---
title: "Web AppBuilder is retiring: a plan for your public maps | Earthal Labs"
description: Web AppBuilder apps in ArcGIS Online stop working in Q2 2027, and editing ends in Q4 2026. How to inventory, triage and replace them without breaking links.
image: https://www.earthallabs.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/earthal-labs/images/blog/new-orleans.jpg
---
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# Web AppBuilder is retiring: a plan for your public maps
September 23, 2026 · Earthal Labs · 5 min read
Plenty of towns, counties and districts still publish their parcel viewers, zoning maps and stormwater maps as ArcGIS Web AppBuilder apps. Esri has set a retirement schedule for Web AppBuilder, and the last step is not far off. If residents, staff or contractors rely on one of these apps, now is the time to plan the replacement, not when the link stops working.
## What is changing, and when
Esri's [retirement notice](https://doc.arcgis.com/en/web-appbuilder/latest/create-apps/wab-retirement.htm) lays out three phases for Web AppBuilder in ArcGIS Online:
- **Q1 2026:** you can no longer create new Web AppBuilder apps.
- **Q4 2026:** you can no longer update existing ones.
- **Q2 2027:** existing apps are retired and no longer function.
ArcGIS Enterprise follows a different track. ArcGIS Enterprise 11.5 is the last release that includes Web AppBuilder, so apps keep working on 11.5 and earlier. Upgrading to a later release removes Web AppBuilder, and its apps stop working. Support for each release follows Esri's product life cycle. The developer edition was retired in July 2024, along with the ArcGIS API for JavaScript 3.x it was built on. Esri's recommended path is ArcGIS Experience Builder.
The Q4 2026 step matters more than it looks, and Q4 starts in October. Esri gives the quarter, not a date. After it, you can't change the app itself: its widgets, text, layout or settings. Fixes are limited to what you can change in the underlying web map, such as its layers. So any last edits to your existing apps need to happen now, and the replacements should be live well before Q2 2027.
## Step 1: make a list
Before choosing tools, write down what you have. For each Web AppBuilder app, note:
- **What it does** and who uses it: residents, staff, a partner agency.
- **Which widgets it relies on**: search, query, print, measurement, editing, or a custom widget someone wrote years ago.
- **Where it is linked from**: your website, PDFs, printed signage, email signatures, other agencies' sites.
- **What data sits behind it**: the web map and layers, and whether those are current.
The list is often shorter than expected once duplicates and abandoned apps are removed. The custom widgets and the inbound links are usually where the real work is.
## Step 2: decide what each app becomes
Every app gets one of four answers:
1. **Retire it.** If nobody uses it or the data is out of date, removing it is the cheapest migration there is.
2. **Rebuild it in Experience Builder.** This is the natural home for most apps that stay in ArcGIS Online. Experience Builder has widgets for most common Web AppBuilder tasks, and Esri publishes [migration resources](https://community.esri.com/en/discussion/1272580/migration-resources-for-arcgis-web-appbuilder). It is not a one-click conversion: layouts, widget settings and behaviour have to be set up again.
3. **Use an ArcGIS Instant Apps template.** For a simple viewer (a map, a search box, a legend), a configurable template can be quicker to set up and maintain than a full Experience Builder app.
4. **Move it to an open-source web map.** For a public-facing map with many anonymous visitors and no editing, a lightweight app built on MapLibre, Leaflet or OpenLayers can be a good fit, especially if you want full control of the design or plan to host it yourself. It can still read from your public ArcGIS layers, or from open formats.
Custom widgets need extra attention. Web AppBuilder widgets were written against the ArcGIS API for JavaScript 3.x. Experience Builder is built on its successor, the ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript (4.x), so custom code has to be rewritten rather than copied. Check whether a built-in Experience Builder widget now does the job before paying to port old code.
## Step 3: protect your links
When an app is rebuilt, it gets a new item and a new URL. Every link on your website, in PDFs and on printed materials still points at the old one, and after Q2 2027 those links lead nowhere.
Two habits save trouble here and in every future migration:
- **Publish a short URL you control**, such as a page on your own website (`yourtown.gov/maps/parcels`), and point it at whichever app is current. Put that address on documents and signs, never the raw app link.
- **Add a notice to the old app now**, while it can still be edited. A short line saying "This map is moving" with a link to your own maps page helps people who bookmarked it, and it keeps working until the app is retired.
## Step 4: schedule it well before Q2 2027
A reasonable order: finish the list, retire what nobody needs, then rebuild the most-used public app first so residents see the change early. Test the new apps on a phone as well as a desktop: many residents look up a parcel or a zoning district from their phone. Then update the links.
How long it takes depends less on the number of apps than on custom widgets and on the behaviour people have come to rely on, so talk to the staff who field resident calls about the maps before you decide something is unused.
## Getting help
If your GIS team is one person with a full plate, this is well-defined work to hand off: an inventory, a recommendation per app, and the rebuilds. We work with ArcGIS and open-source mapping, and we'll recommend whichever fits your team and budget. [Book a free 30-minute consultation](https://www.earthallabs.com/meetings/cwalts) and bring your app list, even a rough one; we'll go through it with you and suggest which of the four answers fits each app.
---
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