12 Best Procreate Alternatives for Mac Digital Artists

Procreate is undeniably one of the most powerful and popular digital art apps available today. However, it‘s exclusively designed for iPad, leaving Mac users searching for comparable alternatives. Luckily, there are many excellent drawing, painting and illustration apps that work great on MacOS.

Whether you‘re a professional designer, comic artist, illustrator, or just enjoy creating art as a hobby, this guide will help you find the best Procreate alternative to fit your needs and budget. Here are the top 12 apps that can go head-to-head with Procreate in terms of features and functionality.

1. Adobe Fresco

Adobe Fresco is a powerful drawing and painting app that‘s part of the Creative Cloud suite. It offers an intuitive interface with vector and raster brushes, including watercolors, oils, and live brushes that blossom and react like the real thing.

Fresco really shines with its realistic watercolor brushes that bloom and blend. You can paint with colors on either side of your brush and watch them mix on the canvas. The included vector brushes are also handy for creating infinitely scalable logos, illustrations and design elements.

Pros:

• Realistic live brushes
• Vector and raster workflows
• Works seamlessly with Photoshop

Cons:

• Requires Creative Cloud subscription
• Brush customization is limited

Best for: Expressive illustrations, watercolors, vector artwork

Price: Included with Creative Cloud plans starting at $9.99/month, or available as a single app subscription for $9.99/month with a 30-day free trial.

2. Concepts

Concepts is a flexible sketching and design app with an infinite canvas, vector-based brushes, and intuitive precision tools. It‘s a favorite among product designers, architects, and concept artists for its clean UI and useful features like shape guides and perspective tools.

The infinite canvas allows you to zoom in and out without limits and never run out of room. You can use the shape guides to quickly create perfect lines, circles, and angles. The customizable vector brushes simulate everything from pencils to markers to airbrushes.

Pros:

• Infinite canvas
• Flexible vector tools
• Shape guides and perspective tools

Cons:

• No raster/pixel brushes
• Limited layer options

Best for: Product design, architectural sketches, concept art

Price: Free version available, or $7.99/month for premium features. Lifetime license also available for $159.99.

3. Autodesk SketchBook

Autodesk SketchBook is a versatile digital art app with a minimalist UI that stays out of your way. It offers a wide range of customizable brushes, a full Copic color library, and perspective tools for creating accurate scenes.

One standout feature is the symmetry tool, which allows you to draw on one side of the canvas while automatically mirroring your strokes. This is incredibly useful for creating balanced designs, patterns, and characters.

Pros:

• Clean, customizable UI
• Extensive brush library
• Symmetry and perspective tools

Cons:

• Some features require online connection
• Can be buggy on older devices

Best for: Sketching, inking, comic art, illustrations

Price: Free version available with limited features, or $19.99/year for Pro version with all features.

4. Krita

Krita is a powerful open-source painting app created by artists, for artists. It offers a robust set of tools including brush stabilizers, brush engines, vector tools, and even animation features.

With nine unique brush engines like Color Smudge, Shape, and Particle, you can create highly customized brushes to suit any style. It also has a wrap-around mode for creating seamless textures and patterns.

Pros:

• Free and open source
• Highly customizable brushes
• Built-in brush stabilizers

Cons:

• Steep learning curve
• Unstable on some MacOS versions

Best for: Concept art, texture painting, animations

Price: 100% free, with option to donate to the development fund.

5. Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer is a professional graphic design app with a full set of vector and raster tools. It‘s known for its real-time blend modes, unlimited artboards, and advanced grids and guides.

While it‘s primarily geared towards UI/UX design, icon design, and illustration, Affinity Designer is also great for digital painting. Its custom brush engine allows you to create natural-looking paint brushes and pencils to rival Procreate‘s.

Pros:

• Real-time blend modes
• Advanced grids and guides
• Good performance on older Macs

Cons:

• One-time purchase, no subscription option
• No animation tools

Best for: Graphic design, illustrations, vector painting

Price: One-time purchase of $54.99 with free updates.

6. Clip Studio Paint

Clip Studio Paint (formerly Manga Studio) is a powerhouse digital art app geared towards comics and manga. It comes loaded with features like customizable UI layouts, 3D models, perspective rulers, and comic panel tools.

With Clip Studio Assets, you get access to thousands of free and paid brushes, tones, 3D models, and more to expand your creative arsenal. It even lets you pose 3D models and characters as references for your drawings.

Pros:

• Tons of brushes and tones for manga/comics
• Posable 3D models
• Customizable UI layouts

Cons:

• Cluttered interface can be overwhelming
• Brush engine not as intuitive as Procreate‘s

Best for: Comic art, manga, character design, storyboarding

Price: Pro version is a one-time purchase of $49.99. Monthly and annual plans also available for $4.49-$8.99/month.

7. Corel Painter

Corel Painter is the godfather of natural media painting apps. For over 30 years, it‘s been the industry standard for digital artists who want to recreate the look and feel of traditional mediums like oils, acrylics, watercolors, and more.

