Top 14 Procreate Alternatives for Windows

As mAs much as I enjoy digital art and the assistance that procreate provides, there are some limitations to it that I simply cannot overcome. Procreate’s biggest flaw is that it’s only available for iOS. The app itself is built explicitly for the iPad and is best used with an Apple Pen. This means that all us Windows users with Wacom tablets and Surface devices are left in the dust. 

But fear not, for here are 14 alternative digital art apps that you can run on your Windows machine.

Top 14 Procreate Alternatives for Windows

Adobe Illustrator – One of the Best

Adobe Illustrator is one of the most popular drawing apps available for Windows. It is feature-rich, which is to be expected since it falls under the vast Adobe Creative umbrella. Adobe is a giant in the digital art industry and always has top-notch products. Illustrator, therefore, comes with a plethora of exclusive brushes and media types to use.

Pros:

• Extensive brush library
• Very feature-rich, great for power users
• Cloud storage support
• Access to custom plugins and brushes

Cons:

• Pricing structure
• Slow and bulky
• Complete feature list can only be taken advantage of by professionals

Overall, Adobe Illustrator is a solid contender and one of the best choices for digital art programs, provided you can deal with the extravagant costs.

Corel Painter 2022 – Industry Standard

Corel Painter is a giant in the digital art community, akin to the likes of Adobe. Starting from 1991 as Fractal Design Painter, Corel has been at the forefront of digital painting and illustrating since its beginning. However, its status as one of the flagships of digital design also brings forth its central flaw, the price.

Pros:

• Large selection of brushes and tools
• Suitable for heavy productions
• Closely related to Photoshop
• Experts will feel right at home

Cons:

• Steep price
• Slow processing

Affinity Designer – Great Vector Alternative

Affinity Designer is a part of the Affinity Trinity, with Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. Affinity Designer itself is a vector-based product with raster features. So, it is more fine-tuned for vector graphics than its competitors. 

Pros:

• Amazing vector engine
• Good for logo design
• A steal for its price

Cons:

• Lack of proper warp and stretch features
• Relatively barebones feature list
• Doesn’t support custom plugins

Affinity Designer is a solid choice for artists who want a reliable app to do vector graphics in, but it falls short of its competition when raster graphics are concerned.

ArtRage – Painter’s Dream

ArtRage is a painting app fitted to be used on a computer. It caters itself to artists moving into the digital world without losing the nuances of their medium. By being realism-focused, it approaches the digital art world differently from the rest of its competitors.

Pros:

• Good canvas rendering
• Realistic paint simulation
• Simple and minimal interface
• Cheap and effective

Cons:

• Lacks in other areas except painting
• Confusing UI for power users
• Performance issues on slower systems

ArtRage is a fantastic beginning into the world of digital painting, but digital-exclusive artists might find its niche a bit lackluster.

Autodesk Sketchbook – Old School Cool

Autodesk’s entry into the digital artistry world has been significant. Initially, it was available as a freeware app with paid features. However, Sketchbook eventually integrated its extensive brush library from the Pro version into the free version. This change is something I wish many apps would follow.

Pros:

• Great at architecture
• Beginner-friendly
• Pro version features are available for free
• A user-favorite since its beginning

Cons:

• Not suitable for detailed graphics
• Less focus on painting
• No Infinite Canvas

With its beginner-friendly UI, focus on simplicity, and no cost, Sketchbook is one of the best apps to get started on the journey to being a digital artist.

Clip Studio Paint – Manga Maestro

Clip Studio Paint is a digital art app focused on 2D drawings and animations. It is optimized for drawing and painting, which makes this app a favorite for comic book artists.

Pros:

• Fine animation control and model posing
• Unmatched brush customization
• Unique feature list

Cons:

• Expensive if you want the EX version
• Challenging to use outside of illustration
• Bad UI design

If you’re looking into drawing and comic-book-style animations, Clip Studio Paint is an industry favorite.

Inkscape – The Best of the Free

Inkscape is to Adobe Illustrator, as GIMP is to Photoshop. Inkscape is a free and open-source software designed to mimic use cases of its more expensive counterparts from Adobe and Corel. Inkscape has always been a reliable alternative to Illustrator since its beginning.

Pros:

• Robust raster engine
• Feature-rich and great for extensive use
• Community-driven and supported
• Large selection of extra brushes and plugins

Cons:

• Unpolished when compared to the big names
• Steep learning curve
• Somewhat buggy

Inkscape is an excellent choice for expert illustrators who don’t want to spend a lot of money on their digital art app.

