15 Best WordPress Migration Plugins to Use

WordPress migration can be a daunting task! No, it’s a serious talk, especially when you’re not familiar with the migration technicalities. Fortunately, there are plenty of migration plugins available to help you transfer your website to a new hosting provider or domain with ease. Some of the best WordPress Migration Plugins include All-in-One WP Migration, WP Migrate DB, Duplicator, Migrate Guru and many others. These plugins offer various features such as easy-to-use interfaces, database migration, backup and restoration options, and more. Before selecting a plugin, ensure that it’s compatible with your website’s version and meets your specific requirements.

Okay, so let’s explore some of the best WordPress Migration Plugins…

What are WordPress Migration Plugins?

The process of moving a WordPress site from a sub-domain to a top-level domain, from one web host to another, or from a local development environment to a live server becomes simplified when WordPress Migration Plugins are used. They come with a variety of features. They can transfer the database content as well as the files and they ensure that the URLs remain updated.

When Do You Require a Migration Plugin?

Manually migrating a WordPress website is a task that is suitable for professionals who can complete this task without making mistakes. The migration involves many technical steps and a simple mistake may cause an entire site to crash. This is a time-consuming process. In this scenario, a WordPress plugin can speed up the migration process and ensure that no data is lost.

Here we have segregated the 15 best WordPress Migration Plugins that will definitely smoothen your migration process.

1. UpDraftPlus

This plugin is generally used as a backup tool. It can restore the files to another location and simplify the migration process.

Pricing

• The Migrator Addon costs $30 and has to be used with the basic free version.
• The Premium version costs $70.

Pros

• It can import all the files to another location after creating a complete backup.
• It can schedule and store WordPress backups in remote locations.
• It works with WordPress multisite networks.
• You can save the server resources because of its incremental backups.

Cons

• This plugin can help with migration if WordPress is installed on the destination point.

2. All-in-One WP Migration

This is not a backup plugin. This WordPress migration plugin comes with a collection of features.

Pricing

The basic plugin is free. The lifetime license for unlimited extension costs $69.

Pros

• It supports the older versions of WordPress up to WordPress 3.3 alongside supporting the WordPress hosting providers, PHP versions, operating systems, etc.
• It can import chunks of data by bypassing the host’s file size.

Cons

• In the free version, the limit of import size is up to 512 MB.
• The WordPress must be manually installed on the destination point.
• A paid extension is required for multisite exports.

3. Migrate Guru

Migrate Guru is a backup solution that specializes in the migration of WordPress sites to another server or host.

Pricing

Free

Pros

• It supports most of the popular WordPress hosting providers.
• When using this user-friendly migration wizard, you just need to enter the FTP of the destination host or cPanel credentials. The plugin is going to handle the remaining tasks.
• It can handle serialized data.
• It can transfer the updated URLs of the WordPress database.
• It can transfer large websites without affecting server performance.

Cons

It does not support multisite migrations as well as the transfers between localhost and live website.

4. Duplicator Pro

This plugin has a user-friendly step-by-step wizard capable of guiding anyone through the migration process. It can update the URLs to ensure that everything runs properly after unpacking.

Pricing

• The paid plans with unlimited backups and migrations start from $49.50/year for two websites.
• The Pro plan (to be used on more than five websites) starts at $199.50/year.

Pros

• It enables the migration of WordPress sites to a new host, domain name, live site, or local server.
• Its migration wizard helps with step-by-step guidance.
• It can save the scheduled backups on remote storage, such as Dropbox, Google Diver, etc.
• It connects with the cPanel hosting dashboard for the automated creation of databases and users.
• The Duplicator Pro plan supports multisite migration.

Cons

• Beginners may need assistance when connecting to the FTP server.
• The upload process may be time-consuming if the website is large or the internet connection is unreliable.

5. BackupBuddy

This is one of the reliable plugins used for having a backup or for migration of WordPress sites.

Pricing

Starts from $80/year for a single site

Pros

• It has advanced features in one package – automated scheduled backups, restore, and migration.
• You may use it to –
  • Set up backup schedules
  • Decide what to back up
  • Store everything in remote locations, such as Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.
  • Deploy a WordPress staging site to a live server with a single click
  • Transfer a website using a complete WordPress backup

Cons

The learning curve that is required by this plugin may be time-consuming.

6. SuperBackup & Clone – Migrate for WordPress

This reliable WordPress plugin enables automatic backup and migration processes. It helps with the cloning process.

Pricing

The one-time price is $35 with all future updates and premium customer support for six months.

Pros

• Beginners can easily set it up.
• It’s available in the dashboard and can create an automatic backup of a WordPress site.
• It links to third-party cloud services, such as Rackspace, Google Drive, Amazon S3, etc.
• It can create snapshots of a website and restore the files anywhere based on a user’s desire.

Cons

It has no free version.

7. Duplicator

This plugin can simplify the migration process. It can bundle up the site files into a ZIP file and serve as a backup solution.

Pricing

The cost is $69 for the first year and $42 for the second year.

