Best animation apps for kids (2026)

Best animation apps for kids by age

• Ages 4 to 6: ScratchJr (designed for ages 5 to 7) and Puppet Pals. Both let a kid tell a story before they draw much.
• Ages 7 to 9: Stop Motion Studio to animate toys and clay. On paper, Kubrio's free flipbook course shows how a stack of drawings starts to move.
• Ages 10 to 13: FlipaClip or Animation Desk to draw every frame, and Scratch to animate through code. Procreate Dreams (iPad) and Pencil2D (free) suit a kid who wants pro drawing tools.

Why we tested these apps

How do you decide which animation app is right for your kid? That's the question I started from. I've spent 8 years in education. Before we made anything, we researched the popular kids' animation apps and made films with them: stop-motion apps, frame-by-frame drawing apps, puppet apps, and coding tools. Each one is good at something, and most of them keep a kid on the screen for most of the work.

So we looked at every app through three questions: how much screen time it takes, whether it teaches how animation works, and what your kid has at the end. Then we made free courses for the part most apps skip: the principles behind a moving picture, learned with paper and a pencil. Here's how to check any app against the three questions.

How to choose an animation app for your kid: three questions

How much screen time does it take?

Look at where the making happens. In FlipaClip or Animation Desk, your kid draws every frame on the screen: a lot of craft, and a lot of screen time. In Stop Motion Studio, the hands-on work is posing real objects, and the screen is for capturing each shot. An AI video app that turns a typed prompt into a cartoon takes a minute of screen time, but the kid described it and the machine made it.

Kubrio's animation courses keep most of the making at the table. Your kid watches a short film, then draws, cuts, or poses things by hand. In Make paper move, the whole animation is a small notepad and a pencil.

Does it teach how animation works?

Ask whether an app teaches the principles behind a film or only its buttons. Most of the apps we tested come with tutorials for their own tools. FlipaClip and Procreate Dreams teach the craft of motion well: onion skinning, frame rates, and timing. ScratchJr and Scratch teach sequence and logic. Stop Motion Studio teaches patience and small moves. Fewer of them teach why a drawing looks alive when it moves.

That's the job of Kubrio's free animation courses. Each course is a set of short films and a quiz at the end, free on kubrio.com with no account:

• Make your drawings move teaches how small changes from one drawing to the next make motion.
• Make paper move turns a stack of small drawings into a flipbook.
• Bring your toys to life makes a stop-motion film with toys.
• Paper that moves on its own makes a stop-motion film with paper cut-outs.

Watch one with your kid before they open any app. What they learn on paper carries over to every tool on this list. Every course for this topic is on the animation page.

What can your kid make with it?

Ask what your kid has at the end. The apps we tested make different things, and most stop at a clip: a flipbook-style clip from FlipaClip, a stop-motion short from Stop Motion Studio, a recorded puppet show from Puppet Pals, or an animated story built from code blocks in ScratchJr. A finished thing that someone watches is what makes a kid want to make the next one.

With a Kubrio course, the finished thing is real and in your kid's hands: a flipbook that flips, a cut-out film, or a toy that walks across the table one photo at a time. For a stop-motion course, your kid takes the photos with a phone or tablet, and any stop-motion app on this list works.

The apps we tested and what each one is for

We didn't set out to rank these apps against each other. We played with all of them to learn what each does well. Here's what we found.

Animate real objects: Stop Motion Studio. This was the strongest tool we tried for tabletop animation. Your kid poses a figure, takes a photo, moves it a little, and takes another. It works with clay, LEGO, cut paper, and drawings.

Draw every frame by hand: FlipaClip. For the kid who wants to own every in-between, this is where we'd start. FlipaClip teaches what professional animators use: onion skinning, frame rates, and timing. Animation Desk does the same job with a flipbook feel. On an iPad, Procreate Dreams is the step up for an older kid who draws a lot.

Act out a show: Puppet Pals. Your kid drags characters onto a stage, moves them with a finger, and records their own voice as they go. A photo of a drawing can become a character.

Build a first story before they draw much: ScratchJr. For kids around 5 to 7. They snap together picture blocks to make characters move, talk, and change scenes. Toontastic 3D used to fill this spot, but it's gone from the App Store and its Google Play listing hasn't been updated since 2017, so skip older lists that still recommend it.

Animate through code: Scratch. For kids ready to program. Your kid scripts a character to move, and the animation comes out of the logic they build.

Learn how animation works first: Kubrio's free courses. We make these, so weigh this one with that in mind. Kubrio isn't an animation app. It's a set of free how-to courses for kids 6 to 13, each with short films and a quiz, and it needs no account. Use a course to learn the idea on paper, then pick an app from this list to keep going.

What about typing a prompt into an AI video app? General AI video generators make a finished clip from a sentence. They're built for adults, and the kid doesn't make much of what comes back. If your kid wants their drawing and their story on screen, pick a tool where their work is the starting point.

The ratings in the table come from the app stores. A 4+ or Everyone rating describes the content, not how hard the app is to use.

What we found when we tested them

Best stop motion app for kids

Stop Motion Studio. It's rated 4+ on the App Store and Everyone on Google Play, it runs on iPhone, iPad, and Android, and it's free to start. A one-time purchase on the App Store unlocks every feature. Your kid needs a phone or tablet, something to hold it steady, and a figure to move. To learn the moves first, the free stop-motion course walks through a toy film step by step.

Best free animation apps for kids

For young kids, ScratchJr is free with no in-app purchases, and Scratch is free in a web browser for kids 8 and up. For drawing every frame on a computer, Pencil2D is free, open-source software for Windows, macOS, and Linux. FlipaClip and Stop Motion Studio are free to start, but FlipaClip shows ads and both sell extra features. Kubrio's animation courses are free too, with no account, ads, or purchases.

Best animation app for kids on iPad

It depends on the job. FlipaClip is the free way to draw every frame on an iPad. Procreate Dreams is a one-time purchase, iPad only, and suits older kids who already draw a lot. Stop Motion Studio runs on iPad for toys and clay. Kubrio's courses play in the iPad's browser, so there's nothing to install.

What it takes at home

For a Kubrio course, you need paper, something to draw with, and a phone, tablet, or computer to watch the films. A stop-motion course also needs a phone or tablet to take the photos.