Procreate vs Krita

Price

Procreate costs $12.99 upfront, while Krita is free to download.

Procreate costs $12.99 once on the App Store, with no subscription and no in-app purchases. There is no free version or trial, so you pay before you draw.

Krita is completely free and open source under the GNU GPL, with no ads, subscription or paid tier. Development is funded by donations, and you can also buy it on some app stores to support the project.

Platforms

Procreate and Krita do not share a platform. Only Procreate runs on iPad. Only Krita runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and Chromebook.

Procreate is made for iPad only. On iPhone you need Procreate Pocket, a separate $5.99 app, and Procreate does not list versions for Mac, Windows or Android.

Krita runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, plus Android tablets and Chromebooks, where the Android version is still in beta. It is not available for iPad or iPhone.

Brushes

Procreate ships with more than 300 brushes and Brush Studio, which exposes over 100 settings per brush. It imports Photoshop .abr brushes as well as Procreate brushes, and third-party Procreate brush packs are sold all over the web.

Krita ships with more than 100 brush presets built on several brush engines, from pixel and color smudge to bristle and particle engines. It imports Photoshop .abr brushes and resource bundles.

Comics and manga

Procreate has Page Assist for laying out multi-page comics and a Halftone filter, and many artists add third-party panel templates and screentone brushes.

Krita includes comic page templates and a Comics Project Management Tools plugin for organizing multi-page projects.

Layers and editing

Procreate: Layers come with layer masks, clipping masks and 25+ blend modes, and the number of layers depends on your canvas size and device. Adjustments such as Curves, Gradient Map and Gaussian Blur are applied directly to a layer rather than kept as separate adjustment layers.

Krita: Its layer system is one of the deepest anywhere: paint, vector, filter and fill layers, transparency and filter masks, dozens of blend modes, and color management with CMYK, LAB and HDR support.

Drawing tools and extras

Procreate: Drawing aids include QuickShape, symmetry, 1, 2 and 3-point perspective and isometric guides, and vector text. Procreate also has frame-by-frame animation with Animation Assist, 3D painting on imported models, and a timelapse you can export in 4K.

Krita: Drawing assistants cover perspective, vanishing points and ellipses, and mirror tools, multibrush symmetry and wrap-around mode make patterns easy. Krita also has frame-by-frame animation, a text tool and a recorder for timelapses.