Snap shut the app down on 25 January 2023 and switched off the servers that loaded its lenses, so it stopped working even for people who already had it installed. SplitCam does the part that mattered in a video call — a polished face and a clean background, handed to Zoom, Teams, Meet or Discord as an ordinary webcam. Free, on Windows and macOS, still updated.
Snap Camera was a window into an AR platform, not just a filter box. That platform is not something SplitCam has, and pretending otherwise would waste your afternoon.
Snap Camera pulled from a library of community-built lenses — the potato, the cat, thousands of others. SplitCam ships a fixed set of effects, masks and overlays. There is no catalogue to browse and no creator marketplace behind it.
Snap had an authoring tool: build a lens, publish it, use it in the desktop app. SplitCam has no equivalent. You cannot author a face-tracked AR object and load it in.
Snap's lenses tracked facial geometry closely enough to place 3D objects, warp features and react to expressions. SplitCam's masks and overlays are simpler than that.
Lenses you had saved in Snapchat followed you into Snap Camera. Nothing in SplitCam connects to a Snapchat account.
The parts of Snap Camera that people actually used in meetings and streams, on a tool that is still maintained.
The same trick Snap Camera used: SplitCam appears in the camera list of Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Discord, OBS and 60+ other apps. Nothing to integrate — pick it from the dropdown.
Skin smoothing and beauty retouch, colour filters, masks and overlays, applied on the GPU while you talk, and sent straight to the call and to your stream.
Real-time AI segmentation cuts you out of the room: swap in an image or video, blur the room, or key a physical chroma screen when you want the sharpest edge. Snap Camera had no equivalent depth here.
Screens, browser pages, a second camera and your phone can share the frame as layers, and you can switch scenes live. Snap Camera did one camera and one lens.
Be honest with yourself about what you are after. If the whole point is one particular lens — the one your team laughs at every standup — no desktop app brings it back, because the desktop product is gone and its servers with it. What still exists is Snapchat itself: the web version runs lenses in a browser. That gives you a practical route rather than a replacement: open Snapchat for Web, then add that browser window to a SplitCam scene as a source and send the scene onward as your webcam. It is more setup than Snap Camera was, the lens set is not identical, and it depends on Snap keeping the web app running. For everything that is not a specific lens — looking good on camera, hiding the room behind you — SplitCam is the shorter path, and it does not depend on anyone's servers staying up.
Everything below happens on the live picture, before it reaches the call. The drawing cycles through the four steps; on your machine they stack up at once.
Sent onward as a webcam: ZoomTeamsMeetDiscord
Snap Camera is discontinued, so its column describes the app as it was until 25 January 2023. Shutdown reported by TechCrunch on 5 January 2023 and by Adweek.
| Feature | SplitCam | Snap Camera |
|---|---|---|
| Still works today | Yes, actively updated | No — discontinued 25 January 2023 |
| Price | Free, no watermark | Was free, while it lasted |
| Windows and macOS | Both | Both, until shutdown |
| Virtual camera for video apps | 60+ apps, from the camera dropdown | That was its whole purpose |
| Community lens catalogue | No lens library | Thousands of lenses from creators |
| Custom AR authoring | No | Lens Studio |
| Beauty and skin smoothing | Built in | Through certain lenses |
| Colour filters, masks, overlays | Built in | Through lenses |
| AI background removal | Real time, no green screen | Some lenses only |
| Multiple sources in one frame | Cameras, screens, browser, phone | One camera |
| Streams to platforms directly | 84+ destinations at once | Not a streaming tool |
| Depends on a vendor's servers | No — runs locally | Yes, and that is what ended it |
Snap discontinued it on 25 January 2023 and switched off the authentication servers it used to load lenses. Because that check happened at startup, the app stopped working even on machines where it was already installed.
Old installers circulate, but they do not restore the product: the servers the app talked to are gone, so it has no lenses to fetch. Treat any site offering it today with suspicion.
For the everyday use — looking good on a call and hiding your room — SplitCam covers it: beauty and skin smoothing, colour filters, masks and overlays, and AI background removal, delivered to Zoom, Teams, Meet and Discord as a normal webcam. For the AR lens catalogue specifically, nothing free replaces it one for one.
No. SplitCam is not a lens platform and has no connection to Snapchat. It has its own effects, masks and overlays. If you need actual Snapchat lenses, Snapchat for Web runs in a browser, and you can add that browser window to a SplitCam scene as a source.
Yes. SplitCam registers as a camera device, so those apps list it alongside your real webcam. Pick SplitCam in the video settings and whatever you have composed becomes your picture.
Yes — no watermark, no time limit and no subscription. That includes the effects, the background removal and the virtual camera.
Free download for Windows and macOS. No account, no lens store, no shutdown notice.
⬇ Free Download