Migrating from Meta Workrooms: How to Host Collaborative VR/AR Experiences Without Vendor Lock-In

Facing the Meta Workrooms shutdown? Migrate your team's VR collaboration without getting locked into a new vendor

Hook: Your team relied on Meta Workrooms for immersive meetings — and now the standalone app is shutting down on February 16, 2026. That abrupt change raises urgent questions: What happens to recordings, avatars and room layouts? How do you keep immersive collaboration running without trading one walled garden for another?

The good news: you can move off Workrooms with predictable steps, preserve critical assets and build a future-proof stack that avoids vendor lock-in. This guide gives a practical, technical migration path — export options, file formats, authentication, hosting options (self-hosted or cloud), and realistic cost projections for 2026.

Executive summary — what to do first (and why it matters)

Most teams will follow this high-level flow:

1. Audit everything you own in Workrooms (recordings, avatars, spatial assets, logs).
2. Export assets using the best-available formats — prioritize open standards like glTF for 3D and Ambisonic WAV for spatial audio.
3. Choose a hosting approach: self-hosted open-source (maximum control), cloud-hosted managed (faster time-to-market), or a hybrid (balanced).
4. Integrate authentication with OIDC/SAML to preserve SSO and avoid re-provisioning accounts per platform.
5. Prototype & pilot with a small group; validate latency, concurrency and content fidelity.
6. Cut over with data migration, archived backups and a rollback plan.

Context: why the Workrooms shutdown matters in 2026

Meta announced on February 16, 2026, that the standalone Workrooms app will be discontinued as Meta shifts Reality Labs investment and consolidates collaboration into Horizon. This is part of a broader 2025–26 trend: major platforms are pruning VR products and focusing resources on mixed-reality hardware and large-scale, platform-level services. For teams, that means:

• Existing in-app data may become inaccessible without proactive export.
• Managed services (like Horizon managed services for device fleets) have reduced guarantees — so device management and provisioning may need to be reimplemented.
• Opportunities to avoid lock-in by building on open standards and WebXR have increased as the ecosystem matures in 2025–26.

“If you haven’t exported or mapped your Workrooms assets yet, treat this as an urgent operational task — and use it as an opportunity to migrate to open formats and protocols.”

Step 1 — Audit: what to inventory and why

Before exporting anything, run a complete audit. Create a spreadsheet and capture these items for each room, meeting or asset:

• Room IDs and names, creation dates, owner/creator.
• Recorded sessions (video/audio), timestamps, retention policy.
• 3D assets: props, furniture, environment models, textures.
• Avatars and custom rigging (avatars may depend on Meta-specific skeletons).
• Shared documents, whiteboards and slide decks.
• Session logs, analytics, chat transcripts, positioning metadata.
• Device provisioning lists (Quest headsets tied to Horizon/managed services).

Step 2 — Export options and recommended file formats

Export as much as you can immediately. Prioritize open, cross-platform formats so your assets remain portable.

3D models and environments

• Preferred: glTF 2.0 / .glb — compact, PBR-ready, native for WebGL/WebXR clients.
• Also useful: FBX for interchange with Unity/Unreal, OBJ for static meshes.
• If you export textures, prefer PNG or JPEG for color maps and KTX2/Basis for GPU-friendly compressed textures.

Avatars & rigs

• Export avatars as glTF/glb where possible. If avatars use Meta/Unity-specific rigs, export FBX for compatibility and plan conversion to glTF.
• Consider using VRM if your team plans to use standards-friendly avatar systems common in WebXR.

Media (recordings, audio, slides)

• Video: MP4 (H.264 or H.265) or WebM (VP9) for browser-friendly playback.
• Spatial audio: Ambisonic WAV (first-order AmbiX) where Workrooms exposes spatial audio mixes.
• Whiteboards & slides: PDF, PNG and SVG exports for vector fidelity.

Telemetry, logs, chat

• Export logs and chat as JSON or CSV — these are essential for audit trails and analytics imports.

Tools to help conversion

• Blender (import FBX → export glTF), gltf-pipeline, FBX2glTF.
• ffmpeg for video/audio packaging and transcoding.