Krita – The Best of the Free Competitor

Krita is another standard free alternative to large illustrator programs. It has a large community that helps support it and maintain for people interested in digital art. Krita is a big name in this community’s Open Source Freeware section and is the primary tool of many online artists.

Pros:

• Requires no license cost
• Supports a large number of formats
• Low memory and CPU utilization

Cons:

• Lags when working on a large canvas with multiple layers
• No picture retouching tools
• Text tool is inconvenient

With extensive brush support and freedom of license, Krita continues to be the first and only tool many young artists end up using.

Concepts – The Ship Jumper

Concepts is an already popular app in the iOS and Mac communities. It recently released a Windows Store version packed with features from its other releases while including a few Microsoft exclusive features.

Pros:

• Great performance
• Massive toolset and feature-list
• Support for Microsoft Surface Dial

Cons:

• Riddled with microtransactions
• Difficult to get used to

The Concepts App is an iOS mainstay testing its waters with the Microsoft Store version, and it seems to be doing well too, except for the awful “in-app purchase”-based pricing scheme.

FireAlpaca – The Cute One

FireAlpaca is a newcomer to the Open Source Freeware world of image editors and digital painting tools. It is a Japanese product made for basic sketching and illustration. Don’t let its cute mascot fool you though, FireAlpaca is rising to be one of the better free alternatives to Procreate.

Pros:

• Good community tutorials
• Simple, convenient UI
• System-efficient and light
• Good brush stabilization and settings

Cons:

• Lacks many features standard in other applications
• No advanced editing
• New, and lacks polish

While FireAlpaca lacks many things to be a true competitor of the likes of Adobe, it is a humble app that is free and easy to use.

Leonardo – Still in Beta

While being relatively new, Leonardo prides itself on being the prime tool for painters in particular. The app is still in its beta stage and is cheaper than its competition for this reason.

Pros:

• Infinite canvas
• No 3rd party apps required to have on-screen shortcuts
• Smooth 60fps frame rate and brush performance

Cons:

• Resolution stuck at 72 pixels per inch, no matter the size of the canvas
• Does not have a text tool
• Internal screen recording option is not available
• Buggy

Picking up a copy of Leonardo helps support its developers, and its lesser price might be able to make up for its lack of polish.

MediBang Paint Pro – Quick Sketcher

MediBang Paint Pro is a small community-driven tool built to fill the smaller niches of illustration. Great for quick sketches and easy to get into, MediBang Paint is an excellent choice for newcomers and amateurs of digital painting.

Pros:

• Easy to use minimalistic interface
• Layers can be easily added and manipulated
• Stable and error-free program
• Cloud support

Cons:

• Requires a Medibang account to access all the features
• Limited to 3 GB of space
• Premium version available with locked brush features

It won’t tread on the big giants of digital illustration, but MediBang Paint fills its niche as a cloud-driven choice for quick sketches.

MyPaint – Beginner’s Playground

MyPaint is a beginner-friendly painting tool with exceptional support for Wacom-based tablets. It is a simple program constantly being worked on by its community, adding more and more features with each release.

Pros:

• Simple and easy to use
• Easy blend between colors
• A free, open-source tool

Cons:

• Needs constant upgrades
• Occasional brush lag
• Tools are not scalable

It’s not Krita, but MyPaint is simple, light, and free. Pick it up if you have a Wacom tablet and are only looking for some light illustration.

PaintTool SAI – The Old Truck

PaintTool SAI is an old piece of illustration software that has been around since 2004. It is helpful if you have an older Intel computer, as SAI excels in this department. Apart from that, it is quickly getting outdated.

Pros:

• Customizable brushes and tools
• Runs great on older hardware
• Responsive towards pressure and movement of the pen

Cons:

• Can only work under RGB model. CMYK model is not an option
• Memory issues when working with big files
• Lacks text and vector tools

Without any updates in the last four years, maybe it will be better to look forward to PaintTool SAI 2 than to purchase this archaic piece of software from ye olde times.

FAQs

Will Procreate Ever Be Available in Windows?

 It seems highly unlikely that Procreate will have a windows version. The app is catered to the iOS environment, and no plans have been announced that suggest that they are working on a windows version.

Do I Need a Tablet to Do Digital Illustration?

 While a tablet is convenient and a must-have once you’re experienced, there is no harm in using your mouse to learn the basics of digital illustration. A lot of the apps mentioned above support mouse drawing.

Should I Spend a Lot of Money on Digital Illustration Apps?

Don’t spend a lot of money if you do not know what you will do with the app’s features. A lot of painting apps are free to get started. Eventually, you can move to the paid apps with specific niches when you want some advanced features. Finally, when you are an expert in the field, you can look towards the field’s biggest names.