The Best Stop Motion Apps

Are you a fan of The Lego Movie? Have you ever marveled at the way the individual frames come to life when watching a masterful stop motion animation?

That’s the magic of stop motion software; it allows you to take multiple still images and combine them to create magic! If you’ve ever wanted to create your own stop motion videos, look no further. Whether you’re on Android or iOS, we have the perfect app for you.

featured image best stop motion apps

Here’s our list of the Best Stop Motion Apps to create your own films!

1. Stop Motion Studio:

stop motion studio icon

Stop Motion Studio definitely takes the first spot on our list as the best stop motion app. It has all the features you need to create surreal stop motion animations, claymations, and many more.

Stop Motion Studio is one of the most comprehensive apps available on both Android and iOS. It allows users to click multiple pictures and makes the entire process straightforward.

Once you’re in the capture mode, you can start clicking images. An overlay slider shows you a low-opacity image of your last shot, allowing you to line up the next one perfectly. You can conveniently add titles, credits, images, and other clips to your roll.

There’s a handy undo button to retake the last shot. Double tapping on the image preview bar auto-zooms-out to let you see the entire timeline.

You can also add music and sound effects via your microphone or by uploading a sound file.

The settings tab has tools that let you add filters and backgrounds, transition animations, and change the aspect ratio. More importantly, you can set your video’s FPS (Frames per second) to change its speed.

More advanced users may want to purchase the premium version. Once you unlock them, you can use all the premium features forever.

This lets you create 4k and Ultra-HD quality films and add visual effects and annotations. Not satisfied? Well, the premium version also supports rotoscoping, adding faces and expressions to your characters, green screen support, and remote camera compatibility.

From the main menu, you can import projects and view all your films as a collection. The app has tons of tutorials and tips to get you started, and with its clean user interface, it can be operated by anyone.

Whether you’re a newbie or an experienced animator, with enough patience and skills, you can create some pretty impressive animations with this app.

Stop Motion Studio Interface

The Good:

  • Complete stop motion features
  • 4K UHD quality available in the premium version
  • Great for beginners and experts alike

The Not-so-good:

  • Many advanced features require premium
  • Green screen feature glitches on some devices

Available on: iOS, Android

Other Stop Motion Apps you should try:

2. I Can Animate:

icananimate icon

This app is simple to use and has all the basic features needed to make a great stop motion video.

The main menu has tools to create and delete your animations. Once you start a new project, you can begin taking images through your camera. The app allows you to delete, duplicate and reverse frames for ease of animation.

Once you’ve snapped a couple of frames, you can peek at the last frame to align the next one. A feature called “Onion skinning” also helps you get the perfect positioning.

The chroma key button has features to import your own backgrounds. This allows users to add green screen effects to their animations. We tested this one out, and the color tolerance slider works well to produce smooth overlays.

While the base app and most features are free, you can purchase the premium Animator’s pack for extra tools. These include 4K Ultra-HD video exports as well as green screen effects. Animators can also make use of clips that are handy for longer projects.

Overall, the app is well-made and has helpful tutorials for beginners. Anyone with some time and inspiration can use this app to create great stop motion.

The Good:

  • Handy image overlay features while taking pictures
  • Simple to use, child-friendly

The Not-so-good:

  • Need premium for green screen use
  • Some issues with exporting larger files

Available on: iOS, Android

I Can Animate Interface

3. iMotion:

iMotion icon

iMotion is an iOS-exclusive app that lets you capture, edit and create your own stop motion films. It also has a nifty time-lapse tool inbuilt.

You can use your front or rear camera to take pictures and then edit them on the spot. The camera allows you to adjust and lock focus, exposure, white balance, and more to ensure consistent quality.

The FPS slider lets you create variable speeds for your stop motion. iMotion also supports both landscape and portrait mode, a feature that quite a few other stop motion apps surprisingly lack.

You can add images, sound effects, and other filters to give your videos a movie-like feel! You can also use your microphone to record your own dialogues or soundtracks.

If you aren’t feeling creative, you can always check out projects by other users in the Photo Library. Here, you can view and get inspired by hundreds of user-made stop motion animations.

You can use the Wifi remote to click images hands-free, allowing your stop motion frames to be crisp. Once you’ve created your video, you can export it in up to 4K resolution on supported devices.