Step 3 — Choose your hosting architecture: self-hosted, cloud-managed, or hybrid

Your choice depends on control, cost and time-to-market. Here’s a practical breakdown:

Self-hosted (maximum control)

Run open-source platforms like Mozilla Hubs / Hubs Cloud (or similar WebXR frameworks built on A-Frame, Babylon.js or Three.js) on your infrastructure.

• Pros: full data control, no recurring platform vendor lock-in, customizable UX and authentication.
• Cons: requires DevOps and WebRTC/SFU expertise, responsibility for scaling and device provisioning.

Cloud-hosted managed (fastest implementation)

Use a managed platform (commercial vendors such as Engage, Frame, Virbela, or enterprise offerings). These reduce engineering overhead but can reintroduce lock-in.

• Pros: faster deployment, support and SLAs.
• Cons: recurring costs, limited export capabilities in some cases.

Hybrid (balanced)

Host static content, assets and recordings in cloud storage/CDN, while running signaling and SFU services in your VPC. This reduces egress costs and keeps control over authentication and logs.

Networking and real-time media: recommended stack

Immersive collaboration needs low latency and scalable media routing. Build on these open standards and projects:

• Client rendering: WebXR (A-Frame, Babylon.js, Three.js).
• Real-time media: WebRTC for audio/video with an SFU (Janus, mediasoup, Jitsi Videobridge).
• Signaling: WebSocket / Socket.IO or REST for session management.
• Storage & CDN: S3-compatible storage + CloudFront/Cloud CDN for environments and media playback.

Step 4 — Authentication: integrate SSO and preserve identity

Replacing Workrooms also means replacing identity flows. Avoid re-provisioning users by integrating standard identity protocols:

• Use OpenID Connect (OIDC) or SAML for SSO with Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD), Okta, Google Workspace, or your identity provider.
• Issue short-lived tokens for device sessions and refresh tokens via secure backends.
• For headset fleet management, adopt zero-touch provisioning or MDM solutions that integrate with your identity provider.

Practical auth tips

• Implement role-based access control (RBAC) and map Workrooms roles to your new platform during migration.
• Use a token introspection endpoint to handle session revocation centrally.
• Log every auth event and store in centralized SIEM for compliance.

Step 5 — Test, pilot and validate performance

Before full cutover follow this test plan:

1. Run a fidelity test: load exported glTF/glb environments and avatars into your target client and compare visuals and interactions.
2. Measure end-to-end latency with representative headsets and network conditions (5G, enterprise Wi‑Fi, home broadband).
3. Load test signaling and SFU under expected concurrency; use k6 or Gatling with WebSocket/WebRTC scripts.
4. Validate auth flows across devices and ensure SSO works with headsets and desktop fallbacks.

Step 6 — Migration timeline and checklist

Typical timeline for a medium-sized team (50–200 users): 6–12 weeks.

• Week 1: Audit and export priority assets.
• Weeks 2–4: Convert assets, set up hosting and auth, implement basic scene loader.
• Weeks 5–7: Integrate SFU/signaling, run internal alpha tests.
• Weeks 8–10: Pilot with a representative user group; iterate on latency and UX.
• Week 11: Cutover plan (choose a low-traffic weekend), finalize archival and rollback steps.

Cost projections (2026): ballpark and assumptions

Costs vary by architecture and concurrent users. These figures reflect 2026 cloud pricing trends and assume:

• WebXR client-side rendering (no server-side GPU unless you use pixel streaming).
• SFU-based media routing (Janus/mediasoup) rather than full MCU composition.
• Cloud egress and storage conservative estimates.

Scenario A — Small team (10 concurrent users)

• Architecture: single app server, single SFU instance, S3 storage + CDN.
• Estimated monthly cost: $150–$400.
• Breakdown (example): app server $30–$80, SFU $30–$100, bandwidth & CDN $50–$200, storage $10–$20.

Scenario B — Mid-size org (50 concurrent users)

• Architecture: multiple SFU instances behind LB, autoscaling app servers, CDN.
• Estimated monthly cost: $800–$1,800.
• Breakdown: SFU cluster $300–$800, app & auth $100–$300, bandwidth $300–$600, storage $50–$100.

