, Neptune OS, and LottieFiles.
  • API is available for building integrations.
👍 Pros 👎 Cons
Seamlessly import and export various file formats, including SVG, AI, EPS, PDF, PS, and PNG. No option to see if colors are print or screen-friendly
Robust community and extension ecosystem. Poor interoperability with Illustrator
Easily create freehand drawings using filled paths representing calligraphic strokes.

How does Inkscape compare to Procreate?

  • Procreate provides many tools, but Inkscape has many advanced tools to create unique spirals, patterns, arrangements, advanced object manipulation, etc.

Key Specs:

Supported platforms: Windows, Linux, macOS
Pricing: Lifetime free

Link: https://inkscape.org/

5) Adobe Photoshop – Best for editing RAW images

Photoshop provides you with tools for various tasks like multilayer image manipulation, photo editing, illustration design, etc. It offers support for opening, editing, and color-grading RAW images. It also provides AI-driven object selection capabilities to easily select subjects or objects in images.

Adobe Photoshop sketch supports the broadest range of file formats for imports and exports. It has multiple built-in professional drawing tools for tasks such as alpha compositing, image wrapping, and masking. You can also use Adobe’s online tutorials to quickly learn concepts of Photoshop, color grading, and photo editing.

Adobe Photoshop

Features:

  • It allows you to create and manage various overlapping graphics elements.
  • Effortlessly perform many multi-image operations, like stitching multiple images into a bigger picture.
  • You can easily search for relevant tools and guidance with advanced support tools.
  • Enjoy granular control over your image with tools to adjust hue, saturation, luminance, exposure, sharpening, vibrance, etc.
  • Provides eight high-quality brushes along with support for quickly creating new brushes.
  • Supports integrations with Adobe Illustrator, Droplr, Adobe Photoshop Express, Daminion, etc.
  • Robust API is available to create integrations
👍 Pros 👎 Cons
It helps you to save your edited images and Photoshop files directly in your cloud storage. It is very time-consuming for beginners to get started with Photoshop.
You can use its robust 1-click filters to modify the look of an image effortlessly.
It provides many advanced plugins, brushes, templates, and other tools to help you achieve your goals.

How does Adobe Photoshop compare to Procreate?

  • Adobe Photoshop has a bunch of different options not only for illustrating but also for photo editing, web design, and printing, compared to Procreate, which provides fewer options than Photoshop.
  • Photoshop also allows you to have granular control over each layer, but Procreate doesn’t have this feature.

Key Specs:

Supported Platforms: Windows, macOS
Pricing: $20.99 per month
Free trial: Yes, 7 days

Visit Photoshop >>

6) Krita – Best for sharing professional sketches

Krita is a drawing application that includes simulations for many painting techniques, such as watercolor, oil paint, charcoal, and pastel chalk. Its pop-up menu gives instant access to the color ring selector. You have absolute control over your brushes, allowing you to create effects and strokes easily. It also provides a full-color wheel and sizes and opacity settings.

Krita’s provides a Gradient tool to help you create stunning artwork. It offers many assets, such as perspective halftone filters, etc., to help you draw efficiently. Krita also has comic textures and other templates. The blending works well, and it gives a lot of creative options.

Krita

Features:

  • Provides tools to create new textures and patterns.
  • You can effortlessly import and use 3rd party assets like brushes and texture packs.
  • Robust digital assistant assists you in creating all your desired shapes and designs.
  • It provides users with 120+ brush options.
  • Easily integrates with Adobe Photoshop.
  • You can use its robust API to build custom integrations
👍 Pros 👎 Cons
You can create an instance of a layer that will be updated in real time if the source layer is modified. The lack of tutorials
The graphic wheel lets you change color quickly. Fast-paced brush movements may cause the program to lag slightly.
Built-in support to import audio and export as video.

How does Krita compare to Procreate?

  • Krita supports more platforms, such as windows and macOS, but procreate only supports iPad.
  • Krita is open-source and ideal for beginners unsure about investing in a paid tool, whereas Procreate has no free plans.

