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9 Best WordPress Migration Plugins For 2017 To Move Your Site

If you’re like most people, you’ve probably moved homes at least once in your life. And I bet that you’ll agree with me when I say that it’s a grueling few days, to say the least.

You have to pack everything up, put it in the truck, drive it to your new house, and then reverse the whole process!

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just click a button and have someone handle all of that for you for free?

Well, you can’t quite do that in real life yet (sorry!), but you can do that when it comes time to move your WordPress site to its new home.

All the WordPress migration plugins on this list condense the migration process down to just a few simple clicks. Whether you’re just cloning your site to a new host or you’re changing your domain name, these plugins make the process simple.

And while not all of them are free, none of them are likely to make your wallet scream out in pain.

Keep reading to check out the 9 best WordPress migration plugins out there. Then, at the end of the post, I’ll break down my plugin picks for a few different scenarios.

Let’s jump straight into the list…

Duplicator

Duplicator

Duplicator is my personal plugin of choice for WordPress migrations because of its flexibility and versatility.

Not only does it handle standard migrations, it can also help you clone your site to a new domain name, set up staging versions of your site, or just back up your site to protect from data loss.

Here’s how Duplicator works:

You create a ‘Package” based on your current WordPress site. This package contains every element of your existing site, 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 keep those files in a safe location. But if you want to migrate your site (which I’m guessing you do!), you just have to upload both files to your new server and follow a simple installation process.

Duplicator automatically sets everything up on your new server. You can even change your domain name and have Duplicator update all of the URLs!

The free version of Duplicator is great for small to medium sites. But if you’ve got 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.

There’s just one caveat – you’ll need a little technical knowledge. If acronyms like FTP make you tremble in fear – I’d stick with one of the more user-friendly plugins further down this list.

Price: Free with a pro version that unlocks extra features, starting at $39.

Get Duplicator  Get Duplicator Pro

BackupBuddy

BackupBuddy

Don’t let the name fool you – while BackupBuddy is indeed great for backups, it’s also an excellent WordPress migration tool.

As a backup plugin, BackupBuddy is designed to make it easy to restore your site from a backup. Luckily, those same principles apply quite well to migrations – BackupBuddy’s ImportBuddy tool lets you migrate your site to another server.

The process is fairly similar to Duplicator – you’ll download both an installer file and an archive of your current site from BackupBuddy. Then, you need to upload those files to your new server via FTP. BackupBuddy will then guide you through setting up the migrated version of your site.

Honestly, as far as migrations go, there aren’t any major differences between Duplicator and BackupBuddy. The only thing to note is that with BackupBuddy you can migrate your site from a cloud backup at your iThemes account. It’s a slick feature, but not a necessity.

One area where BackupBuddy does outshine Duplicator is…actual backups. If you want something that’s great for both migrations AND backups, then BackupBuddy edges out Duplicator in my opinion.

Price: Starts at $80 per year for one site

Get BackupBuddy

WP Migrate DB

WP Migrate DB

WP Migrate DB isn’t a self-contained migration plugin like Duplicator and BackupBuddy. As you might be able to glean from the name, it’s focused entirely on your WordPress database.

With that being said, if you’ve ever tried to manually migrate a WordPress site, you know that the database is the most frustrating part. Moving your other files is basically a matter of copying and pasting.

Moving the database…that can get tricky, though.

WP Migrate DB simplifies the process by finding and replacing URLs and file paths. This is essential if you’re migrating to a new URL. For example, if you’re migrating a production version of your site to your localhost for testing, you’ll need to update all of the URL paths to match your localhost.

WP Migrate DB does that for you.

If you’re hands-on (or a WordPress developer) and don’t mind copying your other files manually, WP Migrate DB is a good option. If you’re looking for a solution that handles everything for you, turn elsewhere.

Price: Free. Pro version starts at $89.

Get WP Migrate DB

UpdraftPlus Migrator Extension

UpdraftPlus Migrator Extension

UpdraftPlus is one of the most popular backup solutions out there. While the free version of the plugin lacks a built-in migration function, UpdraftPlus has a $30 Migrator add-on that adds easy migration/cloning.

It lets you easily swap out URLs and fixes any potential database serialization issues.

Best of all, everything can be done directly from your WordPress dashboard.

If you’re just moving hosts while keeping the same URL, you can probably get away with the free version of UpdraftPlus. Just do a backup and restore to your new server.

But if you need to change URLs or move to a local environment, then you need the paid Migrator add-on.

Price: Base plugin is free. Migrator add-on starts at $30.

Get UpdraftPlus

All-in-One WP Migration

All In One WP Migration

All-in-One WP Migration is a free plugin with premium extensions that’s focused entirely on migrating your site to a new server or domain name.

It covers moving both your database and your files, which means it handles all aspects of migration.

