8th Wall Migration: How to Move Your AR Projects in 2026

TL;DR

• The hosted 8th Wall platform shut down in early 2026, leaving thousands of AR projects without a managed deployment environment.
• 8th Wall now exists as a free, open-source XR toolset at 8thwall.org, but it requires developer resources to self-host and maintain.
• Brands and agencies running AR packaging campaigns need a managed, no-code alternative that keeps experiences live without ongoing developer overhead.
• HOVARLAY is a purpose-built WebAR platform for CPG packaging with no-code tools, built-in campaign analytics, and per-SKU pricing.
• Migrating is faster than rebuilding from scratch: most campaigns can be recreated in HOVARLAY Creator in a day, with no code required.

8th Wall Migration: How to Move Your AR Projects in 2026

8th Wall migration is no longer a contingency plan. It is the task in front of every brand, agency, and developer who built WebAR campaigns on Niantic’s hosted platform. The hosted 8th Wall service closed in early 2026. The underlying engine lives on as open-source software at 8thwall.org, but the managed platform that thousands of projects relied on is gone.

If your AR packaging campaign, product launch experience, or branded activation was running on 8th Wall, here is what to know, what your options are, and how to move without losing months of work.

What Happened to 8th Wall

The hosted 8th Wall platform is no longer available. In early 2026, Niantic confirmed that the commercial hosted service was discontinued. The codebase was released as open-source software at 8thwall.org, where developers can access the XR engine, image targets, face effects, and example projects at no cost. A migration guide is available at the same domain for teams moving existing projects.

What this means in practice: the cloud infrastructure, hosted project management, and the commercial deployment pipeline are gone. Developer teams with the capacity to self-host can continue using the open-source engine. Most brands and agencies, particularly those running packaging campaigns without dedicated WebAR engineers, need a different path.

The scale of this disruption is not trivial. The augmented reality market was valued at USD 120.21 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 29.7% through 2033 (Grand View Research, 2025). Asia Pacific is the fastest-growing region. A significant share of the brand AR experiences built over the past several years ran on 8th Wall. Those projects need somewhere to go.

Your 8th Wall Migration Options

You have three realistic paths when migrating away from the hosted 8th Wall platform, and each carries different cost, speed, and capability trade-offs.

The first option is self-hosting the open-source engine. If your team has WebAR development experience, you can work directly with the 8thwall.org open-source release. This gives you full control over the experience, but it also puts infrastructure management, updates, security, and hosting entirely on you. For agencies with dedicated AR engineers, this can work. For brand-side marketing teams or smaller studios, the ongoing maintenance cost is likely prohibitive.

The second option is rebuilding on a developer-facing WebAR SDK like Zappar or Blippar’s API tier. These platforms offer SDKs and hosted infrastructure. The migration effort is similar to a rebuild, since 8th Wall project files do not port directly into competing SDKs. Expect several weeks of developer time per campaign if your experiences are complex. Licensing costs vary and are often negotiated, which means pricing is opaque until you are already in a sales conversation.

The third option is switching to a no-code managed WebAR platform built for the use case you already have. For brands running AR on product packaging, this is typically the fastest and most cost-effective path. Platforms like HOVARLAY are designed around packaging-specific AR: product scan triggers, gamified lead capture, campaign analytics, and per-SKU pricing with no per-scan fees. You do not need to rewrite code you never wrote in the first place.

Why No-Code Platforms Work for Packaging AR Migration

Most brand AR experiences built on 8th Wall were not custom SDK builds. They were image-target experiences: scan the packaging, trigger an animation, redirect to a landing page, or capture a lead. That use case is exactly what no-code WebAR platforms are built for, and it migrates faster than any SDK-to-SDK port.

HOVARLAY Creator, the no-code builder at the core of the HOVARLAY platform (/webar-builder/), lets brand teams build image-target AR experiences without writing a line of code. You upload your packaging artwork as the image target, drop in your 3D assets or animation layer, configure your campaign settings (spin wheels, lead forms, redirect URLs), and publish. The experience runs in the browser. No app required.

The practical migration workflow looks like this: take your existing packaging artwork, recreate the trigger target in Creator, rebuild the experience layer using pre-built templates, connect it to your campaign analytics via HOVARLAY Insights, and you are live. For a straightforward product scan experience, most brand teams complete this in under a day. More complex multi-step gamification flows typically take two to three days.

