Still missing Butter?
A lot of facilitators never really replaced it. Zoom plus a board plus a polling tool is not the same thing, and everyone who used Butter knows it. Here is the most useful thing we can offer you, and it is not a demo.
Send us a session you actually have to run. We'll build it in Kolab for you.
Pick something real from your calendar. A workshop, a training, a cohort kickoff, a retro. Send us the agenda, or just describe how you used to run it in Butter. We will build the whole thing in Kolab, walk you through it on video, and hand it over. You run it. There is no charge for the first one and no card required.
Here's exactly what happens: you send the agenda, we reply within one business day with any questions, and within about a week you get a built Kolab space plus a short video walking you through it. Then you run it, or you don't. Either way the space is yours to keep.
The question you should be asking
"Why won't you shut down too?"
This is the first thing every ex-Butter facilitator asks us, and it is the right question. You invested years of practice into a tool that disappeared. You are owed a straight answer rather than a reassuring one.
When Butter announced its sunset, Jakob was unusually honest about why, and he was clear that it was not Miro's decision. He gave three reasons. Butter never reached sustainable revenue across five years. Running a video service carries brutal variable costs. And after the pandemic, most large companies consolidated on Teams, Meet or Zoom, and many simply would not permit an alternative.
Those are three specific, structural problems. So rather than promise you we will be around forever, which nobody can honestly promise, here is how Kolab sits against each one.
Butter's reason 1
Never reached sustainable revenue in five years, built largely on individual facilitator subscriptions.
Where Kolab sits
Kolab's revenue comes mostly from organizations buying per program, not from individuals on monthly plans. A single fellowship or cohort program is worth more than hundreds of individual seats, and it renews on a program cycle.
Butter's reason 2
The variable costs of running a video conferencing service are extremely high.
Where Kolab sits
Still true, and we will not pretend otherwise. It is why Kolab is not chasing free-tier scale. The pricing is built to cover the cost of the sessions people actually run rather than to win a land grab.
Butter's reason 3
Large companies standardized on Teams, Meet and Zoom, and many would not allow an alternative tool.
Where Kolab sits
This killed Butter's enterprise path, and it is the reason Kolab does not sell there. Kolab's buyers are fellowships, exchange programs, nonprofits, associations and universities who choose tools per program. Participants join by browser link with no install, which removes most of the IT objection.
If you followed Butter into Miro
Some of you have now been acquired twice in eighteen months
Butter was acquired by Miro in March 2025 and shut down in early 2026, with the best parts folded into Miro Engage. Plenty of Butter facilitators made that move because it was the path of least resistance.
On September 10, 2026, Bending Spoons signed an agreement to acquire Miro for $1.355 billion, expected to close in Q4. We are not going to tell you what happens next, because nobody knows. But if you moved from Butter to Miro Engage and are now watching a second ownership change, the instinct to look around is a reasonable one.
More on the Miro acquisition and what it means for facilitators
Side by side
What carries over, and what is genuinely different
Written as honestly as we can manage. If you used Butter daily and spot something wrong here, tell us and we will fix it.
| Kolab | Butter | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for facilitators, not meetings | Yes, same premise | Yes, the whole premise |
| Agenda planner with timing | Yes. Agenda and timers live in the facilitator view | Yes, much loved |
| Breakouts | Yes, plus a visible map people walk between rather than being assigned | Yes, with the ability to observe groups |
| Canvas | Native infinite canvas, in the room with the video | Embedded, via Miro or MURAL in the toolbox |
| Spatial audio | Yes. A group of five can talk without anyone being moved or muted | No |
| Playfulness | Reactions, presence signals, agree/disagree spectrum, icebreaker templates | Reactions, sounds, GIFs, hands-up queue. A signature |
| Templates | 200+ templates designed to be run live | Reusable session templates |
| Third party embeds | Supported, but a narrower library. Smaller team, fewer integrations | Broad toolbox: Miro, MURAL, Google Docs, YouTube |
| AI | Kola, a co-facilitator that sees the canvas and helps during the session, plus transcripts and summaries after | Recaps, transcripts and highlights after the session |
| Between sessions | Spaces persist. A cohort returns to the same room with last week's boards still up | Session based. New room each time |
| Status | Live, independent and founder owned | Shut down in early 2026 |
Setting expectations properly
Kolab is not a Butter clone
We would rather you know this before you fall in love with it again. There is real shared DNA, but these are not the same product and a few things will take adjusting.