With over 900 brushes divided into 36 categories, you can paint with thick impastos, liquid inks, pattern pens, and so much more. You can even import your own custom brushes or purchase brush packs created by master painters.

Pros:

• Most realistic natural media brushes
• Huge selection of brushes
• Light and shadow detail

Cons:

• Expensive
• High learning curve
• Resource-intensive for older machines

Best for: Professional digital painting, concept art, illustration, fine art

Price: One-time purchase of $429, or annual subscription for $199/year. 30-day free trial available.

8. Rebelle 5

Rebelle is an innovative painting app that uses real-world physics to simulate the behavior of watercolors and oils. With tools like color mixing, blow, and tilt canvas, it‘s the closest you can get to painting with traditional mediums on your Mac.

The watercolor brushes in Rebelle are truly something to behold. They bloom, flow, and mix just like real watercolors. You can even tilt the canvas to make wet paint drip and run. The oils are equally impressive, with thick impasto effects and realistic color mixing.

Pros:

• Incredible watercolor and oil simulation
• Unique tools like blow and tilt
• Records brush stroke data for undo history

Cons:

• Limited brush selection compared to other apps
• Some tools can be cumbersome to use

Best for: Expressive watercolor and oil paintings, experimental art

Price: One-time purchase of $89.99 after 30-day free trial.

9. ArtRage

ArtRage is another natural media painting app that excels at mimicking real art supplies. It uses a hybrid of bitmap and vector technology to create ultra-realistic brushes with features like paint thickness, shininess, and even glitter.

One of the coolest tools in ArtRage is the palette knife, which lets you mix and scrape colors just like a real palette knife. It also has unique tools like the Sticker Spray for applying images, and the Gloop Pen for blobby, stringy paint effects.

Pros:

• Super realistic brushes with advanced settings
• Cool tools like palette knife and sticker spray
• Affordable price point

Cons:

• Brush selection is limited
• Interface feels a bit dated

Best for: Thick paint and pastel effects, mixing colors, glitter and metallic paints

Price: One-time purchase of $79 after 30-day free trial.

10. MediBang Paint Pro

MediBang Paint Pro is a free digital painting and comic creation app with a huge collection of brushes, fonts, and pre-made backgrounds. It offers handy features for comic artists like panel slicing, perspective rulers, and cloud syncing.

One unique feature is the ability to download and pose 3D models right in the app to use as references. MediBang also has a massive asset library with free and paid brushes, tones, and characters to use in your artwork.

Pros:

• Totally free with no ads
• Huge asset library
• Comic creation tools
• Cloud syncing

Cons:

• Brushes feel less natural than other apps
• Some stability issues

Best for: Manga, comics, character art

Price: 100% free

11. Tayasui Sketches

Tayasui Sketches is a beautifully designed drawing app with a clean, minimalist interface. It offers a carefully curated selection of brushes and tools that mimic real pencils, pens, markers, and watercolors.

Despite its streamlined tools, Tayasui Sketches packs a punch with features like a true-to-life watercolor brush with realistic bloom effects. It also has pattern brushes for adding textures, gradients, and halftones in a single swipe.

Pros:

• Elegant, easy to use interface
• Realistic watercolor brushes
• Useful pattern brushes

Cons:

• Limited brush selection
• No option to import custom brushes

Best for: Sketching, watercolor illustrations, urban sketching

Price: One-time purchase of $19.99

12. Adobe Photoshop

No list of digital art apps would be complete without Adobe Photoshop. While it‘s primarily known as a photo editing powerhouse, Photoshop is also an incredibly capable drawing, painting, and illustration app.

With features like custom brush creation, dozens of blend modes, and powerful layer editing tools, Photoshop is the Swiss Army knife of digital art apps. It can handle everything from photo retouching to digital painting to 3D modeling.

Pros:

• Powerful brush engine
• Non-destructive layer editing
• Integrates with other Creative Cloud apps

Cons:

• Steep learning curve
• Expensive subscription required
• Overkill for some digital art workflows

Best for: Photo artworks, photo bashing, concept art, art for graphic design

Price: Included with Creative Cloud subscription, or available as a single app subscription for $20.99/month with a 7-day free trial.

Which Procreate Alternative is Right for You?

With so many excellent options available, the best Procreate alternative for you ultimately depends on your specific needs and preferences.

If you‘re a comic artist, Clip Studio Paint or MediBang offer the most focused toolset. For graphic designers and illustrators, Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator are industry standards. Concept artists and matte painters will feel right at home with Corel Painter or ArtRage. And if you just want an app to sketch and paint on the go, Tayasui Sketches and Concepts are beautifully designed and easy to use.

The good news is, you don‘t have to pick just one! Most of these apps offer free trials, so you can test drive a few and see which ones fit into your creative workflow. Don‘t be afraid to mix and match apps to take advantage of their unique features and capabilities.

No matter which Procreate alternative you choose, the most important thing is to have fun and keep creating. With the right tools and a lot of practice, you can unleash your full artistic potential and bring your wildest imaginations to life.