Adobe Fresco vs Procreate: Which One is Right for You?

Adobe Fresco and Procreate are two of the most popular digital art tools. Each tool brings its own unique features and capabilities like realistic brushes, animation options and creative blending modes. Depending on the type of digital art you plan on creating, you might want to learn to use Procreate rather than Adobe Fresco or vice versa.

Digital illustration has been growing in popularity for years because it is accessible to new artists, offers a wide range of powerful art tools and allows for an easy creation and editing process. By taking the time to choose the right digital art app for you, you’ll ensure the highest levels of productivity and creativity during your art process.

Recently, Adobe announced that Adobe Fresco will be free for all users, which means it is more financially accessible than Procreate and other powerful digital art apps. If you’re working with a limited digital art budget, you might consider starting with Adobe Fresco before trying to learn how to use Procreate.

Now it’s time to dive into a quick overview of Adobe Fresco and Procreate’s tools and features, what to know when using each app and extra resources like downloadable guides and helpful online communities. By discovering the pros and cons of two of the best drawing apps, you’ll be better prepared to choose the right digital art software for you.

Quick Overview of Adobe Fresco & Procreate

An iPad sits on a wooden table. The screen is open to Adobe Fresco with an illustration that reads “We really carrots your birthday.” Beneath the words are eight excited carrots. One is holding a birthday cake, another holds a present and a third wears a birthday hat. — Notice the depth of textures and colors visible in this Adobe Fresco creation. Still from Skillshare class Adobe Fresco: Digital Illustration with Hand Lettering by Dylan Mierzwinski

Adobe Fresco: As a painting and drawing app, Adobe Fresco offers thousands of brushes, motion tools and easy integration with other Adobe apps like Photoshop and Illustrator.

You’ll have access to professional-level digital drawing essentials like Symmetry, which mirrors your strokes, and Paint Inside, which will keep your color within enclosed areas of your drawing. You can also work with unlimited layers for non-destructive edits and with both vector or raster brushes.

One thing that artist Dylan Mierzwinski really likes about Adobe Fresco is its tool-heavy layout, which allows you to access many powerful tools with just one click. You can also work in full-screen if you prefer a sleek and minimalist canvas.

An iPad sits on a purple background surrounded by candles, thread and other miscellaneous objects. The iPad is open to Procreate. On the canvas is an illustrated tiger head on a blue background. A hand, holding a stylus, adjusts the hue by clicking on a sliding bar at the bottom of the screen. — You’ll notice the simplicity of Procreate’s user interface even when adjusting the more advanced hue, saturation and brightness settings. Still from Skillshare class Procreate for Beginners: Learn Illustration on the iPad in 4 Projects by Brooke Glaser

Procreate: Designed for high-quality sketching, painting and illustrating, Procreate is a digital art app with hundreds of brushes ranging from pencils to inks to charcoals, a powerful brush studio and dozens of color and art tools. The award-winning software appeals to illustrators, designers and creatives of all niches for its streamlined features, customization options and built-in accessibility features.

This user found that Procreate helped him learn how to draw because he was able to easily undo any mistakes, trace over inspiration in his early days of creating and use layers to work on the background of his illustration without changing the foreground.

Artists also use Procreate to create patterns with the Duplicate, Flip and Rotate tools.

Features & Tools

A hand uses a white stylus to add a watercolor-like stroke onto a blank canvas within Adobe Fresco on an iPad. The iPad sits on a white background. — Adobe Fresco’s live brushes, which include watercolors and oil brushes, act like real-life brushes by mimicking the texture and thickness of real paint. Still from Skillshare class Illustration Practice: Lettering & Florals With Adobe Fresco by Dylan Mierzwinski

Adobe Fresco Highlights: Digital artists choose Adobe Fresco when they want to paint, sketch and animate on the go with powerful tools developed by one of the world’s most well-known software and design companies. Within the app, you’ll find thousands of brushes including:

Textural raster brushes that use pixels to mimic real-life textures
Live brushes that bloom, blend, and smudge like real watercolor and oil paints
Vector brushes for art that will scale and won’t pixelate

If you’re looking to create a design that you could turn into stickers, a logo or a poster for an upcoming art fair, you might prefer to work with vector brushes so that you can easily adjust your art to any size without losing quality.

You might also choose to work with vector brushes if you want to bring your artwork over to Adobe Illustrator. You can edit vector layers in Illustrator but you can’t edit any pixel layers.

If you already work in apps in Illustrator, you’ll appreciate how easily you can integrate your Fresco work into other Creative Cloud apps. You can instantly send your artwork to Illustrator right from the Adobe Fresco app.

To bring your Fresco work into other Adobe Creative Cloud apps like Adobe Photoshop, you’ll need to publish and export your file to the correct file type. You’ll use a PSD file when importing your work to Photoshop and a PNG or JPG file for a project in InDesign.

Animation is one of Adobe Fresco's newest capabilities. You can add movement to your artwork using both frame-to-frame and motion path techniques. Your final creation can be exported as MP4, GIF or PNG.

