7 Best Ready Player Me Alternatives in 2026, After the Shutdown

Netflix announced it was acquiring Ready Player Me in December 2025, and RPM's site told developers its services would become unavailable from 31 January 2026. The avatar creator, its developer APIs and avatars served from its servers stopped working; its Unity SDK repository is archived. .glb files you exported earlier still work as ordinary 3D assets, and RPM avatars carried both ARKit and Oculus viseme morph targets.

The service is gone

The avatar creator and developer APIs went offline on 31 January 2026; avatars served from RPM's servers no longer load.

Users can't make new avatars

Apps that embedded RPM's creator need another way for users to create one.

Lip sync depended on its morph targets

RPM avatars shipped Oculus visemes and ARKit shapes; a replacement should too.

Web delivery

Many RPM apps ran on the web with .glb files; not every alternative exports .glb.

Who creates the avatar

End users from a selfie (Avaturn, MetaPerson), your team in a desktop tool, or a ready-made library.

.glb with visemes

For lip sync on the web, check for .glb export with Oculus visemes or ARKit blendshapes.

Engine

Web, Unity or Unreal: several alternatives support only one.

Pricing model and licence

Per minute, per hour, per monthly active user, or free with a licence: model your real conversation volume.

1. 1. Best realistic avatars from a selfie

   Avaturn

   Web-based creator that turns a selfie into a realistic 3D avatar "with standard humanoid body rig, and ARKit blendshapes, and visemes", exportable to Blender, Unity and Unreal.

   Pricing: PRO $800/month (up to 1,000 avatars, then $0.15 each); Enterprise custom.

   Best for: Products where users create a realistic avatar of themselves.

2. 2. Best for .glb avatars with Oculus visemes

   Avatar SDK (MetaPerson)

   Creates realistic or cartoon full-body avatars from a selfie, in the cloud or on-premise. Its JavaScript API exports glTF, .glb or FBX, with a viseme set its docs call identical to Oculus Lipsync.

   Pricing: First avatar free; Pro $800/month (6,000 avatars, then $0.03 each); Enterprise custom.

   Best for: Apps that let users create avatars and need .glb files with visemes.

3. 3. Best for 3D avatars lip-synced in the browserOur product

   Talking Avatar

   Talking Avatar lip syncs any 3D .glb avatar from any audio stream, in the browser, with a 1 MB neural model: no server, no API key, and the audio never leaves the page. It plugs into OpenAI Realtime, LiveKit, Pipecat or any TTS with one call.

   Why it fits here

   • Talking Avatar Open Source loads exported RPM .glb avatars and uses their Oculus visemes as they are
   • Lip sync from any audio, live, in the browser: OpenAI Realtime, LiveKit, Pipecat or any TTS
   • Talking Avatar Realistic Avatars: ready-made photorealistic avatars at 832×468, 25 fps, for $0.02 a minute
   • Head motion, nods, eyebrows and blinks on top of lip sync

   Pros

   • Your existing RPM .glb files keep working, and they talk
   • No avatar server to depend on with Open Source
   • Ready-made realistic avatars when you need a face without a creator integration

   Cons

   • Not an avatar creator: your users can't build an avatar from a selfie with it
   • Animates a close-up face, not full-body game characters
   • Talking Avatar Realistic Avatars doesn't offer custom avatars, so it can't replace RPM's creator either

   Pricing: Free for any use, commercial included (MIT licence).

   Best for: Developers putting a 3D face on a voice agent they already run.

4. 4. Best free anime-style avatar creator

   VRoid Studio

   pixiv's free desktop and iPad tool for anime-style 3D characters, exported as VRM. Its lip-sync expressions are five vowels, so they need mapping to ARKit or Oculus viseme names.

   Pricing: Free; you set the terms for models you create.

   Best for: Anime-style characters and VTuber-style projects.

5. 5. Best for detailed custom characters (desktop)

   Character Creator 5

   Reallusion's Windows tool for detailed, rigged characters with a blendshape facial rig, exported as FBX or OBJ. Web use means converting to .glb, for example in Blender.

   Pricing: Perpetual licence, reported at $299 (Deluxe $499).

   Best for: Studios building bespoke characters for games and film.

6. 6. Best photoreal digital humans for Unreal

   MetaHuman

   Epic's photoreal digital human creator, usable commercially in any engine. Its meshes are built for Unreal and are far heavier than a web avatar; there's no official .glb export.

   Pricing: Free under $1M revenue; above that, Unreal seats at $1,850 a year.

   Best for: High-end photoreal characters in Unreal Engine.

7. 7. Best stylised avatars for Unity games

   Genies Avatar SDK

   Stylised, customisable avatars with wearables and cross-game inventory, as a Unity SDK. Its docs list Windows, Android and Quest 3; web isn't listed.

   Pricing: Free on the Unity Asset Store (Genies account and API key required).

   Best for: Unity games that want a ready avatar and item system.

If you still have the .glb files you exported from Ready Player Me, host them yourself and load them in Talking Avatar Open Source. RPM avatars include the Oculus viseme morph targets it uses.

1. Collect the .glb files you exported (anything still pointing at RPM's servers won't load).
2. Host them on your own storage or CDN.
3. Point Talking Avatar at the file and give it your voice agent's or TTS audio, as below.
4. If you'd rather use a ready-made photorealistic avatar, use Talking Avatar Realistic Avatars at $0.02 a minute.

import { TalkingAvatar } from "@interviewflowai/talking-avatar";

const avatar = new TalkingAvatar({
  container: document.getElementById("avatar"),
  avatarUrl: "/avatars/my-rpm-avatar.glb", // your exported RPM .glb, self-hosted
});

avatar.speak("/hello.mp3"); // or avatar.attachStream(agentAudioStream)

Talking Avatar frames a head-and-shoulders close-up; full-body animation stays with your engine.

• Users create realistic avatars from a selfie: Avaturn or Avatar SDK (MetaPerson).
• Keep existing RPM avatars and make them talk on the web: Talking Avatar Open Source.
• Ready-made photorealistic talking avatars: Talking Avatar Realistic Avatars.
• Anime-style characters, free: VRoid Studio.
• Bespoke characters built by your artists: Character Creator 5, or MetaHuman for Unreal.
• A ready avatar and item system in Unity: Genies Avatar SDK.