If you’ve been building WebAR experiences on 8th Wall, you’ve probably already seen the news: the platform is officially winding down. Niantic has announced that developer access to 8th Wall will end in 2026, with hosted projects staying online only until early 2027.

For agencies, brands, and independent creators, this raises one big question:

Where should we move our 8th Wall projects so they stay online, maintainable, and future-proof?

In this blog, we’ll walk through why you need a migration plan now and why ARLOOPA Studio is an ideal new home for your WebAR experiences. We’ll also outline a practical step-by-step path to move your projects over with minimal friction.

Why You Need a Migration Plan Now

8th Wall’s shutdown isn’t happening overnight, but it is happening on a fixed timeline. According to the shutdown plan, developers will eventually lose the ability to log in, create new projects, or export assets, and later, hosted projects will also be decommissioned.

That has a few serious implications:

No edits or maintenance: Once login and editing are disabled, you won’t be able to fix bugs, update content, or adapt campaigns to new devices and browsers.

Limited export window: There’s a finite window where you can still export your projects and assets. Miss that, and getting your content out becomes much harder.

Hard stop for hosted projects: When hosting is turned off, any live experiences still on 8th Wall will simply stop working - no matter how many users or clients still rely on them.

If you’re running brand campaigns, always-on experiences, or long-term installations, you really don’t want your AR infrastructure to sit on a countdown timer.

That’s why it’s smart to start migrating before the deadlines get close - both to protect what you’ve already built and to avoid launching anything new on a platform that’s already in sunset mode.

Meet ARLOOPA Studio: A Powerful New Home for Your 8th Wall Projects

What Is ARLOOPA Studio?

ARLOOPA Studio is a cloud-based AR creation platform that lets you build and publish immersive experiences for mobile devices and the web - without needing to write code. It’s part of the broader ARLOOPA ecosystem, which includes the ARLOOPA mobile app and a set of tools for AR content creation and deployment.

From a feature point of view, ARLOOPA Studio covers the same core capabilities 8th Wall developers depend on, including:

Marker-Based AR (Image Tracking)
Let users scan posters, packaging, business cards, or artwork and unlock 3D content, videos, or interactive scenes.

Markerless AR (Surface Tracking)
Place digital 3D objects on real-world surfaces without any printed markers - great for product visualization, interactive storytelling, and room-scale experiences.

Geolocation-Based AR
Attach AR content to real-world coordinates, discoverable on the ARLOOPA Map, so your experiences can live at specific venues, cities, routes, or attractions.

Web AR
Publish AR experiences as web links that open directly in the browser - no separate app required - preserving the instant access and shareability that made 8th Wall’s WebAR so popular.

Face-Tracking AR
Build face filters, masks, and character overlays that track a user’s face in real time, ideal for social content, virtual try-ons, and gamified campaigns.

In other words, ARLOOPA Studio gives you a familiar toolbox: image tracking, world tracking, geolocation, face AR, and WebAR delivery - all under one roof.

Why ARLOOPA Studio Is an Ideal Successor to 8th Wall

From the perspective of an 8th Wall developer, here’s why ARLOOPA Studio stands out as an excellent migration target:

1. WebAR Without the Headache

If you chose 8th Wall for WebAR, you likely care about reach and accessibility—no forced app download, just tap a link and you’re in.
ARLOOPA Studio’s Web AR offers the same core benefit: users open a browser link on their smartphone and immediately see your AR experience.
You can keep your existing flows:
QR codes → open AR in browser
Links in social media, emails, or landing pages
Embeds or calls-to-action on brand websites

All while moving the underlying project to a platform that’s actively maintained.

2. Multiple AR Modes on One Platform

Instead of juggling separate tools for marker-based, markerless, geolocation, or face filters, ARLOOPA Studio lets you create all of these from the same place.
That means you can:
Port a marker-based 8th Wall campaign into an ARLOOPA marker experience.
Recreate world-tracking demos as markerless experiences.
Move location-based hunts and city-scale activations into ARLOOPA’s geolocation system with map-based discovery.
This unified approach simplifies both your tech stack and your team’s learning curve.

3. Accessible, No-Code Creation

ARLOOPA Studio is designed to be visual and creator-friendly:
Drag and drop 3D models, images, videos, and audio into your scene.
Position, rotate, and scale objects in an intuitive editor.
Add interactions and animations without needing to write JavaScript.
If your 8th Wall workflow relied heavily on custom code, you can still reproduce the same behaviours - but in many cases you’ll find ARLOOPA’s no-code approach faster for typical marketing, education, and storytelling use-cases.

4. Flexible Delivery: Web + App Ecosystem

On top of WebAR links, ARLOOPA also offers the ARLOOPA mobile app (iOS and Android) as a ready-made AR viewer, supporting marker-based, markerless, and geolocation content.
That gives you options:
Use the web link where zero friction is essential.
Leverage the ARLOOPA app for app-like experiences without building your own native app from scratch.

Explore white-label and custom solutions for enterprise-grade projects if needed.