When we started Imagine, we did it because we believed deeply in the direction behind it. We believed that AI would fundamentally change how products are imagined, created, and brought to market. We believed there was room for a platform that could make this process faster, more accessible, and more powerful. I still believe that.
That belief has not changed. What has changed is our understanding of where we are best positioned to contribute, and how we can create the most value with the team and focus we have.
After a lot of reflection, we have decided to shut down Imagine.
This is not a decision we made lightly. The product has real potential, the vision remains compelling, and I am proud of what the team built. But part of building a company is knowing when to keep pushing and when to refocus. In this case, the honest conclusion is that continuing to invest in Imagine would take us farther away from the place where Appwrite has always been strongest.
We still believe in the vision
I want to be clear about one thing from the start: shutting down Imagine is not a statement against the idea.
We fully support the space and continue to believe in the broader vision behind the product. AI will keep reshaping how software is built, how products are designed, and how new ideas move from concept to execution. We saw that early, and that is exactly why we were excited to build Imagine in the first place.
The team did meaningful work here. They built a thoughtful platform in a category that is evolving incredibly fast. The product was ambitious, the execution was strong, and there is still a lot of potential in the direction itself.
But belief in a vision is not enough on its own. Timing matters. Positioning matters. And being realistic about your strengths matters.
Our timing was not great
One of the hardest things in building new products is that sometimes you can be directionally right and still not be in the right position to win.
That is how I see Imagine.
We entered a space that moved extremely quickly. In a short period of time, several products emerged that already do a good enough job for many of the users we hoped to serve. In markets like this, “good enough” becomes a very real force. It raises the bar very quickly, especially for newer products trying to carve out their place.
To succeed in that kind of environment, you need very strong product-market fit, a very sharp distribution edge, and a customer profile that sits close to your natural strengths. Over time, it became clear that while Imagine had promise, our timing was not great and our advantage was not strong enough relative to the speed of the market.
That does not mean the product was wrong. It means that for us, at this moment, it was not the right bet to keep compounding on.
Appwrite is at its best when we serve developers
The second reason is even more important.
Appwrite’s real advantage has always been our connection to developers. Serving the developer community through open source is not just one part of what we do - it is our DNA. It is where this company comes from. It is where our team has consistently done its best work. It is where our product intuition is strongest, our credibility is strongest, and our execution tends to be strongest too.
That is the center of gravity for Appwrite.
With Imagine, the ideal customer profile was farther away from that center than where we naturally do our best. We could feel that in the product, in the go-to-market motion, and in the kind of conversations required to move the platform forward. The opportunity was real, but it pulled us into a space that was less aligned with the core identity that made Appwrite successful in the first place.
As a founder, I think one of the most important things you can do is pay attention to where your team shines naturally. Not just where a market is interesting, but where your company has a real reason to exist and a real ability to win.
For Appwrite, that answer has remained remarkably consistent over time. We do our best work when we help developers build faster, scale faster, and stay in control of the software they create.
Where we want to focus next
As AI continues to reshape the software landscape, we do not want to step away from this shift. We want to engage with it more deeply, but in a way that is much more aligned with who we are.
That means focusing our efforts on helping developers build and scale faster with AI.
There is a lot of room here for Appwrite to contribute in meaningful ways. Developers need better infrastructure, better workflows, better abstractions, and better platforms to support the next generation of AI-powered products. This is much closer to our strengths, much closer to our community, and much closer to the kind of value we know how to deliver.
Some of what we explored in Imagine may still find its way into Appwrite over time, where it genuinely makes sense. The product helped us learn a lot, and I would not be surprised if parts of that learning show up again in forms that are more native to our platform and more useful to developers.
That is where we want to put our energy.
What this means for users
Starting today, we will no longer accept new signups for Imagine.
We will also stop charging existing users starting today. During the transition period, current users and customers will continue to have access to the platform while we help them plan and complete their migration.
Over the next few weeks, our team will work closely with users to help them move to other solutions, including Appwrite (for which we have prepared a migration guide). We want this process to be smooth, practical, and respectful of the trust people placed in us.
Imagine will be fully shut down at the start of May.
We know that shutting down a product creates inconvenience, and we do not take that lightly. We are committed to supporting customers and users through this transition as responsibly as we can.
Thank you to the people behind Imagine
I also want to say something directly to the people who worked on Imagine and to the people who used it.
To the team: thank you. Building something new always takes a special kind of effort. It takes optimism, conviction, and the willingness to do hard work without guarantees. The team behind Imagine did exactly that. They built with care, moved with urgency, and created something ambitious in a very demanding space. I am genuinely proud of what they accomplished, and I am grateful for the energy and talent they put into this product.
To the users and customers: thank you for giving Imagine a chance. Thank you for trusting us early, for testing the platform, for sharing feedback, and for helping us shape the product along the way. That support mattered. Early users are never just customers, they are part of the story of the product itself, and we do not take that for granted.
Focus is part of building well
There is never a perfect moment to shut something down that still has potential. Decisions like this are difficult precisely because they are not about a lack of belief. They are about focus. They are about being honest with yourself about where your company is uniquely strong, where your team can have the greatest impact, and where your long-term energy should go.
We still believe in the ideas behind Imagine. We still believe the product had potential. However, we also believe that Appwrite can do more good, more clearly, by staying close to developers, close to open source, and close to the problems we are best equipped to solve.
That is what we are choosing.
And that is where we are heading next.