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Compare · Butter alternative
Pencil Spaces gives everyone who taught live groups on Butter the same one-tab room. Video, boards, breakout rooms, polls, timers, raised hands and a Waiting Room share one browser tab, with your teaching websites open inside. Butter closed at the end of February 2026. Its activities live on in Miro Engage. Its video room and breakouts didn’t make the move.
Free for 2 weeks on any paid plan. No credit card required.
Updated October 26, 2026 · Pencil Spaces vs Butter and Miro Engage
The short history
Butter tells its customers they can keep running classes on Butter Video and Butter Scenes.
Butter’s team says the best of Butter Scenes now lives in Miro Engage.
Miro’s community team says the standalone Butter experience isn’t available, and that Miro’s video tools don’t fully match what Butter offered.
Butter was built so you could stop pasting links into chat and switching tabs mid-class. Video, the agenda, breakouts and every activity sat in one browser tab, so the whole group stayed in one place.
That one-tab room is what most Butter groups lost when it closed. Pencil Spaces was built on the same idea, for teaching. The whole class stays in one Space, from the first minute to the recap.
What comes with you
One link, one tab, the whole class.
Feature by feature
What you ran on Butter, and where it lives in Pencil Spaces.
| What you need | Pencil SpacesAvailable today | ButterClosed, end of February 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Running the class | ||
| Video, board and tools in one tab | Video, chat, screen share and boards in the browser, with nothing to install. | A video room with Miro, MURAL, Google Docs and YouTube embedded. |
| Waiting room | Waiting Room. Admit people when you’re ready, and remove or readmit anyone. | Waiting room with a cover photo and music. |
| Agenda and pacing | Boards in folders, in teaching order. Lead keeps everyone on your board, and the Session Timer counts down at the top. | Agenda panel with tools attached to each step. |
| Raise hand | Raised hands, so students can signal without interrupting. | Hand-raise queue. |
| Reactions | Celebrations and stickers the whole class can see. | Emoji reactions and a soundboard. |
| Polls and quizzes | Poll app, plus Kahoot, Quizlet and Wayground inside the Space. | Polls and flashcards. |
| Timers | Session Timer, plus timer and stopwatch apps. | Timers. |
| Co-hosts | More than one host per Space, with permissions set per person. | Unlimited co-facilitators. |
| Group work | ||
| Breakout rooms | Drag people and boards into rooms, broadcast a message to every room, then Recall everyone. | Breakouts with broadcast messages and host visits. |
| Shared web tools | Web Viewer: a shared browser everyone can use, with annotation on top. Google Docs, Slides, Sheets and PowerPoint open inside. | Embedded Miro, MURAL, Google Docs and YouTube. |
| Whiteboard | Built in: infinite boards, sticky notes, equations and a private board for each student. | Through embedded Miro or MURAL boards, and in Butter Scenes. |
| After class | ||
| Recording | Cloud or device recording, with the option to leave student video out. | Recordings. |
| Recap | AI Summaries by email after cloud-recorded classes, with action items, and a transcript beside the recording. | Recaps with AI summaries and transcripts. |
| Attendance | Recorded automatically as people join. | Participant logs in the recap. |
| Reuse | Spaces stay between classes. Duplicate a Space or a board for the next group. | Templates from experienced facilitators. |
| Status | ||
| Available today | Yes, with 99.99% uptime and a public status page. | Closed at the end of February 2026. |
Butter details come from Butter’s own materials and reviews published before it closed. Pencil Spaces details come from our help center. Checked October 26, 2026. Spot something out of date? Write to support@pencilspaces.com and we’ll correct it.
If you moved to Miro
Miro bought Butter, so many Butter groups landed there. Here’s what carried over, and what didn’t.
Beyond the Butter room
The one-tab room is where Pencil Spaces starts. These are the parts that make it a classroom.
A private alert when a student goes idle or switches tabs, so you can bring them back without calling them out.
Boards, files and Web Viewers stay put between classes, so a cohort picks up where it left off last week.
After a cloud-recorded class, a summary with action items arrives by email, and the transcript sits beside the recording.
Your AI teaching assistant drafts lesson content and handles tasks like assigning students to their boards.
COPPA, FERPA and GDPR compliance, sign-in with Google, Clever or ClassLink, and recordings that can leave student video out.
Send one link before class, and students test their mic and camera before they arrive.
Switching guide
Most of a Butter agenda maps straight across. Set the Space up once, then reuse it every week.
Make one Space per class or cohort. It stays between meetings, so you set it up once.
Make one board per activity and keep them in a folder, in teaching order. During class, Lead brings everyone to the board you’re on.
Upload PDFs, images and videos, or add Google Slides and PowerPoint. Export the Miro frames you still need as a PDF and annotate on top.
Drop in a poll or a timer, open Kahoot or Quizlet, or open any site you teach from in a Web Viewer.
Turn on the Waiting Room, create breakout rooms and drag each group’s board into its room. Guests join from the link without an account.
Questions
Butter closed at the end of February 2026. Miro bought Butter in March 2025, and Butter’s team said the best of its Butter Scenes product now lives in Miro Engage. In March 2026, Miro’s community team confirmed that the standalone Butter experience, including the Butter video room, is no longer available.
For people who taught live groups on Butter, Pencil Spaces is the closest match. Video, boards, breakout rooms, polls, timers, raised hands and a Waiting Room all run in one browser tab. Websites open inside a shared Web Viewer. Spaces stay between classes, and recordings, AI Summaries and attendance follow every class.
No. Miro Engage brings Butter-style activities, such as polls, quizzes and word clouds, onto the Miro canvas. Up to 2,000 people can join from their phones. Butter’s video room didn’t carry over. Miro’s breakout frames aren’t connected to video breakouts, and Miro’s help center pairs them with Zoom breakout rooms.
Yes. Create rooms, then drag people and boards into them, so each group starts with its own material. Groups work and talk in their own room. You can broadcast a message to every room at once, then use Recall to bring everyone back to the main room.
Yes. Export the frames you need from Miro as a PDF and upload them to a board, where everyone can annotate on top. For new work, the built-in board has sticky notes, shapes, equations and a private board for each student. The web tools you teach from open in a shared Web Viewer.
Yes. Pencil Spaces is free for 2 weeks on any paid plan, with no credit card required. Students join from a link in their browser, with no download and no account needed, so you can run a real class during the trial.
Set up a Space for your group today and send the link before your next class.
Free for 2 weeks on any paid plan. No credit card required.
Butter and Miro are trademarks of their owners. Pencil Spaces isn’t affiliated with either.
