10+ Best WordPress Migration Plugin to Safely Move Your Site

When you are moving your website to a new web host or domain, it can be quite an overwhelming task. Moving your files and website onto a new web host is not just enough. You have to take time out of your schedule to migrate all of those database entries, media files and other elements in order for the site to work properly.

However, it has now become easier to move WordPress websites with WordPress Migration Plugins. And a lot of them are available in the market right now.

Finding the best WordPress Migration Plugin can be hard. It seems that they all do pretty much the same thing but there are subtle differences. For example, some are free, some are inexpensive and others cost a bit more. Others work directly with your cPanel account, while others don’t. Some let you switch from one platform to another with one click while others don’t really do that.

We have listed the best WordPress Migration plugins in this guide. If you want to move your old website to a new platform then this is the blog for you to read.

Why You Need to Migrate Your Website

There are several reasons you might need to move a WordPress website, such as:

• Moving to a new web host.
• Moving a WordPress site to a new domain.
• Launch your own site and move it to Live from the local server.
• Cloning a website to work on it locally.

Site Migration is Not Always 100% Safe

Though the installation of WordPress website is simple, moving a site requires multiple steps if done manually. You will need to back up the data; copy content, files, and images into the right directory; restore the database; move and re-activate plugins and widgets; and test everything to ensure that the entire process has been completed without any error.

If a site contains thousands of posts and images, this process can be both time-consuming and labor-intensive, and end up extremely error-prone. There might be a risk of losing data and making the website unavailable if carried out incorrectly.

Particularly, when you have thousands of pages and are migrating from a legacy CMS such as Drupal, can be complicated and error-prone. To mitigate these risks, businesses and enterprises often partner with a Drupal to WordPress migration agency for a smoother transition.

Plugins can simplify this process by providing simple configuration, automatic backup of data during migration, and confirmation that data is not lost. WordPress Migration Plugins ensure data integrity, reduce the risk of errors, and minimize downtime of your website.

We recommend backing up your WordPress website in case anything goes wrong.

Best WordPress Migration Plugin

Now let’s dive straight into the list of our top 11 WordPress Migration Plugins that we’ve picked just for you.

1. Duplicator

With 1+ million active installs and an overall 4.9 star satisfaction rating, Duplicator is one of the most popular WordPress Migration Plugin. The free version is available in the WordPress.org plugin directory, but there is a premium version available too, starting at $49.

It is an extremely powerful tool designed to enable a website administrator to duplicate, clone, backup, move and transfer an entire site from one location to another.

Here’s how Duplicator works:

Duplicator creates a package of your WordPress site. It bundles all the plugins, themes, content, database, as well as an installer file to help you move all of that data to its new location.

If you’re just backing up your site, all you need to do is just keep those files in a safe location. But if you want to migrate your site, you just have to upload both files to your new server and follow a simple installation process.

The free version of Duplicator is great for small to medium WordPress sites. But if you have a massive site, you may need to purchase the Pro version because it’s set up to handle especially large sites. The Pro version also adds some other handy features like automatic backups, scheduled backups, cloud Storage to Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon S3, and FTP/SFTP.

QUICK VIDEO DEMO

Try Duplicator Migration Plugin

2. WP Migrate DB

With 300,000+ active installs and an overall 4.8-star satisfaction rating, WP Migrate DB is another WordPress Migration plugin. The free version is available in the WordPress.org plugin directory, but there is a premium version available starting at $89 for a personal license.

Instead of exporting files and building a package or archive, this plugin exports the website database to your computer as an SQL file. In order to complete the migration, a database management tool is then required to import the database file into an existing WordPress database.

Setting up the migration is straightforward. It automatically replaces the website URL throughout the database with the new URL the website will be moved to, and to exclude unnecessary data like spam comments, post revisions, and temporary cached data.

There are some extra features to the migration process in Pro version, such as enabling a backup of the database before running the migration, which acts a versioning system so you can return to a previous version of a database. Instead of requiring a separate database administration tool, WP Migrate DB Pro enables a database to be pulled into an installation. The Pro version also provides the ability to pause and resume a migration while it is running.

WP Migrate DB is very useful if you are not concerned with migrating WordPress website files only. It works very well for developers who work locally and need to migrate fresh data from the production site or migrate the local site to a staging site.

QUICK VIDEO DEMO

https://youtu.be/m8oScnEK5y0

>> Try WP Migrate DB <<

3. UpdraftPlus

With 2+ million active installs and an overall 4.9-star satisfaction rating, UpDraftPlus is another popular WordPress Migration Plugin. The free version is available in the WordPress.org plugin directory, but there is a premium version available priced between $42 and $145.

It is a powerful plugin that supports cloud storage, automatic scheduled backups, and splitting large sites into multiple archives. You can easily create backup files by selecting what files you need. You can then restore from a backup into an existing site; replacing the themes, plugins, uploads and other content directories with just one click.

With the premium version, you will get additional storage locations, database encryption, multi-site support, premium support, and multiple-site licenses. This version also offers a one-click site clone and migration tool that enables you to copy a site and duplicate it at a new location. 

If you have a very large site to migrate or need to work with a multi-site network, UpDraftPlus will be a great choice.

>> Try UpdraftPlus <<

4. All-in-One WP Migration

With 2+ million active installs and an overall 4.7-star satisfaction rating, All in One WP Migration is another good alternative for the WordPress Migration plugin. The free version is available in the WordPress.org plugin directory and there are premium extensions available to add functionality, with prices $69 for a lifetime license with unlimited updates.

The layout is very simple to export and import. The export screen contains options for text to find and replace site URLs, spam comments, post revisions, themes, plugins, and the media library. And the import option simply uploads an export file which will be restored into the existing WordPress installation.

