UXP Plugins in Premiere 2026
December of 2024 Adobe released UXP Plugins in Premiere beta, and in our post we recommended developers begin testing the APIs to prepare for migration.
One year later, Adobe has now released UXP Plugins in Premiere 2026 standard release.
(And in case you missed the news, “Premiere Pro” is now just called “Premiere”, but that’s another story.)
If you have built CEP Extensions for Premiere Pro in the past, they will be disabled in future versions of Premiere at some point.
The time is now to start migrating your CEP Extensions to UXP Plugins. This guide will help you get started:
What you need to know about UXP
What is UXP?
UXP plugins panels are the new way for 3rd party developers to build plugin panels in Adobe applications using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. UXP plugin panels will gradually replace CEP Extensions in Adobe apps on different timelines.
Photoshop, InDesign, and now Premiere Pro have adopted UXP plugins, with more Adobe apps to follow.
UXP vs CEP, what's the difference?
The CEP Extension stack is JavaScript/HTML/CSS on the frontend built on Node.js + Chromium, with an ExtendScript backend for interacting with the host application.
UXP Plugins are also JavaScript/HTML/CSS based, however they are built on Adobe’s own unique runtime, making them less resource heavy than CEP’s Node.js + Chromium stack. Instead of a JavaScript frontend and ExtendScript backend like CEP, UXP has 1 unified environment for your frontend code and host API calls, minimizing friction back and forth.
UXP also has the unique ability to include C++ Hybrid plugins to run computationally heavy tasks or for some apps, interact with a host app’s C++ APIs directly from the plugin.
CEP and UXP each have their pros and cons, but the bottom line is that all Adobe apps will drop support for CEP extensions and adopt UXP plugins in their place.
If you want your tool to keep working in new versions of Premiere, UXP migration is essential.
The CEP to UXP Migration
How long will my CEP Extensions keep working?
Wondering how long you have to migrate to UXP before CEP is shut down?
We don’t have a clear timeline from Adobe on this yet, but we’ve been assured that we should have “several years” to complete migration once UXP is out of beta.
Since UXP is now out of beta for Premiere, CEP’s extensions days are numbered.
Is UXP production-ready?
For the most part, yes.
UXP itself has been in public beta for over a year, however there are still some APIs the Adobe team has yet to add to UXP.
Best thing to do is test all the APIs your tool will need ASAP, and if anything is missing or not working, tell Adobe in the UXP Forums
If UXP does have all the features your tool needs, then you’re clear to build, publish, and release. However note that only Premiere 2026 comes with UXP, so you’ll want to keep older CEP builds around for users on older versions temporarily.
Getting Started with UXP in Adobe Premiere
How do I start building UXP plugins?
The easiest way to start building and testing UXP in Adobe Premiere is with our framework Bolt UXP to build UXP Plugins Faster. With Bolt UXP, You can easily spin up a new panel, enable Premiere under apps and start developing.
You will need the latest UDT (UXP Developer Tool) v2.1 installed on your machine available to download in the Creative Cloud Desktop app.
And we highly recommend referencing the Adobe Premiere team’s sample repo for examples on how to use most of the APIs.
Where do I report bugs in Premiere UXP and request features?
Premiere UXP has joined the new Adobe Developer forums so post any bug reports of feature requests for Premiere UXP here for Adobe people to see and make sure to tag Premiere:
Additionally, feel free to join other Adobe 3rd party developers on our Discord where we discuss Adobe plugin development of all forms.
NEED HELP MIGRATING FROM CEP TO UXP?
Book a free 45-minute consultation. We'll look at your CEP Extension and make a UXP Migration Plan that makes the most sense for your team.
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