Things that might annoy you at first
- Kolab is spatial. People move around a map rather than being placed into rooms, which takes a session or two to get used to
- The canvas is native rather than an embedded Miro board, so your muscle memory will not transfer directly
- The integration library is narrower than Butter's toolbox was
- A lot of Kolab is built around multi-session programs, so some of it is overkill for a single standalone workshop
- Smaller team, so the roadmap moves in a different order than a funded startup's would
Things you will recognize immediately
- It is built for the person running the session, not for the person scheduling a meeting
- Everything lives in one room. No tab juggling, no sharing board links in chat
- It is allowed to be fun. Cameras go on without anyone being asked twice
- Templates you can actually run, not documents you fill in
- Real facilitators shaping the product, several of whom ran their practices on Butter and were part of its community
See the difference
Fifty people into breakout groups, without clicking a thing
This is the part a comparison table cannot convey. Two minutes will tell you more than the rest of this page.
Real Kolab spaces. Participants join by link in the browser, with no account and nothing to install.
Testimonials
What our users say
For organizations, not just individual facilitators
Facilitating for an organization that still has a Butter-shaped hole?
If you run cohorts, fellowships, accelerators or training programs, the tool gap Butter left is usually costing more than a subscription. It shows up as prep time, as energy drop in week four, and as a stack of three tools nobody wanted to be paying for.
Priced per program, not per seat
Grant and program funded teams budget by program. Our organizational pricing matches how the money actually arrives.
Security review, handled
We have a data protection and privacy overview written for IT and procurement, ready to send the day you ask.
We build your first program with you
Not a sandbox login. We design and build one real program cycle alongside your team.
Trusted by teams worldwide
Got it. We're on this.
Someone from our team will reply within one business day to ask any questions we need, then we'll get building. In the meantime, the easiest way to feel how a Kolab session actually runs is to sit in on one: see what's coming up.
Not ready to hand over a session yet?
Fair enough. Come sit in on a live one instead. We run open sessions for facilitators most weeks, you join as a participant, and you get to feel how a Kolab room actually works with no sales conversation attached. If you used Butter, this is the fastest way to find out whether the feeling is there.
Questions we get from people who used Butter
Can I bring my Butter templates across?
There is nothing left to export from, unfortunately. But send us the agenda, or just describe how the session used to run, and we will rebuild it in Kolab for you. That is what the free build is for, and ex-Butter sessions are the ones we most enjoy putting back together.
What does Kolab cost?
It depends on whether you are an independent facilitator or an organization running programs, because those are genuinely different products. Tell us which you are in the form above and we will send you the right number rather than making you guess from a table.
Is it as playful as Butter was?
Differently playful. Butter's charm was sounds, GIFs and reactions layered onto a call. Kolab's is spatial, so the play comes from people moving around a space that looks like somewhere rather than a grid. Watch the video above and judge for yourself, because this is a taste question and we would rather you decided than took our word.
Do my participants need accounts?
No. They join by link, in the browser, with nothing to install. That matters when you are facilitating for an org whose IT team blocks new software, which is the thing that hurt Butter most.
Are there facilitators from the Butter community using Kolab?
Yes, several, including people who were deeply involved in the Butter community, and some of them help shape Kolab. If you would rather talk to one of them before you talk to us, say so in the form and we will connect you.
What about security and data protection?
We have a security and privacy overview you can send to your IT or procurement team. Ask for it in the form, or read the summary at getkolab.ai/security.