Adobe Fresco vs Tayasui Sketches

Price

Adobe Fresco is free with every tool included, while Tayasui Sketches is free to download with paid upgrades.

Adobe Fresco is free, with thousands of brushes, unlimited layers and animation tools included. An optional subscription bundles it with Photoshop on iPad for $7.99 a month on the US App Store.

Tayasui Sketches is free to download. Its Pro tools are unlocked with a $7.99 one-time Pro purchase or a premium subscription, both offered on the US App Store.

Platforms

Both run on iPad and iPhone. Only Adobe Fresco runs on Windows. Only Tayasui Sketches runs on Mac and Android.

Fresco is one app for iPad and iPhone, and there is also a Windows version. Adobe's system requirements list no Mac or Android version. You can start drawing without signing in, but exporting and cloud saving need an Adobe account.

Tayasui Sketches is one app for iPhone and iPad that also runs on Apple silicon Macs, and there is a separate Android version. Cloud sync keeps drawings in step across your devices.

Brushes

Fresco includes thousands of free brushes: blendable raster brushes, vector brushes that stay sharp at any size, and Live Brushes that simulate watercolor and oil paint. It also imports Photoshop brushes.

Sketches has more than 20 carefully tuned tools, including pens, felt pens, oil pastel, acrylic, airbrush and wet and dry watercolor brushes that react to pressure and angle like a real brush on paper. A brush editor lets you tweak them.

Layers and editing

Adobe Fresco: Layers are unlimited, with masks, clipping and Photoshop-style adjustment layers for brightness, hue/saturation and color balance. Liquify, free transform and a magic wand are included, and documents open directly in Photoshop and Illustrator.

Tayasui Sketches: Layers can be exported as separate transparent PNGs, and layered PSD files can be imported and exported. Editing tools are deliberately simple, with a cutter, smudge tool and fill tool rather than a full adjustment suite.

Drawing tools and extras

Adobe Fresco: Drawing aids include Snap to Shape, rotational and reflective symmetry, rulers, and perspective grids you can build from a photo. Fresco also has frame-by-frame animation with motion paths, GIF and MP4 export, Adobe Fonts for text, and timelapse export.

Tayasui Sketches: The interface hides tools while you draw for a calm, minimal canvas. It adds a ruler, shapes on iPad, text, custom patterns and folders to organize your sketchbook.