Once you’ve created your film, you can share it directly to both your iCloud and iTunes sharing folder. It also has Youtube and Facebook integration to allow for easy uploads.

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iMotion features

The Good:

  • Has both stop motion and time-lapse tools
  • Supports both screen orientations

The Not-so-good:

  • Not available for Android
  • Requires the premium version for many features

Available on: iOS

4. iStopMotion:

istopmotion icon

Although its editing features are a bit lackluster, iStopMotion has great tools for stop motion. You can use it to create flipbooks, gifs, or your very own stop motion film.

Adding soundtracks is a big feature of this app. You can add your own music or sound effects using the microphone or import audio files. Additionally, you can download a separate remote app for taking images without touching your device. This wifi remote trigger can be quite useful for producing undisturbed stop motion sequences.

This app can help you make your own stop motion GIFs too. After uploading a video, you can select frame-by-frame segments and convert them into image sequences and GIFs.

The app also features the Onion Skin tool to help align and capture precise shots that overlay each other perfectly. However, this is about as many features as you can get with iStopMotion.

There is no undo button, no way to edit the timeline, and no other image-edit tools. You can’t even re-arrange frames.

But given the large number of options you can choose from on the Appstore, this app could certainly use some fine-tuning. It feels a little incomplete, especially for a paid app.

istopmotion 1

The Good:

  • The onion skin feature works smoothly for image overlay
  • Audio features work well

The Not-so-good:

  • Not available for Android
  • Requires a separate app for wifi remote trigger
  • Very basic features that feel incomplete

Available on: iOS

5. PicPac Stop Motion and Time-Lapse

picpac icon

PicPac is a full-feature stop motion and time-lapse app that can help you turn your ideas into awesome stop motion films.

The free version has all the required features and will be plenty for the average user. These include sound effects by either recording and importing audio or using PicPac’s inbuilt library of music.

Once you start a project, you can click your own or upload it from your camera roll. The app arms you with basic editing tools to re-arrange frames, adjust FPS, and remove minor objects from your frames.

The app also has an extensive library of stock photos to choose from. A neat feature is that you can draw over your images to bring them to life. If you choose to upload a video from your camera roll, the app will automatically extract frames to help create your stop motion video.

And that’s not all, PicPac also features some pretty unique tools that we haven’t seen in any other app. For example, there’s a hands-free mode where you can clap to take a picture! This makes the tedious task of stop motion animation a little easier.

The premium version is something to consider for more serious animators. With it, you can remove watermarks, add your own logos, upload in Full-HD and upload directly to Youtube (once you sign in).

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PicPac Sop Motion and Time-Lapse interface

The Good:

  • Auto-extraction of frames from videos
  • Hands-free mode for convenience and distance shots

The Not-so-good:

  • Not available on iOS
  • The free version only supports up to 360p video quality

Available on: Android

6. Life Lapse Stop Motion Maker

lifelapse icon

Life Lapse Stop Motion Maker has every feature you’d need to create spectacular stop motion films. The app has both a free and paid version.

Once you begin snapping photos, you can control image settings such as focus lock, auto white balance lock, timer, and grid. There’s also a ghost overlay that lets you see your last frame’s position to get perfect alignment every time. You can take the pictures on your own or upload them from your gallery.

Once you’re satisfied with your images, you can edit your project using a variety of tools. From adding visual effects and filters to audio and sound effects, this app has it all. You can adjust the frame rate and use color correction.

Life Lapse has built-in libraries for both royalty-free songs and stock images. If you like, you can also view tons of tips and tutorials to get better at animation.

The pro version lets users record and export 4K footage on compatible devices. You can remove watermarks which can be useful for content creators and brands. Pro users also get a Bluetooth remote tool to take hands-free images. Lastly, you can also save your stop motion films as GIFs!

Once you download the app, you can view posts by other users to get inspired. You can also ask questions and get all your animation doubts solved by experienced animators.

Overall, this is a solid app for newbie creators, but professionals may want to purchase the pro version to unlock its full potential.

Life Lapse Academy page; Shoot and Edit interface

The Good:

  • Complete stop motion app with shooting and editing tools
  • Detailed tips and tutorials for beginners
  • Stock images and royalty-free music libraries

The Not-so-good:

  • Not available for iOS
  • Many good features are paywalled and require the pro version

Available on: Android