Adobe Fresco will work on iPhone, iPad and Windows devices with Intel, Nvidia or AMD processors.

Procreate Highlights: As a two-time Apple Design Award winner and the top paid app on the iPad, it’s no surprise that Procreate is supremely popular among digital artists. Since its release in 2011, Procreate has touted highly optimized brushes, color palettes and layering features.

Procreate comes with over 200 handcrafted brushes, such as pencils, inks and charcoals, but you can add thousands more by downloading brushes from online or making your own in the Brush Studio.

The Brush Studio is one of Procreate’s most powerful features because you can create brushes by either customizing default brushes or creating the brush’s grain, shape and texture from scratch. Many artists share and sell their brushes to other Procreate creators by offering themed brush packs or realistic brush options like freckles and hair textures.

Other features that are popular with illustrators include Procreate’s color tools, special effects and color balance tools. You’ll find finishing filters and superpowered tools like QuickShape where you can turn any irregular shape into a perfectly straight or curved shape.

If you plan on doing a lot of illustration, sketching and painting, you might choose Procreate over Fresco because of its Brush Engine and its focus on pixel brushes, which tend to be more life-like than vector brushes. While Fresco’s live brushes are very realistic and top-tier when it comes to digital painting, Procreate will give you a wider variety of textured brushes, which can be used for a ton of drawing and painting projects.

Procreate will only work on an iPad so it isn’t accessible to other tablet or computer types. While Procreate isn’t as easily integrated into Adobe apps, you can export your work into dozens of different file types that are compatible with a variety of Adobe software. You can also seamlessly transfer your work into Procreate’s animation app, Procreate Dreams.

Ease of Use

An iPad sits on a wooden table. The iPad is open to Procreate. The canvas shows an illustrated donut with pink icing and multi-colored sprinkles sitting on a pink background. — Artists often praise Procreate’s simple user interface for its ease of use and accessibility to beginners. Still from Skillshare class Kickstart your Creativity with Procreate: 20 Fun Drawings for Beginners and Beyond by Lisa Bardot

Adobe Fresco UI: If you’ve used any of Adobe’s apps before, you’ll probably feel right at home in Adobe Fresco’s interface design. You’ll see tools you already know well, like the eye dropper and the Magic Wand tool. Within the toolbar, you’ll also find other selection tools, all of your brushes and color tools.

You’ll also find Creative Cloud integration in the export menu. This will allow for seamless transitions between different Adobe apps and all of your devices.

If you’re not familiar with Adobe Fresco’s interface design, it might take you a few art sessions to get comfortable with all of the tools. Adobe Fresco does have a slightly steeper learning curve, especially for its advanced features like the vector tools.

Procreate UI: Even total beginners won’t feel overwhelmed with Procreate’s minimalistic, user-friendly design. Procreate’s main tools, like its color wheel, eraser and brush library, are built to feel intuitive because of their emphasis on usability and accessibility.

Most Procreate users also take advantage of Procreate’s gesture-based workflow, which consists of specific finger swipes, taps and holds. For example, tapping on the screen with two fingers will undo your previous action and tapping with three fingers will redo your last undo. Other gestures like pinching to zoom and pinch-twisting to rotate are also intuitive as they align with touchscreen gestures on similar devices and apps.

If you find certain aspects of Procreate’s workflow aren’t to your liking, Procreate is very customizable. Besides its brushes, you can also personalize certain buttons and gestures.

Procreate also supports artists with diverse backgrounds, abilities and languages, with sixteen languages. It offers single-touch gestures for anyone with limited hand mobility, advanced Motion Filtering for users with tremors, and Color Cards and notifications designed to help the visually impaired.

Platform Compatibility and Performance

If you’re just starting out with digital art apps, it’s a good idea to try an app that is compatible with the device you already have. By using your current device, you can experiment with digital art without having to invest money and energy into getting new materials.

Device Availability: You can use Adobe Fresco on iPhone, iPad and Windows devices with Intel, Nvidia, or AMD processors. Procreate is only available on the iPad.

Performance: Adobe Fresco should perform similarly across all iPhone, iPad and compatible Windows devices. As of 2024, Adobe Fresco will work on the iPhone SE to iPhone 15, the iPad, iPad Air and iPad Mini starting from the 5th generation and all models of the iPad Pro.

Procreate performs on the following iPad models:

iPad Pro (M4)
iPad Air (M2)
iPad Pro 12.9-inch (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th generation)
iPad Pro 11-inch (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation)
iPad Pro 10.5-inch
iPad Pro 9.7-inch
iPad (5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th generation)
iPad mini (5th, 6th and 7th generation)
iPad Air (3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th generation)

However, both Adobe Fresco and Procreate will perform better on the iPad Pro because of its powerful hardware, higher processing power, and display quality. Because of hardware limitations, you might also experience slowdowns or reduced layer limits on older or less powerful models.

If you want to start digitally drawing more often and need more storage or processing capabilities, you might consider buying a more powerful, updated iPad.

