Adobe is pulling the plug on Adobe Animate. In an FAQ posted on Adobe’s website, the company says it will stop selling the animation software on March 1, citing the emergence of new platforms that “better meet users’ needs.”
Users have until March 1, 2027 (or March 1, 2029 for enterprise customers) to access and download the files from Animate, as they will no longer be available after this time. The app will remain available for download until those deadlines, and Adobe will continue to provide support during that period.
The history of Adobe Animate begins in 1996, when FutureWave Software launched a vector graphics application, originally called FutureSplash Animator, as a tool for creating vector-based animations. Although Macromedia acquired the tool later that year and renamed it Flash, Adobe purchased the company in 2005 and began calling the app Adobe Flash Professional. As the web began to phase out Flash, Adobe announced plans to rebrand the app to Adobe Animate in 2015.
Although Adobe says that Creative Cloud Pro customers can use other apps to “replace parts of the Animate functionality”, such as Adobe After Effects or Adobe Express, many users who still use Animate are disappointed by its impending closure. The creators of the short-form animated series, Chicken Nugget, write in a post on X that they still use Adobe Animate to create the show. “This decision will not only result in the loss of countless jobs in the industry but will also cause the media to lose many masterpieces of the past,” the post reads. David Firth, creator of salad FingersIt also says he still uses the app to create quirky series.
Jackbox Games technical artist MegaCharlie says the app is used in “many high-budget television cartoon productions, film and animation studios, game studios large and small, not to mention the thousands of indie creators who still use it daily.”
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