Animate 2025?

[Willi Lopes]

Will there be no update for Animate this year?

[Lucaksic]

Honestly, I find After Effects so freaking annoying to work with.

It overcomplicates and hides everything behind bars and windows.

Adobe Animate's interface is a million times better

[Jawad Nihad]

Yeesh, this thread is depressing.

I installed Animate today to experiment with the format, since a possible use I may have in the future is exporting in HTML, as I usually do motion graphics in After Effects, which doesn't support that to my knowledge.
So I decided to check the community page, since the app felt quite "un-updated" (Hm, where's all the annoying new contextual task bars and generative AI popups that I never use?) and wanted to check if anyone agreed.

This post really reminded me of Adobe's current state. It's gotten to the point where I cannot use any Adobe program which isn't Illustrator or LrC without running into baffling performance/interface issues which would make me question if underneath all the new UI and features, we're all still running the same code that was written decades ago. (eg. About Animate: "Portions of this program were written with MacApp" Yes, I know it's normal for apps to be using old standards, but wasn't MacApp used for Classic MacOS?? What possible implementation would have to stick around from that old of an era?)

Welp, I feel like I will likely will have to look elsewhere for what I want to achieve, HTML or not. I wish Adobe a "Get well soon".

[HarrowwInk]

Why on earth are you going to wish a corporation a "Get well soon" card, they will discard it immediately.

Unfortunately we cannot sugarcoat the situation, since Adobe don't seem too interested to want to bring up any discussion in regards to Animate. And when people at Adobe promise to respond by a certain day, they proceed to give no response whatsoever.

I think it is safe to say by now that Adobe Animate will most definitely be discontinued at some point. There hasn't been a single update on development for over a year now, and with Creative Cloud 2026 fast approaching, it is only a matter of time until Adobe officially announces the discontinuation of Adobe Animate.

It is a shame too, since Adobe have chosen to let the software die in favour of promoting AI.

Not much positive to say if a piece of software is receiving the same treatment to the other discontinued software, well, before they were officially discontinued. Sorry!

[baldi_6603]

I think them jump 2025 to 2026

[kglad]

@baldi_6603 

that's optimism. (and i hope you're correct.)

[rayek.elfin]

That would go against Adobe's historic behaviour, and is something they have never done before. The exact same behavioural pattern(s) have always indicated the end of software development at Adobe.

Of course, never say never. 😉

Chances of a version jump? I'd hazard a guess, and say 0.000001%. 

[Dr Abstract]

Adobe Animate exports to CreateJS.  ZIM is built on CreateJS and has been updating constantly for the last 10 years.  We are now on major version 018 with hundreds if not thousands of minor updates.  https://zimjs.com  There is a section specifically for working with Animate here https://zimjs.com/animate - this will give you over 40 components, many conveniences like one line drag and drop and multiple hit tests, and a host of controls like Pen, Book, Emitter, MotionController and more!  Please check it out and drop by our forums if you have any questions.

We may be all sad that the Animate tool has stopped production... so be it, but if you want hundreds of new features please check out ZIM.

[Renee @ BU]

I agree. It's highly unlikely. Yet, I'm still hanging on to that 0.000001%. ha ha.

[baldi_6603]

Historically, Flash has not had major updates for three years: 2001, 2006, 2009. If there is no news this year, then 2026 will not exist. 

[kglad]

those other years predate adobe's subscription model which was touted (by adobe) for promoting more frequent improvements/updates for all adobe apps, not just animate.

[erdalirmak]

I've used Animate (since the Macromedia era) in countless projects—it’s my go-to for illustration and animation. With Animate and AIR, there’s no project you can’t tackle. Just last year, I published two mobile educational games with it.

Adobe needs to position Animate correctly: more sample projects, templates, and consistent updates. I doubt the decision-makers fully grasp its potential. Once a trendsetter, Adobe now feels like it’s chasing trends—a leadership issue that needs fixing.

Don’t let this tool fade. Invest in its future.

[gokhane4631857]

I have a substantial portfolio of interactive infographics that demonstrate
the abilities of animate. I have found workarounds, such as embedding webm
video components, to reduce file sizes of ambitious projects.

As a community, I suggest we pool those samples and share with Adobe -- and
position the product as a multiple range software, just like Tumult Hype is
doing (https://tumult.com/hype/gallery/).

