Coloring books have been popular for decades as a fun and relaxing activity for both children and adults. With the rise of smartphones and tablets, coloring books have now gone digital with a wide variety of coloring book apps available. Many of these apps are completely free to download and use, while others have free limited versions or offer in-app purchases. In this article, we will explore some of the most popular free coloring book apps, looking at their features, target audiences, and advantages over traditional print coloring books.
Overview of Popular Free Coloring Book Apps
Here is a quick overview of some of the top free coloring book apps:
| App Name | Key Features | Target Audience |
|---|---|---|
| Colorfy | – Thousands of high quality images to color – Layering, outlining, zoom features – Color palettes, color by number |
Adults and children |
| Pigment | – Realistic coloring effects – Paint bucket and blending modes – Customizable brushes and palettes |
Adults and older children |
| Color by Number | – Simple pixel and color by number books – Daily new books and categories – Share creations on social media |
Children and beginner colorists |
| Happy Color | – Book based on current mood – Soothing backgrounds and music – Motivational quotes and statistics |
Adult relaxation and stress relief |
As you can see, there is a diverse range of free coloring apps targeting different audiences and coloring needs. Let’s dive deeper into some of the benefits of using free coloring book apps.
Benefits of Free Coloring Book Apps
Free digital coloring books offer some great advantages over traditional print books:
Convenience: Coloring book apps are easy to access on a smartphone or tablet anywhere, anytime. No need to carry around coloring books and supplies.
Huge Selection: Apps provide access to thousands of coloring pages across countless categories that would be impossible to match with physical books.
Advanced Features: Apps allow for handy features like zooming in, color picking, layering, and symmetry drawing not possible with paper.
Creative Tools: Many apps offer customizable brushes, palettes, and blending modes to mimic realistic painting tools.
Therapeutic Benefits: Coloring digitally provides the same stress relief and relaxation as traditional coloring. Some apps even track progress.
Environmentally Friendly: Digital coloring books save paper, ink, and physical storage space. Images can be reused infinitely.
Free to Start: Most apps offer free basic access to try out and sample before deciding whether to upgrade to premium features.
Community Sharing: Apps allow coloring creations to be easily shared on social media, finding inspiration in how others colored the same image.
The convenience, selection, features, and eco-friendly nature of free coloring book apps provide an enhanced, customizable coloring experience.
Top Free Coloring Book Apps
Now let’s take a closer look at some of the top free coloring book apps available across app stores:
Colorfy
With over 100 million downloads, Colorfy is one of the most popular free coloring book apps. It offers:
– A library of over 4000 unique images across animals, mandalas, people, food, landmarks, and more
– Layers to color different elements separately
– Zoom feature to color tiny details
– Outlining to create blank coloring spaces
– Color by number books
– Custom color palettes and ability to sample colors
– Relaxing background music
– Options to share finished pages on social media
Colorfy allows deep customization of the coloring experience for free. The app does have some ads and prompts to access additional premium content. But the free core library still provides endless coloring fun.
Pigment
Pigment markets itself as the most realistic digital coloring app. It focuses on delivering a close to real-world painting experience. Key features include:
– Mixing colors on a virtual palette
– Paint bucket tool to fill sections
– Blending modes like multiply and overlay
– Layering to combine and edit elements
– Customizable brushes with different sizes and opacity
– Selective undo/redo at brushstroke level
– 25 free coloring books with detailed artwork
– Ability to import own line art to color
Pigment lacks some fun features like music and color-by-number. But the realistic painting tools make it stand out for free. The app does have in-app purchases for additional brushes and coloring pages.
Color by Number
As the name suggests, this app focuses exclusively on simple color by number books. Every day new free books are added. Features include:
– New themes daily across landscapes, animals, mandalas
– Easy navigation between numbered color sections
– Fun pixel art books for beginners
– Standard color palettes provided
– Relaxing background music
– Save partial progress on books
– Share completed images on social media
With quick bite-sized coloring for all skill levels, Color by Number is great to use when you only have a few minutes. The app makes money by showing full screen ads between books.
Happy Color
Happy Color sets itself apart by curating coloring books based on your current mood and stress level. You simply select how you feel before coloring. Features include:
– Answer questions on mood to get suitable book
– Calming natural backgrounds while coloring
– Soothing music and ambient sounds
– Motivational quotes and psychology tips
– Statistics on mood improvements
– Basic tools like zoom, undo, color picker
– Share progress and finished pages
By incorporating relaxation techniques into the coloring experience, Happy Color provides a digital de-stress experience for free. Additional customization features require in-app purchases.
Are Completely Free Coloring Book Apps Available?
While the apps we’ve covered so far are free to download and provide access to basic coloring content, most employ some type of monetization like ads, prompts for in-app purchases, or limits on features. Are there any apps that offer a sizable coloring book library completely free of charge or unlocking requirements? Here are a couple solid options:
Adult Coloring Book Free: As the name suggests, this app focuses on intricate adult coloring pages. The free version includes over 1200 designs across flowers, animals, mandalas, and other categories. No ads or other interruptions while using the app.
Colorfit: Aims to turn coloring into a game with over 150 images to color continuously and gameplay elements like missions, trophies, and rewards. Free version has full access to images and basic features. Ads only appear on main menus.
So in summary, yes some fully free coloring book apps with decent content do exist. But they typically target specific audiences like adults and offer a more limited selection versus those that monetize through ads or in-app purchases. The free apps serve as great low-commitment entry points to try digital coloring.
Conclusion
Coloring book apps provide a convenient, feature-rich alternative to traditional print books. Many high quality options are available as free downloads, with monetization happening through ads or prompts for extra content and features. Apps like Colorfy, Pigment, Color by Number, and Happy Color deliver tons of free coloring fun. And options like Adult Coloring Book Free and Colorfit offer completely ad-free experiences albeit with smaller libraries. Overall digital coloring opens up creativity through advanced tools, vast libraries, portability, community sharing and therapeutic benefits – all free to start. The possibilities are endless when coloring on a tablet or smartphone versus being limited by the finite pages of a physical book.