Key Specs:

Supported Platforms: Windows, Linux, macOS, Android
Pricing: Lifetime free

Link: https://krita.org/en/

7) Painter – Best for decorative finishes on surfaces

Painter provides a dependable, skilled digital art program. It offers flexible painting tools, outstanding blending, and hundreds of artist-created brushes. A custom palette allows you to keep a selection of your favorite brushes close at hand. Its brush size library provides quick access to your most frequently used sizes.

You can create eye-catching compositions using the heavenly proportion, Layout Grid, Perspective Guides, and Mirror Painting tools. Papers, Flow Maps, Patterns, Textures, Gradients, and many other elements can improve your artwork. It gives a whole extensive range of materials, allowing the user to change and adapt the tools for better use.

Painter

Features:

  • The automatic UV unwrapping allows the generation of UV islands automatically when importing a 3D model.
  • The user interface is straightforward and has excellent tutorials to help you jump-start if you are new to the software.
  • Provides a lot of different canvases, such as watercolor paper, that let you create graphics with various textures, colors, gradients, etc.
  • This Procreate competitor offers 285+ different brushes.
  • It offers a feature for quickly pan, zooming, rotating, and applying lighting and surface texture.
  • Supports integrations with Adobe Photoshop.
  • Easily integrate with your current workflow using its advanced API.
👍 Pros 👎 Cons
Using the dab library, you can change the dab effects of your favorite brushes, bristle by bristle. Difficult to change small elements as it lacks individual layers.
Infinite customization of brushes, textures, and other media. It does not provide frequent updates to shapes, designs, and colors.
It allows you to make your brushes and share them.
Easy to mix digital and traditional drawings due to many brushes.

How does Painter compare to Procreate?

  • Procreate is suitable for casual artists, whereas Corel Painter is ideal for professional artists who want more creative freedom.
  • Procreate comes with essential video guides, whereas Painter has advanced video tutorials to teach digital graphics.

Key Specs:

Supported Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux
Pricing: $429
Free trial: Yes, 15 days

Link: https://www.painterartist.com/en/?link=wm

FAQs

Procreate is a robust digital graphic creation tool explicitly built for iPadOS. It provides plenty of features and tutorials to assist you in effortless art creation.

It also offers a vast selection of brushes, including pencils, inks, charcoals, and artistic brushes that lay lovely painterly textures. It’s brush studio feature allows you to customize each stroke or download hundreds of brushes to fit any style.

Here are some of the best procreate alternatives:

Here are some important points that you need to remember while selecting the best Procreate alternatives:

  • Customer Support: You need to make sure that the software you choose should have 24/7 customer support willing to help you. If the software provides various methods to contact them, then it is worth a try.
  • Number of brushes: As an artist, brushes are essential to perfection when designing something. You should check for the number of brushes before paying for an illustrator.
  • Device Support: Your ideal Procreate alternative should have proper support for all your devices and accessories that you use.
  • Integrations: Applications can easily communicate with each other through software integrations. That updates are quick makes it even better.


Best Procreate Alternative

Name Key Features Number of brushes Supported Platforms Free Trial Link
Adobe Fresco Vector brush option and provides watercolors 10 iPhone, iPad, Windows Lifetime Free Basic Plan Learn More
Clip Studio Paint Built-in animation software 18 Windows, macOS, iPad, iPhone, Android, and Chromebook 3 months Learn More
Sketchbook Color swatches, rulers and guides, and stroke stabilizer 23 Windows, macOS, iOS, Android Lifetime free basic plan Learn More
Inkscape Transforms scripts into digital formats 10 Windows, Linux, macOS Lifetime free Learn More
Adobe Photoshop Cropping images and adding or removing things from images 8 Windows, macOS 7 days Learn More

Final Verdict

We have tried to cover all the best Procreate alternatives you can use. recommend looking for a procreate alternative that can quickly handle your current and future needs.

  • If you want to collaborate with different people in real time, then Adobe fresco is the ideal choice.
  • Whereas, if you want to edit raw images, then Adobe photoshop could be the most useful.
  • If you want beautiful designs on different surfaces, you might want to try Painter.

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