Remove.bg's standalone site is closing
Remove.bg announced it's shutting down its standalone site on December 1, 2026. Background removal is being folded into Canva, and the API is moving to Leonardo.Ai. If you've relied on remove.bg for quick, one-off image cutouts without wanting a full Canva subscription, you're going to need somewhere else to go.
I ran into this exact problem myself, so I built CutOutFree — a free background remover that runs entirely in your browser.
What it does differently
- Nothing is uploaded. The AI model runs client-side using @imgly/background-removal, so your images never touch a server.
- No account, no credits. Drop a photo, get a full-resolution transparent PNG. No signup wall.
- Batch support. Process up to 20 images at once.
- Beyond the basic cutout — you can blur the original background, replace it with a solid color or your own photo, add an outline, and manually clean up edges with erase/restore brushes if the AI misses a spot.
Try it here: https://cutoutfree.vercel.app
Why local processing matters
Most background removers (remove.bg included) upload your photo to their servers, run inference there, and send back the result. That's fine for a lot of use cases, but it means:
- Your images pass through a third party's infrastructure
- You're bottlenecked by their servers under load
- Free tiers often cap resolution, and full-res downloads cost credits
Running the model directly in the browser (via WebAssembly / Web Workers) sidesteps all of that. It also means the tool works even if you're dealing with photos you'd rather not upload anywhere — product mockups pre-launch, client work under NDA, personal photos, etc.
The trade-off, to be fair
Local processing isn't strictly better in every way — it depends on the device running the model, so very old or low-power devices may see slower processing than a beefy cloud GPU would give you. For most modern laptops and desktops, though, it's fast (under 2 seconds per image in my testing).
Try it / feedback welcome
CutOutFree is free while I keep improving it — a paid tier for heavier use may come later, but the core background removal will stay free. It's also open source (AGPL-3.0), so feel free to look under the hood or contribute.
If you're one of the people affected by the remove.bg → Canva migration, I'd love your feedback: https://cutoutfree.vercel.app
What do you use for background removal in your workflow — curious if others have run into the same "just want a cutout, not a whole design suite" problem.
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