Procreate vs Akwa: They Aren't Actually Competitors
By Egoyibo Okoro · July 2026
Every few weeks, someone asks whether Akwa is like Procreate.
The short answer is no. The longer answer is more interesting, because once you understand what each tool is trying to accomplish, you realise they are solving completely different problems. They are not competitors. They barely overlap.
The misconception
Imagine drawing a beautiful denim jacket. A couture evening dress. A dramatic coat.
In Procreate, you have created the artwork. Mission accomplished. It is a superb tool for exactly that, and nothing here is a criticism of it.
In fashion, you have barely started.
The pattern still does not exist. Neither do the measurements, the seam placements, the fabric specifications, the construction notes, or the information a manufacturer actually needs to quote and cut. Between the sketch and the garment sits an enormous amount of work, and that gap is where most beautiful illustrations quietly die.
That gap is what Akwa exists to close.
Two different questions
Procreate asks: how do I make this drawing beautiful?
Akwa asks: how does this become something someone can actually wear?
Those are very different questions, and they lead to very different software. In an illustration app, the drawing is the destination. In Akwa, the drawing is an instruction. It is one way of communicating design intent, and the output is a garment concept plus the brief a tailor makes from.
That is why Akwa is not a drawing app. It is a fashion development platform that happens to let you draw.
Six ways to start a garment
Akwa is not one AI designer. It is six different ways to begin, and the separation is by how designers think rather than by which drawing tool you prefer.
Some think in words. Some would rather decide than describe. Some sketch. Some illustrate. Some know the silhouette and the collar before anything else. Some already have a garment in front of them that they want to change. Each of those people gets a different door into the same engine.
Describe
The fastest path in. You explain the idea in your own words: wide-leg indigo denim trousers with architectural seams, drawing on a Bogolan register. Akwa structures that sentence into a design brief and designs the garment from it. This is for people who think in language: founders, stylists, entrepreneurs, anyone who can say the thing but not draw it.
Custom Design
The same idea as Describe, taken one decision at a time.
Rather than writing a single sentence and hoping it is read correctly, you direct the garment choice by choice: silhouette, style origin, fabric, embellishment, colour, climate, skin tone. It is slower than Describe and considerably more controlled, closer to configuring a couture piece than to writing a prompt.
Choose it when you know what you want and would rather decide than describe.
Sketch It
This is the surface people assume is the Procreate competitor. It is the least like one.
You sketch on an empty canvas, and the drawing is deliberately lightweight. You are communicating shape and construction, not making a finished illustration. Akwa reads the drawing as design intent and returns a garment proposal plus the brief a tailor makes from.
The sketch is not the deliverable. It is the instruction.
One of my favourite ways to describe it:
It is not a drawing app. Procreate is where you make the picture. Akwa is where the picture becomes a garment. You sketch the shape, and it comes back as a design plus the brief your tailor makes from.
Illustrate
This is where fashion illustration actually happens, and it is the surface that works on a croquis.
Where Sketch It is a quick instruction on a blank canvas, Illustrate puts a fashion body under your hand and keeps the work editable. Your drawing is a living design document with layers, colour regions, fabric swatches and saved versions, and it is never flattened into a picture. Proportion, styling and presentation become part of the process rather than something you approximate.
The principle underneath it matters more than the feature list: in Illustrate, the AI does not interpret your drawing until you explicitly ask it to. The human authorship stays intact and the machine waits to be invited. It is the workspace where the designer thinks before committing to production.
Block
Some designers do not begin with a drawing at all. They begin with the anatomy of the garment.
Block lets you assemble a couture piece from a curated library of design choices: silhouette, shoulder, neckline, drape and volume, fabric, ornament, occasion. You are designing through garment vocabulary rather than illustration. Pick a fan-train gown, an architectural shoulder, a corseted sweetheart neckline, a tiered train, duchess satin, beading at the neckline, and Akwa assembles those choices into a coherent runway piece.
It is a good surface for the designer who knows the language of construction better than they know a stylus.
Annotate
The surface for when the idea already exists somewhere else.
You upload a reference, an editorial image, an archival photograph, a piece you saw, and mark directly on it: a different neckline here, longer at the back, swap this fabric, add ornament there. Akwa renders a new piece that honours the reference silhouette and applies your changes. It is the honest answer to how designers actually work, which is rarely from a blank page.
So is Sketch It giving Procreate?
Not really. If anything, Sketch It is giving fashion.
The goal is not to produce a beautiful drawing. It is to produce a beautiful garment, and those are entirely different destinations. Judged as an illustration app, Akwa would be a strange one. Judged as the distance between an idea and something a tailor can make, it is doing something no illustration app is trying to do.
A better comparison
Instead of asking whether Akwa is like Procreate, ask a better question: what happens after the sketch?
That is where Akwa begins.
If someone already uses Procreate, this is usually the sentence that lands:
You know how a napkin sketch always loses something on the way to the tailor? Akwa is the bit in between. You draw it, and it turns into an actual spec.
It tends to click immediately, because every designer has lived that moment. The beautiful illustration. The disappointing sample. The distance between the two is not a talent problem and it is not the tailor's fault. It is an information problem. The brief was never precise enough to carry the intent.
The larger ambition
Akwa is not trying to replace illustration software. Illustration is one step in fashion creation, and a good one.
The ambition is the whole path. An idea becomes a sketch. A sketch becomes a garment concept. A concept becomes a tailor brief. A tailor brief becomes a tech pack. A tech pack becomes a sample. A sample becomes a collection.
Every one of those steps currently loses information, and every lost detail shows up later as a garment that is nearly right. Akwa exists to carry the designer's intent intact from the first line to the finished piece.
That is why comparing it to a drawing app only tells a small part of the story. The drawing was never the point. The garment is.