To get full access and extended functionality, premium extensions need to be purchased. In premium extension, you will get increased upload sizes(up to 5GB), additional storage options in Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, OneDrive, FTP, backup scheduling, importing from a URL and multi-site capabilities.

The free plugin is very easy to use and provides a very straightforward interface. The premium extension pricing may add up if you need access to multiple storage options.

QUICK VIDEO DEMO

5. VaultPress

With 80,000+ active installs and an overall 4.7-star satisfaction rating, VaultPress is another plugin on our list. The free version is available in the WordPress plugin repository provides backup and synchronization functionality, but a subscription is required  ($39 per year) for migration.

The plugin is designed to protect your site through backups and security scans and synchronizes every post, comment, media file, revision and dashboard setting on their servers. You can backup and restore your VaultPress protected site to a new server.

With VaultPress you can browse your history of backups and download archives of your database, uploads, themes, and plugins. Backups can be restored via FTP or SSH connections.

Though VaultPress is not specially designed as WordPress migration plugin but it offers a solid means way to provide protection for your site.

6. WP Clone

With 200,000+ active installs and an overall 4.2 star satisfaction rating make WP Clone is a popular choice for WordPress site migration. The free version is available in the WordPress plugin repository. The plugin provides some useful features designed to make moving or copying a WordPress site quick and easy.

WP Clone copies just the user content and database, not the WordPress system files, which makes the process very fast and improves security. It can access original site backup over a direct HTTP connection and uses the built-in zip archive function so it is compatible with almost all hosts that support WordPress.

It is useful for moving a WordPress site to another domain or new hosting server, moving to or from a local server and creating copies of a site for development or testing purposes.

HELP VIDEO

7. Backup & Staging – BlogVault Backups

With 40,000+ installs and a 4.3-star satisfaction rating, BlogVault is used widely enough to be worth mentioning. The free version is available in the WordPress plugin repository, but to get the full functionality paid subscription is required. Paid subscriptions start at $7.4 per month. It provides automated scheduled backups and simple restores from a dashboard. 

It gives real-time backups that are triggered by standard WordPress triggers such as posts or pages being added. Additionally, the backup process is incremental, make it very quick and reduce the load on the server.

It has built-in a simple migration process that helps a site owner move their website to a new domain or host with a few clicks. The migration is very easy and very large sites can easily be migrated without any issue. It also supports multi-site networks.

QUICK VIDEO DEMO

8. Migrate Guru

With 20,000+ active installations and a 4.7-star rating, Migrate Guru is another popular choice to move WordPress site. It is the fastest plugin for WordPress migration with up to 80% faster than other best WordPress migration plugins.

The free version is available in the WordPress plugin repository and there is no “Premium” version available. It is a perfect option for you if your website’s size is up to 200GB.

There is built-in instant site migration in cPanel and FTP on most web hostings. It offers one-click migration along with multi-site support, real-time progress reports, and email alerts.

OVERVIEW VIDEO

9. WordPress Staging

With 40,000+ active installations and a 4.8-star rating, WordPress Staging is another popular choice to move the site. The free version is available in the WordPress plugin repository and its pro version costs you around $139.

It is one of the best WordPress migration plugins that help you move your site hassle-free. The plugin allows you to create, duplicate, and migrate a staging or development site in seconds. It creates a clone of your WordPress site into a sub-folder of the main installation. This sub-folder under WordPress installation also comprises the entire copy of your database. You can also transfer the database and download a backup in the process of migration.

The plugin helps you to prevent your website from being broken or unavailable because of installing untested plugin updates!

quick video

10. BackUpWordPress

With 200,000+ active installations and a 4.5-star rating, BackUpWordPress is another awesome WordPress backup plugin. The free version is available in the WordPress plugin repository and there is no “Pro/Premium version” available. The plugin can completely back up a site including the database and all files to prevent the loss of data.

With this plugin, you can install and transfer the WordPress site in just one click. It’s very easy to use and no setup is required. The plugin works on both Linux and Windows servers. Translations for different languages including Spanish, German, Chinese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Lithuanian, Italian, Czech, Dutch, French, and Basque.  

11. CMS2CMS Connector

With 1,000+ active installations and an average 4-star rating CMS2CMS Connector is another plugin that we have enlisted here. The free version is available in the WordPress plugin repository which can transfer up to 10 pages. The price of full automated migration depends on the content volume and the starting price is $9. You can calculate your own migration price using the Pricing Estimator.

The plugin can establish the connection between your Existing website built on any platform (Joomla, Drupal, Wix, TYPO3, Weebly and many others) and the New WordPress site.

With this plugin, you can choose the content type you wish to migrate. Automated 301 redirects will preserve SEO and keep your rankings after migration. If something went wrong during the migration, you can easily restart the process from that instant. The average migration time is from several minutes to several hours depending on the file.

Which WordPress Migration Plugin Should You Choose?

Depending on your technical knowledge and exact needs, one of these plugins may suit you more than the others. We’ll try to break down a few different scenarios and which migration plugin you should choose.

Expert Recommendation

If you’re looking for the best free migration plugin, our overall top recommendation is Duplicator. It works reliably and gets the job done without breaking your pocket. You can read more how you can migrate your localhost website to live server using Duplicator.

If you’re more concerned with migrating only your database between production and development environments, then WP Migrate DB Pro is the perfect migration plugin for you.

If you you’re not confident with FTP, then VaultPress or WP Clone will let you migrate without needing an FTP program. 

Finally, it’s always worth checking whether you actually need a migration plugin at all! Many WordPress web hosting offers free migration services. You can also check if they’ll handle it for free.