Dreamily Is Gone — and Every Story Went With It
In April 2026, Dreamily's English service went offline. Not paused, not acquired, not migrated — shut down, with user stories deleted. The offline notice was a few paragraphs long. For a lot of people it was the first AI writing tool they ever loved, one of the friendly free doors into this hobby. Years of their writing were rows in someone else's database, and then they weren't.
This post is not a victory lap. Nobody at a small indie platform enjoys watching another one die. It's a post about the lesson, because the lesson keeps repeating and people keep paying for it with their work.
It wasn't the first time
- Backyard AI discontinued its desktop app in June 2025 — the local-first product its users had specifically chosen it for.
- AI Dungeon's 2021 breach exposed private adventures that users believed were theirs alone.
- Every hosted platform's terms of service reserves the right to suspend accounts and delete content. Read yours. That clause is always there.
A story that exists only on a platform's server isn't yours. It's a lease — and you don't set the terms.
What owning your stories actually requires
Not a promise in a privacy policy. Promises don't survive shutdowns, acquisitions, or pivots. Ownership is architectural, and it looks like this:
- Local by default. The platform never holds the only copy of your work — your device does.
- Export in open formats. TavernCard PNGs and plain JSON that other tools can read, not proprietary blobs that die with the product.
- Sync as an option, not a requirement. If you want cross-device copies, they should be encrypted at rest — and deletable by you.
How Underfiction is built
Stories are local by default — in your browser's storage on the web, in app storage on iOS and Android. Underfiction does not have a database of your prose. Story Sync is optional, off by default, and stores encrypted copies at rest. Characters export as TavernCard V2 PNGs that work in SillyTavern and the wider ecosystem; worlds export as world book JSON. If you leave, you leave with everything.
If you're a displaced Dreamily writer: the deleted stories aren't coming back, and we're sorry — that part has no fix. What you can do is make sure it never happens to your writing again. Wherever you land next, check where the words actually live before you fall in love with the tool.
Underfiction is interactive storytelling under your direction. Stories are local by default; sync is optional and encrypted. New accounts start with 500 free credits.
New accounts start with 500 free credits after email confirmation.
Try UnderfictionFrequently asked questions
Why did Dreamily shut down?
Caiyun discontinued Dreamily's English-language service in April 2026; the separate Chinese product continues. No detailed public reason was given — which is typical, and part of the point: users rarely get a say or much warning.
Can I recover my Dreamily stories?
Not from Dreamily — the shutdown notice indicated user data was deleted. Whatever copies you saved yourself are what remains.
What's a good Dreamily alternative?
Underfiction, if you want literary prose from frontier models with local-first storage. NovelAI, if you want a flat subscription with client-side encryption. AI Dungeon, if you liked the adventure-game style.
How do I keep AI stories from being lost?
Prefer local-first tools, export regularly in open formats (TavernCard PNG, JSON, plain text), and treat any story that exists only server-side as temporary — because legally and practically, it is.