Bud & Orchids Shut Down 18 July: Save Your Apps Now
TL;DR: Figma has bought the team behind the vibe-coding apps Bud and Orchids, and both will shut down on 18 July 2026. If you built anything on either, you have until then to export it — or you lose it. Here’s exactly how to rescue your work, and how to pick a tool this won’t happen with again.
What happened
On 7 July 2026, Figma announced it had acquired the team behind Bud — the AI app builder formerly known as Orchids, a Y Combinator-backed startup that let non-coders spin up apps for web, mobile, Slack and the browser by describing them in plain English.
It’s a “team” acquisition, not a product one. That means the people move to Figma and the products close: both Bud and Orchids shut down on 18 July 2026. Anything you don’t export before that date goes away with them.
Bud’s CEO Kevin Lu framed it as a win, calling Figma “a natural home for this exciting new era of work.” For the company, it probably is. For the people who built apps on Bud, it’s a six-day clock.
Why it matters if you don’t code
This is the quiet risk nobody mentions when you start vibe coding: the tool you build on is a company, and companies get bought, pivot, or close. When that happens, “your” app can vanish with the platform — unless you can get the actual code out.
The AI coding space is consolidating fast in 2026, and Bud won’t be the last. The lesson isn’t “don’t use these tools” — it’s own your work. A tool you can export from, or that syncs to GitHub, hands you a copy of your project you keep no matter what happens to the company. A tool that locks everything inside its own walls hands you nothing the day it closes.
If you’re on Bud or Orchids right now, though, the urgent thing isn’t the philosophy — it’s the deadline.
How to save your work before 18 July
- Log in to Bud or Orchids today. Don’t leave this to the 17th — export tools get slow when everyone rushes at once.
- Download your project locally. Look for an “Export” or “Download code” option and save the files to your own computer.
- Push it to GitHub if you can. Bud and Orchids offer GitHub sync — connecting a free GitHub account gives you a permanent copy of the code that survives the shutdown.
- Redeploy somewhere else. Your exported app needs a new home to stay live. Move it to another hosting provider or rebuild it in a tool you’ll stay with.
- Grab everything else too — any prompts, notes, or assets you’d miss. After 18 July, the account is gone.
Who should care (and who shouldn’t)
- You have live apps on Bud or Orchids: this is urgent. Export this week — see the steps above.
- You were about to start on Bud or Orchids: don’t. Pick a tool that isn’t closing in six days.
- You build revenue apps elsewhere: treat this as a prompt to check you can export your code from whatever tool you use. If you can’t, that’s a risk worth fixing now.
- You’re choosing your first tool: make “can I export my code / does it sync to GitHub?” one of your questions. Durability matters as much as speed.
Our take
Team acquisitions that shut the product are becoming a regular event in this space, and they’ll keep happening as bigger companies buy up AI-builder talent. We wouldn’t panic — but we would treat this as a cheap lesson learned on someone else’s platform. Pick tools you can walk away from with your code in hand. The ones we’d point beginners to — like Lovable, Bolt and Replit — let you export or sync to GitHub, so a corporate deal can never hold your work hostage.
Not sure which tool to move to — or start with? Take the 60-second Vibe Coding Tool Finder quiz → it matches you to a tool by your situation, and our 2026 comparison shows which ones let you own your code.
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FAQ
What happens to my Bud or Orchids projects after 18 July 2026?
They become inaccessible — both platforms shut down that day. Anything you haven’t downloaded locally or synced to GitHub before then is lost, so export everything you want to keep this week.
Can I move my Bud app to another tool?
You can move the exported code, not the Bud project itself. Download your files (or push them to GitHub), then redeploy with another hosting provider or rebuild in a tool you plan to stay with. It’s some work, but it keeps your app alive.
How do I avoid this happening again?
Favour tools you can export from or that sync to GitHub, so you always hold a copy of your code. If a tool keeps everything locked inside its own platform, you’re dependent on that company staying in business.
