TikTok is shutting down its Instagram competitor TikTok Notes

TikTok is shutting down its Instagram competitor, TikTok Notes, on Might 8. The photo-sharing app launched in testing in Canada, Australia, and Vietnam final yr.

The corporate is notifying TikTok Notes customers of its choice to retire the app and is directing them to ByteDance-owned Lemon8, which isn’t stunning provided that the apps are fairly related and provide the identical form of performance.

“We’re excited to convey the suggestions from TikTok Notes to Lemon8 as we proceed constructing a devoted area for our neighborhood to share and expertise picture content material, designed to enhance and improve the TikTok expertise,” a TikTok spokesperson mentioned in a press release to TechCrunch.

Whereas TikTok didn’t present a particular motive for shutting down the app, it’s probably that the corporate didn’t see a lot adoption for TikTok Notes and is deciding to as a substitute push Lemon8, which had round 12.5 million global monthly active users as of December 2024.

In a notice to TikTok Notes users, TikTok says the choice to close down the app “was not made evenly.” The discover encourages customers to obtain and save their TikTok Notes information and “proceed sharing your creativity on Lemon8.” TikTok says that “Lemon8 is a life-style app that gives an analogous expertise to TikTok Notes” however with “much more options.”

Lemon8 launched in Japan in 2020 and later expanded to markets throughout the U.S. and Southeast Asia. The app is just like Instagram and Pinterest, because it lets customers share slideshows and picture collections and browse content material via “Following” and “For You” feeds. Lemon8 gives customers entry to artistic instruments, filters, results, stickers, textual content templates, and extra.

Whereas TikTok is pushing Lemon8 as a substitute for TikTok Notes, ByteDance has additionally tried to place the app as a substitute for TikTok itself within the face of a possible U.S. ban.

Final November, the corporate made it attainable for customers to directly access Lemon8 with their TikTok accounts and rolled out the flexibility for customers to cross-share picture content material between the apps. The transfer was seen as a method for ByteDance to maneuver creators onto the brand new platform with out having to get them to join it individually in case TikTok had been to go away.

Quick-forward to right this moment, and TikTok continues to advertise Lemon8 in its app because it faces a brand new ban deadline of April 5.