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Union Avatars Has Shut Down: What Happened and Where to Migrate

Q: Why did Union Avatars shut down?

The company ceased operations in mid-2025; the founder publicly confirmed the shutdown in July 2026, attributing it to going to market too slowly and getting paying customers too late. There was no acquisition and there is no successor product.

Three full-body MetaPerson 3D avatars created from selfies

Union Avatars has shut down. On July 7, 2026, founder and CEO Cai Felip publicly confirmed on LinkedIn that the company closed in mid-2025 — the announcement was delayed, in part, by his recovery from health issues. As of July 2026, unionavatars.com is offline and shows a domain-parking page. Union Avatars, founded in 2020, turned a selfie into a realistic 3D avatar and served users and brands across games, virtual worlds and digital-identity projects.

What we know

Mid-2025 — Union Avatars ceases operations. There was no acquisition and there is no successor product.
July 7, 2026 — the founder publicly confirms the shutdown, sharing candid lessons about going to market too slowly and raising revenue too late.
Today — the website is offline (the domain is parked at a registrar), and the hosted avatar creator and integrations are gone with it.

The second shutdown in six months

Union Avatars is not an isolated case. Ready Player Me shut down its public avatar platform on January 31, 2026, after being acquired by Netflix. Within six months, two of the best-known selfie-to-3D-avatar platforms have gone offline.

For anyone building on avatar technology, the lesson is the same one twice over: platform durability is now a first-order selection criterion — alongside avatar quality, standard export formats (GLB/FBX) that keep working even if a vendor disappears, and the option to run generation on your own infrastructure.

If you used Union Avatars

Files you already exported keep working. Union Avatars produced models in standard formats — anything you downloaded loads in Unity, Unreal Engine, Blender or a web viewer just as before.
Hosted avatars and API integrations are gone. With the service offline there is no way to retrieve avatars you didn’t download, and no endpoint left to call.
The practical path forward is regeneration: re-create the avatar from a selfie on a platform that is in production — it takes about a minute.

The closest equivalent: MetaPerson

MetaPerson by Avatar SDK is the closest production alternative — it covers the same ground Union Avatars did, and it is actively developed:

Selfie to full-body 3D avatar in the browser — a recognizable, fully rigged avatar from one photo, in realistic or cartoon style. Try it at metaperson.avatarsdk.com — the first avatar is free.
Standard exports — GLB/glTF and FBX, with a Mixamo-compatible rig, so your loaders and animation clips keep working.
Customization — face and body shape, haircuts, outfits and accessories.
For products — embed the creator via an iframe + JS API, or use SDKs for Unity, Unreal Engine, iOS, Android and Web; a headless Cloud avatar API and on-premise Local Compute are available on the Enterprise plan.
Built to last — Avatar SDK is developed by itSeez3D, an independent company shipping avatar technology since 2016, with contractual guarantees for enterprise customers.

Other Union Avatars alternatives

If you are comparing Union Avatars alternatives more broadly, also look at Avaturn (selfie-based, web), Reallusion Character Creator (desktop, manual, film/game production), VRoid Studio (anime-style VRM avatars) and MakeHuman (open-source parametric humans, no selfie input). For a broader comparison of avatar-creation tools, see our 3D character creator overview.

FAQ

Why did Union Avatars shut down?
The company ceased operations in mid-2025. In his July 2026 announcement, the founder attributed it to classic startup dynamics — perfecting the technology too long before going to market, and getting paying customers too late. There was no acquisition.

Is unionavatars.com still online?
No. As of July 2026 the domain shows a registrar parking page; the avatar creator and APIs are offline.

Can I recover avatars I made with Union Avatars?
Only the files you already downloaded — they are standard 3D formats and keep working everywhere. Avatars stored on the service can no longer be retrieved.

What is the closest Union Avatars alternative?
For selfie-based, realistic, full-body 3D avatars created in the browser with GLB/FBX export, MetaPerson is the closest production alternative. Consumers can start free at metaperson.avatarsdk.com; teams migrating a product can follow the same path as Ready Player Me migrations.

Rebuild your avatar in a minute

Create a free avatar at metaperson.avatarsdk.com or start from the 3D avatar maker page. Building a product that needs avatars? See the Avatar API or email support@avatarsdk.com — we have helped many teams move off discontinued avatar platforms.