Pricing & Subscription Cost

Adobe Fresco Pricing: Adobe Fresco always had a free plan that limited users to certain features. Now after a recent update, you can access Adobe Fresco and use unlimited layers and thousands of brushes for free. You will need to upgrade your plan to access premium Adobe Fonts.

Adobe Fresco will automatically be included in any Adobe Creative Cloud plan.

Procreate Pricing: Procreate runs on a one-time purchase model. This one-time fee is much less than your average trip to the art store, which makes it ideal for newer artists who don’t have a huge budget for a new hobby that has ongoing fees like a subscription.

Community & Learning Resources

Apps like Adobe Fresco and Procreate don’t only come with powerful digital art capabilities. You’ll also now belong to a huge community of other artists and get access to learning resources like tutorials and online guides.

Adobe Fresco Resources and Community: On the Adobe website, you can find written and video tutorials as well as the user guide. Adobe also hosts a Fresco forum where you can ask questions and get responses from other users and Adobe experts.

Procreate Resources and Community: Procreate offers a video beginner’s series and a downloadable workbook that explores the essential gestures and tools needed to get started with the art app. You can also ask specific questions to other Procreate users and experts on their discussion board, Procreate Folio.

Both apps have a robust community of users that make their own tutorials and learning resources on discussion forums like Reddit, online learning communities like Skillshare and social media like YouTube. When you’re first entering the digital art world, accessing these resources can help you connect with other artists, stay motivated and push past any roadblocks.

Pros & Cons

Feature	Adobe Fresco	Procreate
Primary Focus	Painting, sketching, and animation with powerful brushes and seamless Creative Cloud integration.	Sketching, painting, and illustrating with accessible tools and customization.
Brush Options	Thousands of raster, vector, and live brushes with real-life texture simulation.	200 handcrafted brushes with the option to create, import and share custom brushes within the Brush Studio. You’ll only have access to pixel brushes which means they won’t always scale well depending on your canvas size.
Animation Tools	Frame-to-frame and motion path animation with MP4, GIF, or PNG export options.	Limited animation capabilities via Procreate’s Animation Assist tool with the option to export to Procreate Dreams.
Ease of Use	Familiar for Adobe users but has a steeper learning curve for beginners, especially for vector-based work.	Minimalist and intuitive UI with gesture-based workflow that is beginner-friendly.
Device Capability	Works on the iPhone, iPad, and Windows devices.	Only available on the iPad.
Performance	Consistent across devices but performs best on newer models like the iPad Pro.	Optimized for the iPad Pro but works well on most iPads, including some older generations that aren’t compatible with Adobe Fresco.
Pricing	Free plan with all major features except for premium fonts.	One-time fee.
Integration	Direct integration with Adobe Illustrator and seamless importing process with other Adobe apps.	No direct integration with other apps, but you can import directly to Procreate Dreams through an easy drag-and-drop process.
Learning Resources	Adobe-hosted tutorials, forums and an online community on both forums and social media. You’ll find fewer beginner-focused tutorials from Adobe than Procreate.	Procreate-hosted tutorials, workbooks, and an online community on both forums and social media.
Best For	Artists needing vector and raster workflows, digital painters looking for life-like watercolor and oil paint brushes or those in Adobe’s ecosystem.	Artists focused on pixel-based sketching and painting who want to create their own brushes and want customized workflows.

Which One is Right for You?

The first step to choosing the right app for your digital art needs is to evaluate your materials, previous experience and budget.

You might choose Adobe Fresco if you:

Don’t have an iPad or want to use a more budget-friendly Windows tablet
Plan to integrate your illustration or paintings with other Adobe apps
Have experience with the Adobe ecosystem
Are specifically interested in painting and want to try digital watercolor and oil brushes
Want to use a free art app
Want in-app animation options
Want to create vector-based artwork

You might choose Procreate if you:

Already have an iPad or have the budget to invest in one
Are new to digital art and want an app with resources for beginners
Are a more experienced artist who wants access to Procreate’s advanced art tools
Have mobility issues or vision impairment and want more accessibility options
Want to create and share your own brushes
Are interested in using Procreate Dreams
Want to use a more established and time-tested app that has a lot of high-quality user-requested updates and additions

If you already have access to an iPad or plan to purchase one, you can even try finding one art idea to try in both apps and seeing which workflow and user experience you enjoy most. You can also use Procreate and Adobe Fresco together on certain projects to leverage the strengths of each app.

Here are a few art ideas you might try over the next few weeks as you explore either Adobe Fresco or Procreate or both: an ocean scene visible through a window featuring a sailboat, a portrait of your pet, an illustration of your home or a greeting card that reads “Ewe deserve all of the love and happiness today” with an adorable sheep under it.

If you want to explore other digital art apps, you might do some more research on Procreate vs. Photoshop or Procreate vs. Illustrator.

Written By

Calli Zarpas

Producer & Writer by occupation. Ceramicist & Newsletter Editor by avocation.