[Pongo8]

What an embarrassment this company has become. Buying up Flash from Macromedia and now holding it hostage like that. Not evolving the software anymore, and not letting anyone else to do it. I swear, if this software was open source, with the help of enthusiastic community members like Flanimate Power Tools, it would thrive to the skies. Just look at VLC, Audacity, Blender and Godot, just to name a few. But no, instead, it just rots somewhere - completely abandoned and neglected.

Sure, Adobe did a few good things with Animate - but absolutely not enough. At this point, I believe the best thing Adobe can do for their own image and to save what's left of it, is to transfer Animate to the community and to let it become what's it always meant to be - let Animate become evolved to reach its full potential. I know it's wishful thinking - but I still want to hope that it can be done.

Adobe are clearly not interested in Animate - so why not make a kind gesture, on their part, and make it open source and hand it down to the community. And the world will start talking about this, and it will heal Adobe's image in regard to the "hidden subscription fee trap" scandal and all that kind of thing.

[n. tilcheff]

Thanks for your post @Pongo8, and for the kind words about our work!

I will only add that its name needs to go back to Flash, which is iconic and memorable, unlike Animate.

[kglad]

@Pongo8 

no one's holding animate hostage.

[rayek.elfin]

Adobe's management doesn't work that way, unfortunately. And even if they'd be willing to let go of Flash/Animate, things are never that simple: cue Freehand as a prior example. When Freehand's development was abandoned by Adobe (right after the Macromedia acquisition) the entire Freehand user community went up in arms. They too wanted Adobe to release Freehand as open source or sell it to the community, and even threatened legal action. 

Action was taken, and the Free Freehand initiative started. 

https://creativepro.com/free-freehand/

It was all for nought. Adobe invited the stakeholders behind Free Freehand to their headquarters, and from their talks it soon became obvious that Freehand couldn't be made open source due to too many licenses and other dependencies. Other reasons as well.

Animate/Flash will never be sold to another party or go open source for the same reasons Freehand wasn't open sourced.

If you are interested in investing in an open source 2d animation software alternative, support OpenToonz instead. Or Blender's 2D animation Grease Pencil. Of course, OpenToonz doesn't feature scripting or any of the interactive stuff that Animate/Flash supports - for that look elsewhere, such as Godot Engine.

[kilopop2000]

Yep, give it back to the community. Go back to the name Flash. This is an iconic piece of software. Adobe might be surprised how hard it will be to kill off. The recent purchase of Commodore by dedicated fans is a testament to what sentiment and community can achieve:

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/commodores-been-bought-by-a-youtuber-whos-re-assembling-key-...

[Willikolho]

It's been a while since I've opened Animate to do anything, and recently I had to tweak some animations, and I just can't! If I copy and paste something from Illustrator, it just closes, and if I try to export a GIF, it closes!

Adobe's stance is leaving a lot to be desired. If they're going to leave it like this, they should just leave the code open for anyone who's still willing to do something about it.

[gokhane4631857]

The last stable version is Animate 2023.
Animate 2024 is unstable.

Uninstalled and reinstalled 2023. Files work again.

[ASK Animator]

Like gokhane said, last "stable" (idk if its worth having that title tbh) is 2023. Exporting has become a pain along with simple tasks such as copy and pasting between files.

[kglad]

on windows, i haven't seen any stability issues with 2024.

[JoãoCésar]

I've experienced some crashes in v 24.0.10 (build 14) for macOS.

[ASK Animator]

Yeah usually when I export a bigger file as an image, movie or gif it will crash. Only exception is export video/media. And of course if I work with a bigger scene copy and pasting multiple characters from file to file (unless I let it sit for like 5-10 mins) will crash as well. 

[baldi_6603]

Sadly, a lot of people around me, even a lot of people on video platforms, don't know this software is dead, and many of them don't even know Animate is Flash. The three software of the former macromedia are all resting.

[SpacebarBandit]

It had a minor security update a couple of weeks ago, so they still ahve a goblin cahined up somwhere looking at code. I love animate, since i pay for for full cloud apps, i'm quite happy to use animate, instead of Character animator, but everyone is jazzing over that, and it's nowhere near as productive, and flexable as Animate. If they both combined we'd be talking something good.