For most people, Chromebooks might not be the first devices that come to mind for digital art. However, they're actually more than capable of supporting beautiful creations! If you are a Chromebook user, you have access to various drawing apps for Chromebooks that offer powerful features for sketching, brainstorming, painting, and graphic design, depending on what you need.
To simplify your search, we've picked out some of the best drawing apps for Chromebooks and provided details on their ideal use cases, costs, and availability online. This way, you can find the best one for you.
In this article
10 Best Drawing Apps for Chromebook
Whether you're a professional artist or someone who enjoys drawing in your free time, the best drawing apps for Chromebooks featured in this article have something for everyone. With both free and paid options included, you can find the perfect app to match your budget and skill level.
Now, let’s take a look at what the 10 best Chromebook drawing apps have to offer.
1. Limnu
Cost: Free 14-day access to whiteboards, subscription starts from $5month.
Compatibility: Web-based
Best for: Sketching and brainstorming for work
Limnu is designed for the same purpose as a traditional whiteboard. You can quickly sketch ideas and collaborate with others. There’s no limit to the number of whiteboards you can use daily or monthly if you’re a subscriber. Each whiteboard gives you ample space to work on even the most complex ideas.
Limnu also offers various pens and brushes to help you customize your sketches with ease. After you’re done, you can share your work with others—whether with your Slack team or anyone else. To test the features, you can enjoy this drawing app on your Chromebook for free with a 14-day trial. But after the trial period ends, you’ll need a paid subscription to continue using it.
2. Sumo Paint
Cost: Free (online only with limited features), subscription starts from $4/month
Compatibility: Web-based
Best for: Digital paint
Sumo Paint is part of the creative suite offered by Sumo Apps. Featuring a selection of 300 brushes, a wide array of layer effects, and a text editor among other features, Sumo Paint is one of the best Chromebook drawing apps you can find online. Moreover, Sumo Paint includes animated and 3D brushes, which broaden your artistic possibilities even further.
Each brush in Sumo paint is fully customizable. You can adjust the style, rotation, spacing, and gravity to fit your project’s needs. The Gradient Fill and Color Picker tools also help speed up the switch between colors. Once you're done with your artwork, you can save your creations either to the cloud or your computer. However, you’ll be limited to saving in PNG, JPG, or Sumo.
3. Sketchpad by Sketch.io
Cost: $4.99
Compatibility: ChromeOS
Best for: Graphic design
Sketchpad from Sketch.io is a fun drawing app on Chromebook that grants you access to a wide range of drawing tools. This app has you covered with 18 unique brushes, over 5,000 clipart images, and more than 800 fonts to choose from. You can also customize your text with options like Blend Mode, alignment settings, and adjustments to Letter and Word Spacing.
Additionally, Sketchpad lets you enhance your designs with layers, gradient effects, and customizable shapes. Plus, it supports both vector and raster images, so you can easily import and edit your files. You can use it to design social media posts, digital ads, or even business cards.
4. Infinite Painter
Cost: Offers a 7-day free trial, with some features locked behind a one-time purchase.
Compatibility: ChromeOS
Best for: Digital drawing and painting
As the app’s name suggests, the possibilities Infinite Painter offers are infinite. Besides gaining access to a brush collection that contains over 160 presets, installing this app on your Chromebook will enable you to create brushes on your own. You can also adjust the settings for each brush so that it fits into your artistic vision.
As one of the best drawing apps for Chromebooks, Infinite Painter lets you add as many layers as you want to your creations. You can also choose from four different symmetry types. The Line, Ellipse, Pen, Lazy and Protractor line guides ensure that each line you draw is perfect. In addition, Infinite Painter is equipped with five perspective guides that are perfectly suited for 3D painting.
