Amino launched as an app in January 2012, built by Narvii, Inc. Yin Wang and Ben Anderson had the idea at an anime convention in Boston in 2010. It didn't start as one app: each community was a separate download. Those were consolidated into a single portal app in 2016, the version most people remember. Amino ceased operations on 19 December 2025.
| Launched | January 2012 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Yin Wang and Ben Anderson (Narvii, Inc.) |
| Original model | Separate standalone app per community |
| Consolidated into one app | 2016 |
| Peak popularity | Roughly 2018-2020 |
| Acquired by MediaLab | January 2021 |
| Final app release | 21 May 2024 (v3.5.35167) |
| Ceased operations | 19 December 2025 |
| Lifespan | Just under 14 years |
Amino is a decade old, and the question of when it was “made” has a complicated answer, because it launched twice. Once in 2012 as a set of separate apps, and again in 2016 as the single app most people actually remember.
2014: the original launch
Amino was created by Narvii and launched as an app in January 2012. What shipped then looks strange in hindsight: rather than one app containing many communities, Narvii published a separate app per community. An app for one fandom, a different app for another, each its own download with its own store listing.
The logic was app-store discovery. In 2014, someone searching the App Store for their fandom's name would find an app named after that fandom, a much stronger signal than a general-purpose community app buried in a category. It was an effective acquisition strategy and it worked.
It also had an obvious ceiling. Someone in five fandoms needed five apps, five accounts, and five sets of notifications, and nothing carried across them. That's what eventually forced the change.
2016: consolidation into one app
The separate apps were merged into a single application, Amino: Communities and Chats, with one account, one notification stream, and a browsable directory of every community inside it. aminoapps.com became the central hub, with each community keeping its own subdomain for web links.
This is the version everyone means when they say “the Amino app”. It's also when the platform's distinctive shape settled: public discovery, per-community member profiles, experience levels, wikis, structured posts and a formal leader hierarchy, all in one place. What Amino actually was covers that structure in detail.
Looking for somewhere that still works like this: Open Aminoka.
The full timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Amino launches, built by Narvii, separate standalone app per community |
| 2015-2016 | The single-community app family expands across fandoms |
| 2016 | Consolidation into one app; aminoapps.com becomes the hub |
| 2018-2020 | Peak: tens of millions of users, dominant in anime, K-pop and roleplay |
| 2021 | Acquired by MediaLab AI, Inc. |
| 2022-2023 | Engineering and moderation capacity cut; automated moderation begins removing established leaders |
| 2024 | Mobile apps removed from the App Store and Google Play |
| 2025 onward | aminoapps.com no longer runs the application |
On precision: years here are solid; exact days mostly aren't, and we don't invent them. Amino's launch was staggered across dozens of separate app listings, and MediaLab published no press release, though Amino support confirmed the date by email. Where you see a year rather than a date, that's because a date isn't publicly sourceable, not because we didn't look.
Why the dates matter to former users
People mostly ask this question for one of three reasons, and each has a different follow-up:
- Working out how long they were there. If you joined during the single-app era, you joined a platform that was already three or four years old. Most people's Amino memories sit in the 2018-2021 window.
- Writing about it. Retrospectives, video essays and posts need the acquisition year, 2021, because that's the hinge everything after turns on. See why Amino shut down.
- Checking whether it's really over. The gap between the peak and now is the actual answer to that. Current state: the status page.
Frequently asked questions
When was Amino made?
2014. It was built by Narvii and launched initially as a family of separate single-community apps rather than the unified app people later knew.
What was Amino's exact release date?
No single date applies cleanly, because there was no single launch. Different community apps appeared at different points from 2012 onward, and the unified app arrived in 2016. Anyone quoting one precise day is picking one app's store listing and presenting it as the whole platform's birthday.
Why were there so many separate Amino apps?
The original strategy was one app per fandom, an Undertale app, an anime app, a K-pop app, each a separate download. It aided discovery in app-store search, where a fandom-named app ranked for that fandom's queries. It also meant somebody in five communities needed five apps, which is why it was eventually consolidated.
When was Amino most popular?
Roughly 2018 to 2020, after consolidation into one app and before the acquisition. That's the window most former users are remembering.
How long did Amino last?
About a decade, 2014 to the delisting of the apps in 2024, with the website ceasing to run the product after that.
Keep reading
More from shutdown status.