Scenario C — Enterprise (200+ concurrent users or GPU pixel streaming)

• Architecture: autoscaled SFU fleet, dedicated GPU instances for server-side rendering/PixStreaming, enterprise support.
• Estimated monthly cost: $5,000–$30,000+ (highly variable).
• Breakdown: GPUs $2,000–$12,000, SFU fleet $1,000–$4,000, bandwidth $2,000–$10,000+, storage and logging $500–$2,000.

Notes: Use CDN edge caching for static environments to cut egress. If most rendering is client-side (WebXR), GPU server costs are avoidable. Costs scale mainly with bandwidth and concurrency.

Avoiding vendor lock-in: architectural principles

• Export and store canonical copies of assets in open formats (glTF, MP4, WAV, JSON).
• Use standard protocols (WebRTC, OIDC/SAML, HTTP/REST) instead of proprietary APIs.
• Containerize services and use Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Pulumi) so you can move providers.
• Implement modular frontends (WebXR client separated from signaling/media server), so you can swap components.
• Maintain a documented archive and migration playbook for future platform changes.

Migration gotchas and mitigation

• Missing export APIs: work with Meta support now — create tickets and request bulk exports before shutdown deadlines.
• Avatar rig incompatibilities: plan for avatar re-skinning or use retargeting tools in Unity/Blender.
• Performance surprises on headsets: always test on the lowest-spec headset you support.
• Bandwidth spikes during migration: roll out in waves and limit session recording retention to reduce immediate egress.

Case study (short): moving a 60-person design org in 8 weeks

Summary: A design org running weekly sprint demos in Workrooms exported 180 hours of session recordings and 24 custom room templates. They chose a hybrid stack: Hubs Cloud for rooms, Janus SFU, and Okta for SSO. Key outcomes:

• Week 1–2: Exported assets, converted FBX avatars to glTF via Blender pipelines.
• Week 3–5: Deployed Hubs Cloud on their VPC and integrated Okta (OIDC).
• Week 6: Pilot with 12 users validated latency < 120 ms and identified a texture compression issue fixed by switching to KTX2.
• Week 8: Full cutover with archived Workrooms data available for 12 months; monthly hosting ~$900 vs. prior unmanaged vendor fees.

Advanced strategies for future-proof collaboration (2026 trends)

As of 2026, these strategies are gaining traction and reduce future migration risk:

• Edge-hosted SFUs: Deploy SFUs at the edge (Cloud CDN regions) to reduce latency for globally distributed teams.
• Progressive web XR clients: Favor WebXR-first clients that run on browsers and headsets — reduces dependency on app stores and platform SDKs.
• AI-powered asset optimization: Use AI tools to compress textures, retarget animations, and convert avatars to efficient glTF variants for low-bandwidth scenarios.
• Open telemetry: Instrument sessions with OpenTelemetry to keep analytics portable between providers.

Checklist: immediate actions you can take today

• Open a migration ticket with Meta support and request bulk export access for Workrooms assets.
• Run an asset inventory and mark high-priority rooms and recordings.
• Choose a target architecture and spin up a sandbox environment (Hubs Cloud or basic WebXR app).
• Decide on authentication strategy (OIDC/SAML) and provision test users.
• Plan a two-week pilot and prepare rollback steps if the export has missing data.

Closing — turn a shutdown into an opportunity

The Meta Workrooms shutdown is inconvenient, but it’s also an opportunity to migrate to a more open, maintainable architecture that suits your organization’s control, compliance and budget needs in 2026. Prioritize exports, choose open formats, standardize on WebRTC and OIDC, and pick the right hosting model for concurrency and cost. If you follow the steps above, you’ll minimize downtime and preserve everything that matters: recordings, workflows and the human connections that made your VR meetings valuable.

Call to action: Need a migration audit or a pilot environment set up? Contact us for a bespoke Workrooms migration assessment — we’ll map your exports, build a conversion pipeline for glTF and ambisonic audio, and deliver a costed hosting plan tailored to your concurrency needs.

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