On February 10th, 2026, Meta officially killed the Facebook Like button for external websites. No replacement offered. It just stopped rendering, quietly degrading to an invisible 0x0 pixel element on millions of websites worldwide.
I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time, not because I wanted to see it die per se, but because I’ve spent years trying to replace it.
The Search for an Alternative
About five years ago I went looking for a privacy-friendly Like button alternative. My requirements were simple: universal, centralized, persistent counts, free, and open source. I was genuinely shocked that nothing existed. The Facebook Like button had been so dominant for so long that nobody had bothered building an independent alternative.
I eventually found the Applause Button. It wasn’t perfect but it checked all the boxes, and I was relieved enough that I went all-in. I became a donor, offered to help support the project, built a WordPress plugin for it, and wrote about it on Techpost.
Then the Project Died
“NOTICE: The free and hosted version of this service is no longer operational. If you want to use the applause button on your website you are encouraged to host the back-end yourself using the code from the following repo: https://github.com/ColinEberhardt/applause-button-server. Alternatively, you can use the service hosted by a community member at https://applause.chabouis.fr.“
Without the counts being hosted, that essentially made the entire project obsolete. There are many ways to host your own likes; that wasn’t the problem the Applause Button was solving.
Server costs caught up with the project. I offered to help, was ignored, and eventually someone else came along and took over hosting the counts. I understand how that happens. Creators get busy, move on, or run out of funding. I’ve faced all of those issues myself with my own projects. And no slight to the creator, who was always nice, and I appreciate them building it, but by this point, my confidence was lost. It was too much duct-tape to keep relying on this project and I had to build my own.
Meet Love Button
Love Button is what I built instead. It solves the same problems the Applause Button originally solved, but it’s designed more simply and should be scalable without an absurd monthly hosting bill (maybe I’m naive about that, only time will tell). It’s universal, works on any URL on any website, stores counts centrally, is completely free to use, and is fully open source and public domain.
There’s also a WordPress plugin if you want drop-in placement without touching any code.
Two lines is all it takes to add it to any site:
<script src="https://bttn.love/love.js"></script> <a class="love-button"></a>No tracking, no accounts, no data collection. IPs are never logged. Outside of getting hit by a bus, I’m genuinely invested in keeping this alive for the long-haul.
If you find it useful, consider sponsoring the project on GitHub.