OpenAI has shut Sora down — the app in April and the API in September 2026. Here's what happened, what to do with your videos, and the same prompt on four models that replace it.
Veo 3.1
Street magician
A street magician in a top hat makes a dove appear from his hands in a crowded square at dusk, the crowd gasps and claps, cinematic
Quick answer
Sora 2 was OpenAI's video model with synced audio, launched on 30 September 2025 in an invite-only app. It is now discontinued: OpenAI closed the Sora web and mobile apps on 26 April 2026 and removed the Sora API — including sora-2 and sora-2-pro — on 24 September 2026, without naming a replacement. So Sora is not free, not unlimited and not available anywhere now. The closest alternatives with sound are Google Veo 3.1 (4–8 s, up to 4K, dialogue), Kling 3.0 (up to 15 s), Seedance 2.5 (up to 30 s, 4K) and Wan 3 (up to 30 s) — all in Kenerate's studio. Below, one prompt runs on all four.
Updated 27 September 2026 · specs read from Kenerate's code
Real demo
The same text prompt on Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0, Seedance 2.5 and Wan 3. Turn the sound on and switch.
Prompt: "A golden retriever puppy in a tiny yellow raincoat splashes through puddles on a cobblestone street in the rain, slow motion, cinematic, rain and happy barks" — unedited outputs.
Run your own promptShort answers
No. OpenAI closed the Sora web and mobile apps on 26 April 2026 and removed the Sora API — including sora-2 and sora-2-pro — on 24 September 2026, without naming a replacement.
Sora launched free with limits in 2025, but it has been shut down — there's no free or paid Sora now.
No — Sora 2 no longer exists as a service. Alternatives like Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0, Seedance 2.5 and Wan 3 run on credits in Kenerate.
OpenAI offered an export through its Sora sunset page before permanently deleting Sora data after the final export window.
Real clips
Five text-to-video clips, one from each alternative — the kind of whimsical, cinematic shots Sora was known for.
Real text-to-video clips from Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0, Seedance 2.5, Wan 3 and Grok Imagine. Open one to copy the prompt.
How it works
Your Sora prompts work elsewhere — pick the model that matches the shot.
01
A street magician in a top hat makes a dove appear from his hands in a crowded square at dusk, the crowd gasps and claps, cinematic
02
Subject, scene, camera and sound all come from the text.
Tips
What carried over best in our tests.
Step by step
Engines
From the studio's own model list — all generate sound.
Google DeepMind
Veo 3.1Closest to Sora
Dialogue and cinematic sound
Kuaishou
Kling 3.0 Pro
Expressive motion
ByteDance
Seedance 2.5
Long multi-shot clips
Alibaba
Wan 3
Long clips with references
xAI
Grok Imagine 1.5
Quick social clips
The demo and clips above are unedited outputs of these models.
Every clip on this page started as one still image. Make yours, then animate it.
In depth
What the models can do, how to prompt them, and what isn't allowed.
OpenAI launched Sora 2 on 30 September 2025 with an invite-only iOS app (Android followed in November): video with synced audio, 'Cameos' of your own likeness, a TikTok-style feed and a moving watermark.
OpenAI announced the shutdown on 24 March 2026. The Sora web and mobile apps closed on 26 April 2026; the Sora API, including sora-2 and sora-2-pro, was removed on 24 September 2026. OpenAI's deprecation notice lists no replacement.
FAQ
7 questions
No. OpenAI closed the Sora web and mobile apps on 26 April 2026 and removed the Sora API — including sora-2 and sora-2-pro — on 24 September 2026, without naming a replacement.
Sora launched free with limits in 2025, but it has been shut down — there's no free or paid Sora now.
No — Sora 2 no longer exists as a service. Alternatives like Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0, Seedance 2.5 and Wan 3 run on credits in Kenerate.
OpenAI offered an export through its Sora sunset page before permanently deleting Sora data after the final export window.
No — OpenAI blocked sexual content in Sora. For adults, see our Spicy video models instead.
Veo 3.1 for dialogue and cinematic sound, Seedance 2.5 or Wan 3 for 30-second shots, Kling 3.0 for expressive motion. The demo above runs one prompt on all four.
No — OpenAI removed the Sora API and the sora-2 and sora-2-pro models on 24 September 2026.
Explore
Generators, tools, models and guides — one studio, one credit balance.
Written by the Kenerate AI team
We build and run Kenerate's video studio. Every clip here is a real, unedited Wan 3 output (5 s, 720p) and every start image a real Seedream 5.0 Pro output; model specs and limits were read from the app's code; facts about other tools link to their own pages. Last updated 27 September 2026. Corrections: hello@kenerateai.com.
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