All-in-One WP Migration employs some nifty tricks to ensure that it works on all hosting providers. First, it exports/imports data in 3 second time chunks, which allows it to bypass any restrictions placed by your host. It does something similar with upload sizes, so even if your host restricts uploads to a certain max, All-in-One WP Migration will still be able to migrate your site.

If you need to change your domain name, All-in-One WP Migration lets you do unlimited find/replace operations on your database and will fix any potential serialization issues to ensure that everything works smoothly.

The free version of the plugin supports moving sites up to 512MB in size. If your site is any larger, you’ll need to go with the unlimited version, which removes the size limit.

They also have extensions which can help migrate your site to cloud storage providers like Dropbox or Google Drive.

Price: Free. Unlimited extension costs $59. Other extensions vary in price.

Get All-in-One WP Migration

VaultPress

VaultPress

VaultPress comes straight from Automattic, the company behind WordPress. That’s a major plus in my book because I assume they’re more familiar with WordPress than the average developer!

VaultPress backs up and secures every part of your WordPress site.

And once you have a backup, it’s quite easy to clone your site to a new location with VaultPress’ Restore to a Different Site tool.

VaultPress 2

All you need to do is enter your FTP details and domain name (if you’re changing domain names), and VaultPress will handle the rest.

The only downside with VaultPress is that it’s a subscription service. BUT, it is part of Jetpack. So that subscription payment will actually get you access to all of the other premium Jetpack features as well.

If you’ve been eyeing up Jetpack already, then VaultPress is a no-brainer. Otherwise, you might want to go with a one-time payment or free solution.

Price: $3.50 per month or $39 per year

Get VaultPress

Super Backup & Clone

Super Backup Clone

Super Backup & Clone comes from azzaroco, an Envato Elite author with over 20,000 sales.

Beyond heaps of tools to make backing up your WordPress site easy, Super Backup & Clone also includes a dedicated feature to import any of your backups to a new install.

One nifty feature is that beyond offering regular Multisite to Multisite migrations, Super Backup & Clone also lets you migrate part of a WordPress Multisite install to a single site install.

You can also go in reverse, and migrate multiple single site installs into a single Multisite install.

While those are definitely niche uses, if you ever find yourself needing to blend the lines between Multisite and single site installs, then Super Backup & Clone is for you.

Price: $34

Get Super Backup & Clone

WP Clone by WP Academy

WP Clone

WP Clone is a nifty migration plugin with one major differentiating factor:

You don’t have to muck around your FTP program to handle your migration.

Instead, all you need to do is create a fresh WordPress install at the location where you want to clone your WordPress site.

Then, you just need to install the WP Clone plugin on your fresh install and it will handle the migration for you.

That sounds great, right? Unfortunately, there is one major caveat:

The developers fully admit that this process will fail on 10-20% of WordPress installs.

That’s the reason WP Clone isn’t higher on this list. If you’re willing to take the small gamble, WP Clone is one of the easiest ways to migrate your site. Just be sure you have a full backup before starting anything.

Also, if your site is especially large, you should go with a different migration plugin. Smaller sites (under 250MB) are more likely to successfully migrate via WP Clone.

All in all, a 10-20% failure rate isn’t huge. But it’s absolutely something to keep in mind.

Price: Free

Get WP Clone

Backup & Restore Dropbox

Dropbox

Backup & Restore Dropbox is unique in that it lets you backup, and then restore, your WordPress site directly from Dropbox.

You can also use the plugin to backup and restore locally, as well. But I think if you’re planning to use local backups, there are better free options out there.

While the Dropbox restore is great if you’re just planning to move hosting (while keeping the same domain), Backup & Restore Dropbox doesn’t appear to offer support for changing URLs.

So if you’re planning to migrate your site to a completely new domain, you’ll need to go with another plugin.

For a simple way to keep everything in the cloud, Backup & Restore Dropbox is a good free option.

Price: Free

Get Backup & Restore Dropbox

Which WordPress migration plugin should you choose?

Depending on your tech-savviness and exact needs, one of these plugins may suit you more than the others. I’ll try to break down a few different scenarios and which migration plugin you should pick for each.

If you’re confident enough to upload two files via FTP, then my overall top recommendations are Duplicator or BackupBuddy for their versatility. Duplicator is what I personally use to migrate all of my sites. And BackupBuddy functions much the same, just with the addition of a better general backup system.

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

If you don’t feel confident using FTP, then VaultPress or WP Clone will let you migrate without needing an FTP program. Just remember that VaultPress is a small monthly subscription and the caveat that 10-20% of WP Clone migrations end up failing.

If you need to migrate parts of a Multisite install to single site installs (or vice versa), then you should definitely give Super Backup & Clone a look.

And finally, it’s always worth double checking whether you actually need a migration plugin at all! Many WordPress hosts offer free migration services. So if all you’re doing is switching hosts, you definitely should check if they’ll handle it for free.

This article was first published here

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