5. ArtFlow: Paint Draw Sketchbook
Cost: Free with limited features; premium version costs $6 (one-time payment)
Compatibility: ChromeOS
Best for: Sketching, drawing, and digital painting
ArtFlow makes creating digital paintings from scratch or photos simple by offering all the essential tools you need. With over 100 brushes, along with features like the Smudge Tool and Gradient Fill, you can bring your artistic ideas to life. The app supports high-resolution canvases up to 6144x6144, so you can save your artwork in excellent quality.
You can add up to 50 layers per canvas, though the number of layers may vary depending on the canvas size. Completed artwork can be exported in JPEG, PNG, or PSD formats. To unlock the app's full feature set, you must upgrade to the Pro version.
6. Gravit Designer
Cost: Free
Compatibility: ChromeOS
Best for: Vector designs like brochures, logos, flyers, posters, and more.
Gravit Designer is an excellent choice for professional designers looking to create vector drawings on a Chromebook. This free drawing app for Chromebook lets you use anchor points to create shapes, insert images into your designs, and apply a wide range of effects to enhance your creations. However, this app is best suited for users with some design experience, as its tools cater more to professionals than beginners.
7. Chrome Canvas
Cost: Free
Compatibility: Web-based
Best for: Quick sketching and drawing
If you’re searching for a simple and free Chromebook drawing app to create quick sketches from your browser, Chrome Canvas could be a great fit. It provides basic tools such as Pencil, Pen, Marker, Chalk, and Eraser, but it lacks advanced features like stylus support, multi-layer functionality, or the ability to create digital art from photos.
However, you can still use this app to select colors from a palette or use the Custom Color Picker to access a full range of hues. You can also adjust the Size and Opacity of each tool to suit your drawing needs.
8. Boxy-SVG
Cost: Offers a 15-day free trial, subscription starts from $9.99/year.
Compatibility: Web-based
Best for: Digital artwork
Although Boxy-SVG features a somewhat dated interface, it remains one of the best drawing apps for Chromebooks with all the essential tools for creating digital vector artwork. This web-based app works with SVG files and makes designing shapes and objects easy with features like Quad Bézier, Cubic Bézier, and Arc tools.
You can incorporate various pre-defined shapes such as squares, circles, ellipses, rings, pies, crescents, and triangles into your designs. The app also provides access to thousands of fonts, allowing you to customize their size and color to suit your project. While the selection of brushes is limited, you can still adjust the width and opacity of your lines for more precision.
9. SketchBook by Autodesk
Cost: Free
Compatibility: Available through the Android app (Google Play)
Best for: Sketching and drawing
Sketchbook's compatibility with stylus pens makes it an excellent choice for creative professionals who want to draw directly on their Chromebooks. With over 190 fully customizable brushes, large canvas options, and support for multi-layered designs, SketchBook stands out as one of the best free drawing apps for Chromebook users.
The app also lets you digitize your paper drawings by scanning them with your device's camera, so you can easily import and refine your creations digitally. One of SketchBook's standout features is its Predictive Stroke technology, which automatically smooths out freehand lines and shapes.
10. Concepts
Cost: Free with limited features, subscription starts from $4.99/month or $1.9.$39.99 ea for one-time purchase.
Compatibility: ChromeOS
Best for: Sketching and drawing
Concepts is a highly regarded digital drawing app available across platforms, including Chromebooks. Compatible with various stylus pens, it offers brushes, pencils, and pens that respond dynamically to pressure, tilt, and velocity.
Concepts features an infinite canvas and offers many paper types to suit different projects. Its vector-based drawing tools allow you to adjust position, scale, smoothing, and color easily. This Chromebook drawing app also boasts an infinite layering system with extensive blending options, making it easy to create detailed image composites.
Conclusion
Have you chosen the best drawing apps on Chromebooks for your needs? Chromebooks have come a long way from being simple productivity tools to becoming versatile devices for your creativity. With the apps listed above, you can sketch, paint, brainstorm, or design on your Chromebook.
From lightweight options like Chrome Canvas for quick sketches to feature-packed tools like Infinite Painter and Concepts, there’s an app for every need and skill level. Now it’s your turn to try out some of these apps and experiment with their features!
