In many cases, you might need to migrate your WordPress site. Be it for a faster hosting provider or any other reason, migration does happen. No matter whatever the reason you are doing it, you need to know how to do it. If your site is on WordPress you can migrate it without losing anything. WordPress migration plugins will help you do this smoothly. We’ll introduce you to some of the most wonderful WordPress migration plugins that get the job done for you in a short time.
5 Best WordPress migration plugins
A good website migration mechanism is required to complete this process smoothly. Some hosting service providers offer site migration service for free or at a specific cost, while some providers don’t have such a service. So chances are that, at some point, you may need to do this on your own. And the good news is, it’s not that much difficult as it may sound to be.
Today I will tell you about 5 Best WordPress migration plugins that you can use to move your site between hosts.
1. Duplicator
Duplicator is a powerful plugin that you can depend on to move a WordPress site. You may use it to migrate your new site from localhost to web server and vice versa. Install the plugin on your site and export the whole site including the WordPress CMS itself. You will get an installer.php file and the site archive. Move this two components to your target server’s public HTML (or www) root directory and browse yourdomain.com/installer.php. On the coming page, you will get on-screen instructions and steps to setup the site on the new location. Don’t forget to finally update the URL. Duplicator is one of the most trusted and widely used WordPress migration plugins available today.
Features
- Migrate or clone a WordPress site
- Pull down a live site to localhost for development
- Backup a WordPress site or parts of a site manually
- Clone a live site to a staging area or vice versa
- Bundle up an entire WordPress site for easy reuse or distribution
Duplicator free version is available on the WordPress.org plugin repository. You can use that to do the above stuff. If you need scheduling, cloud storage support, email notifications and some more advanced features, you can purchase a paid version.
2. All-in-One WP Migration
All-in-One WP Migration exports your WordPress website including the database, media files, plugins, and themes easily. You can upload your website to your desired location with a drag and drop functionality. There is an option to apply an unlimited number of find and replace operations on your database during the export process. The plugin will also fix any serialisation problems that occurs during the find/replace operation.
Features
- Ultra-fast export operation
- Drag and drop import system
- Convenience Backups
- Tested on all major OSes
The free version of this plugin supports only 512MB file upload size. If your site package is more than this quota, you need to buy pro extensions of this plugin (of course if you want). There are several premium extensions for additional features. Find them all on this page.Easy WordPress Migration: Migrate Guru
3. Easy WordPress Migration: Migrate Guru
Migrate Guru is a super fast and easy to use WordPress migration plugin for you to move your website to a different location. The plugin is considered to be one of the fastest WordPress migration plugins built to date. It is developed by BlogVault.Migrate Guru uses intelligent processes on its own server leaving no risk to your websites. Migration Guru rewrites URLs, bypasses import-export scripts, and handles serialised data automatically. It also transfers WordPress sites without any manual work, add-ons, or additional tools.
Features
- Truly one-click migration
- Compatible with all hosts
- Seamless multi site support
- Migrate any site irrespective of file size
- No overload on the site
- Tracking and progress alert
Migration Guru is an absolutely FREE plugin for you.
4. WP Migrate DB
WP Migrate DB copies your database from one WordPress install to another with a simple click. You can export your database as a MySQL data dump, do a search and replace for URLs and paths. You can also save the database to your computer as an SQL file. It focuses on database. So if you want to transfer only the database then this plugin is perfect for you. There can be some limitations while transferring your entire website with it.
Features
- Backup, push and pull your databases
- Find & replace different data
- Able to export your database
- Works tablewise
- Filter post types
- Stores migration profiles
WP Migrate DB comes in both Free and Pro versions. The free version can serve your purpose properly. You can go for the premium version for additional features.
5. WP Clone
WP Clone is a lightweight, easy and fast plugin for a WordPress site migration. It follows a very simple approach. You need to install it on the both side (the source site and the target site). Then create a package from the source site. You will get a link to the package. Now go to the fresh target WordPress site and open the WP Clone plugin that you’ve installed on it. Provide the package link and restore it to the target server. It’s very easy.
However, this plugin may not work on 10%-20% sites, especially on larger ones. But if you just want to move your newly created site from localhost to web server, this plugin should work.
All the above-mentioned plugins could work for backup purposes as well as site migration tools. Never forget to keep native server-based backups before starting the migration process. And if you are shifting your web host, don’t cancel your existing hosting plan because the domain propagation process will take few days to point toward the new server. In the meantime, the old server is important to keep your site online.
