A long time ago in a computer system far, far away, FutureWave Software released FutureSplash Animator. Then Macromedia bought it and called it Macromedia Flash. Then Adobe bought it and called it Adobe Flash.
Web content was created with it. Games were created with it. Animated TV shows were created with it.
It was lovely until its flaws started getting really bad. Adobe renamed it to Adobe Animate to separate it from the Adobe Flash Player, and that was sunsetted in 2021, but lives on through programs like Ruffle.
On February 2, 2026, Adobe announced they were ending downloads for Animate on March 1st, with all support ending a year later, or three years later for enterprise customers. After a day of the animation industry panicking about losing access to years of files and having to find a completely new program to replace Animate, Adobe said, “No, no, no, no. We didn’t mean we were shutting it down. It’s just going into ‘maintenance mode’. You can still use it and we’ll do bug fixes every once in a while, but we’re not going to add new features to it.”
So while the immediate crisis has been averted, people still need a replacement for Animate. One guy suggested Blender could be used, but it’s made more for 3D than 2D. He’s been working on his own animation program that he calls Sailbrush and wants to make it a priority to get it finished.
To get there, he’s doing fundraising through Ko-fi. For more info, watch his video.