Pros

• It can clone a website to another staging area or web host with no downtime.
• It can schedule backups with recovery points and secure file encryption.
• Its smart migration wizard is operable with a click.
• You can access various cloud storage options when using this plug-in.

Cons

• Users unfamiliar with the FTP software may need some assistance when using Duplicator.

8. SiteGround Migrator

SiteGround is one of the hosting providers for WordPress and can be used to move WordPress sites to SiteGround.

Pricing

Free

Pros

• It is designed to transfer websites from any hosting company to SiteGround. Thus, it works quite well.
• This user-friendly plugin can handle all the tasks once you enter a token from the hosting control panel to activate it.
• It can automatically create a temporary domain for the transferred site. The DNS can be changed later to ensure that the migrated website points to a particular domain name.

Cons

It does not support WordPress multisite and can’t be used to transfer from the local host to the live site.

9. Backup Guard

This plugin has user-friendly navigation, a clean interface, and tools for migrations, backups, security, and restores.

Pricing

The Pro plan with all features starts from $25/year.

Pros

• There is no need to use FTP tools to import the backups.
• It can schedule and export the backups to Dropbox.
• The free version can be used for website migration if it does not happen frequently.
• It supports multisite networks during migrations and backups.
• All the plans allow for unlimited backups, migrations, and sites.
• The volume of backups that are supposed to be kept on a server can be specified.
• You receive an email notification after the completion of the backup or migration.
• It can handle permalink errors and issues with image loading, wrong URL, etc.

Cons

The free version does not include the website migration feature.

10. WP Clone by WP Academy

This plugin can be used to move a WordPress site to/from the local server hosting or to another domain.

Pricing

The website migration is a premium feature that is available for $15.

Pros

• There is no need for FTP access.
• It can create copies of a website for testing or development.
• The Pro version can fetch the website and migrate it directly to a new server.

Cons

• Migration of a website larger than 2 GB may fail or the process may continue for over an hour.
• It may cause problems when used on websites hosted on WPEngine.

11. Bluehost Migrator

BlueHost is a WordPress hosting company. This plugin can be used for the migration of a website to this particular web host.

Pricing

Free

Pros

• This user-friendly plugin can handle the migration once a token is entered from the hosting control panel.
• It automatically creates a temporary domain for the migrated site. However, the DNS can be changed later to point to a particular domain name.

Cons

• It cannot transfer websites from localhost to the live site.
• It does not support multisite networks during migrations.

12. JetPack (VaultPress)

It enables a user to easily restore WordPress backups and migrate a website to new servers.

Pricing

It costs $1 for the first month and monthly $10 from the second month onwards.

Pros

• It can be used to easily create and restore the backups to a new location.
• It saves server resources through incremental backups.
• Its one-click site restoration feature makes migration easier.
• It stores all data in the cloud. There is no need to upload the backups manually during migration.
• The backups remain secured due to the security features of this plugin.

Cons

• A JetPack subscription is required with many features that may not be required or used.
• The setup process is likely to seem complex to beginners. There is a need for two plugins, a WordPress.com account, and a Jetpack subscription.

13. BlogVault

This plugin ensures quicker and fail-proof migration. Offline restoration is possible with this plugin.

Pricing

It’s available at $8/month for a single site.

Pros

• This user-friendly migration plugin is compatible with over 10,000 web hosting services. There is no possibility of failure due to hosting incompatibility and live sites experience no downtime.
• It can move all files and databases including non-WordPress site files.
• It can automatically rewrite the URL and transfer all URLs (posts, images, pages, etc.) to the new website.

Cons

• It can’t transfer a local site to an online server.

14. WPBackItUp

This plugin can create scheduled unlimited backups and ensure easy migration from one server to another.

Pricing

Migration at $79/year for one site

Pros

• It has a user-friendly interface and can create scheduled backups on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
• It can take backups of a website and download them locally without requiring any FTP client.
• It sends e-mail notifications after every backup and creates unlimited backups at no additional expense.

Cons

Migration is a premium feature that is not included in the free version.

15. WP Migrate DB

This user-friendly plugin can accelerate the database migration process and complete the task with no risk of data corruption.

Pricing

Migration at $99/year for one website.

Pros

• It enables multisite to single-site migration and supports serialized arrays and data.
• You can decide which tables to transfer to the new website.
• Both paid and free versions are compatible with all web-hosting providers and support WordPress multisite.

Cons

The basic version can only transfer a website’s database.

Conclusion

You may use any of these WordPress Migration Plugins to automatically take backups and transfer your WordPress site with a few clicks. These user-friendly plugins can be used by anyone with basic knowledge of how to use the plugins and transfer data. As per our 15 years of WordPress development services experience, we have carried out a list of the best WordPress Migration Plugins, but still, if you face any technical hurdles in selecting the migration plugins that will comply with your existing website, feel free to connect with us. Our Certified WordPress Experts are always UP there for you…

Girish Panchal

Technical Architect

A Technical Architect, proficient in WordPress, Drupal, Laravel, and DevOps tasks, crafts robust IT solutions with a blend of expertise and versatility in web development and infrastructure management.

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