Procreate is the reigning champ for iPad artists who want speed and simplicity. Adobe Fresco shines for Creative Cloud loyalists who need live brushes and cross-device flexibility.
Procreate costs less than a Starbucks venti latte and has replaced $3,000 desktop setups for professional illustrators — the developers must be furious at how cheap they priced it.
You want the fastest, most intuitive iPad drawing experience with no subscriptions
Procreate's one-time price and silky performance make it the obvious pick for pure illustration.
→ Pick ProcreateYou live in the Adobe ecosystem and need vector + raster in one app
Fresco syncs natively with Photoshop and Illustrator, making it a no-brainer for CC subscribers.
→ Pick Adobe FrescoYou want to paint with realistic watercolor or oil brush physics
Fresco's live brushes are genuinely unmatched — nothing else simulates wet media this convincingly.
→ Pick Adobe FrescoYou need animation features alongside your drawing workflow
Procreate's built-in animation assist is handy; Fresco has no animation tools at all.
→ Pick Procreate