HOVARLAY’s Campaigns product layer adds capabilities that 8th Wall never included natively. Built-in gamification (spin wheels, scratch cards, treasure hunt mechanics), lead capture forms, and first-party data collection are part of the platform. HOVARLAY’s own campaign data shows an average conversion rate of 13.23% on gamified WebAR activations (HOVARLAY internal data, 2025). That is not achievable with a bare image-target experience.

What to Evaluate in a Replacement Platform

Not every WebAR platform is built for packaging campaigns. When evaluating migration targets, the criteria that matter most are different from what you considered when first choosing 8th Wall.

Hosting and uptime: the platform must manage deployment for you. The open-source 8th Wall path puts this on your team. Managed platforms handle it as part of the service. Check SLA terms and understand what happens when something breaks.

No-app requirement: your experience must run in a standard mobile browser with no download prompt. This is non-negotiable for packaging AR, where the goal is zero friction from scan to engagement. HOVARLAY Lens delivers browser-based AR with no app install.

Pricing structure: 8th Wall’s commercial tier was project-based with negotiated enterprise pricing. Per-scan or per-view pricing models create unpredictable costs when a campaign goes wide. Per-SKU pricing, the model HOVARLAY uses, fixes your cost to the number of products you activate, not the volume of scans. See the full breakdown at /pricing/.

Analytics built in: you need to know how many scans happened, where drop-off occurs, and what your campaign conversion rate is. HOVARLAY Insights provides this natively. Platforms that require you to bolt on a third-party analytics stack add integration overhead during an already disruptive migration.

Support for regional campaigns: if you are running AR activations in Southeast Asia, specifically Singapore or Indonesia, you want a platform with local infrastructure and local support. HOVARLAY is based in Singapore and built for the SEA market, with case studies including the Summarecon Golden Expo WebAR activation and the Happy Harvest 10.10 campaign. See real deployment examples at /case-studies/.

How to Start the 8th Wall Migration

The fastest way to assess whether your existing campaign can migrate to HOVARLAY is to pilot it on one SKU. Do not try to migrate your entire campaign library at once. Pick one product, one experience, and rebuild it in Creator. Run it alongside whatever interim solution you have in place. Validate that the trigger accuracy, load time, and experience quality meet your requirements. Then scale from there.

This approach also gives you a real conversion baseline on a managed platform before you commit budget. Most brands that pilot AR on one SKU see enough data within two to four weeks to make a confident platform decision for their wider portfolio.

FAQ

What exactly happened to the hosted 8th Wall platform?

The commercial hosted 8th Wall service was discontinued by Niantic in early 2026. The underlying XR engine was released as open-source software at 8thwall.org. The managed platform, project hosting, and commercial deployment infrastructure are no longer available. Teams using the hosted service must migrate to alternative platforms or self-host the open-source engine.

Can I use the open-source 8th Wall engine as my migration path?

Yes, if you have WebAR engineers who can manage self-hosting, infrastructure, and ongoing updates. The open-source release at 8thwall.org includes the XR engine, image targets, and example projects. It is a viable path for developer-heavy teams. For brand-side teams or agencies without dedicated WebAR engineers, the operational overhead typically makes a managed no-code platform a better fit.

How long does an 8th Wall migration to HOVARLAY take?

For a standard image-target experience, most brand teams can recreate and launch the campaign in HOVARLAY Creator within one to two days. More complex experiences with multi-step gamification flows typically take two to three days. The migration timeline depends on the complexity of your original experience, not on the platform.

Does HOVARLAY require a developer for setup or ongoing maintenance?

No. HOVARLAY Creator is a no-code builder. Brand managers, marketing teams, and designers can build, publish, and update AR packaging experiences without writing code. HOVARLAY manages hosting, uptime, and platform updates. Your team manages the campaign content.

What does 8th Wall migration cost when switching to HOVARLAY?

HOVARLAY uses per-SKU monthly pricing, starting at USD 6 to 9 per SKU per month on the Starter tier. There are no per-scan or per-view fees. Enterprise pricing starts at USD 2,500 per month for large portfolio deployments. You can start free to test the platform before committing to a paid plan. Full pricing details are at /pricing/.

Related reading: WebAR Builder: Create AR Packaging Without Writing Code | AR Packaging Solution: How to Select the Right One