Thinking of moving your WordPress site from one host to another, or from one domain to another? Or, would you like to create a staging site or clone your site? If so, looking for the best WordPress migration plugins is an important step.
WordPress migration plugins make it super easy to move your site, clone it, or set up a staging site where you can make sure your changes are going to work before you push them live.
However, there are a lot of migration plugins on the market! That makes it hard to choose the best one for your site. So, in this article, we’ll rank our top 10 migration plugins, including a couple of good free options.
What Are WordPress Migration Plugins For?
There are four main reasons why a WordPress site owner might need to use a migration plugin:
- To move their site to a new hosting provider: When you switch hosting providers, you need to move your site’s files and database from your old server to your new server. A migration plugin can make this process much easier and less stressful.
- To move their site to a new domain: If you’re changing your site’s domain name, you need to update your site’s DNS records and make sure that all of your links are pointing to the new domain. A migration plugin can help you with this process, as well as with migrating your site’s files and database.
- To create a staging site: A staging site is a copy of your live site that you can use to test changes before pushing them live. A migration plugin can make it easy to create a staging site and migrate your changes back to your live site once you’re ready.
- To clone their site: If you want to create a copy of your site to use as a template for a new site, or to use on a different domain, a migration plugin can make this process quick and easy.
Overall, WordPress migration plugins can make it much easier and less stressful to move or clone your WordPress site, especially if you’re a beginner or if you need to move multiple sites.
What to Look For in a WordPress Migration Plugin
While all migration plugins will have similar features, they have some differences you’ll want to watch out for:
- Ease of use: The plugin should be easy to use, especially for beginners.
- Features: The plugin should have all the features you need, such as the ability to migrate your database, files, and plugins.
- Compatibility: The plugin should be compatible with your current WordPress version and your new host.
- Price: WordPress migration plugins can range in price from free to hundreds of dollars. Choose a plugin that fits your budget and needs.
Let’s jump into our list.
Our Favorite WordPress Migration Plugins
1. Duplicator
Duplicator is our pick for the #1 best WordPress migration plugin. Whether you’re a beginner and unsure what you’re doing or a seasoned professional who has moved a bunch of sites, Duplicator is perfect for your needs.
Duplicator can do everything you need a migration plugin to do, like migrate your database, files, and plugins, backup your site on a schedule, create a staging site, and much more.
Not only is Duplicator easy to use, but it’s also been around for years and is trusted by over 1,500,000 website owners! With over 4,000 5-star reviews on WordPress, it’s clear that Duplicator is an amazing option for anyone needing to back up, migrate, or clone their website.
The best part? You don’t need any technical knowledge whatsoever. Duplicator takes care of all of the technical details of the migration process, so you don’t need to worry about anything.
More of Duplicator’s features include:
- Migrates your site to any hosting provider, domain name, or subdomain.
- Migrates your site without downtime: Duplicator creates a temporary copy of your site during the migration process, so your live site is never down.
- Migrate and back up your database, files, and plugins
- Create staging sites
- Supports multiple migration methods, including push, pull, and cloud migration
- Easy to use with a step-by-step wizard
- Multisite support
- Cloud storage integrations with Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Microsoft OneDrive and more
Pricing: You can get Duplicator’s basic features for free, or grab a license for more features starting at $49.50 for a year.
Get started with Duplicator now!
2. UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is one of the best WordPress backup, restore, and clone plugins you can find today. It’s both easy to use and trusted by over 3 million WordPress users around the world.
Similar to Duplicator, UpdraftPlus can create a clone of your site and/or migrate your site to a new domain. It also has a tool for scheduling backups of your site however often you need. Plus, the plugin is fast and uses few server resources.
UpdraftPlus also supports multiple cloud storage options like Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace, and more.
UpdraftPlus is an awesome WordPress migration plugin, but beware it has a lot of addons for different functions that can get expensive, depending on what you need.
More of UpdraftPlus’s features include:
- Backs up each WordPress entity (database, plugins, themes, uploaded content and “other” content) in a separate file, all from the WordPress control panel
- Backups made elsewhere can be imported via drag-and-drop (unlimited size upload) or FTP
- Easy and straightforward to use, even for beginners
- Easily pick and choose which themes, plugins or database tables to migrate
- Automatically backup before updates
Pricing: UpdraftPlus is available for free and their premium plans start from $70 per year.
Get started with UpdraftPlus now!
3. Migrate Guru
Migrate Guru is a free WordPress migration plugin that’s known for its speed, reliability, and safety. It can migrate your site to a new host, replicate your site, or back it up. It uses its own servers, so there’s no risk to your site.
Migrate Guru can migrate large sites quickly. It also supports almost all of the most popular WordPress hosts.
More of Migrate Guru’s features include:
- Supports multiple migration methods, including push, pull, and cloud migration
- Fast and reliable migration process
- Super straightforward migration process
- No addons needed to move multisite
- Fully automatic, built-in find and replace
Pricing: Migrate Guru is free.
Get started with Migrate Guru today!
4. Jetpack
Jetpack is a WordPress security and performance plugin that can also be used to migrate your database, files, and plugins. It’s a big plugin with a lot of features that can help with different aspects of your website, including growth and marketing, security, and backups/migrations.
While all of those features make Jetpack a cool plugin, it can get to be overkill for your site if you only need it for one of its functions.
More of Jetpack’s features include:
- Can be used to migrate your database, files, and plugins
- Real-time backups and one-click restores
- Unlimited site migrations
- Includes WooCommerce site support
- Activity log
- Easy to use with a step-by-step wizard
Pricing: Jetpack’s VaultPress Backups plans start at $4.95 per month billed yearly.
5. All-in-One WP Migration
All-in-One WP Migration is a free WordPress migration plugin that was founded in 2013 and has over 5 million active installations. Plus, it has over 6,000 5-star ratings on WordPress.org.
This plugin is known for being safe, reliable and adaptable, and is trusted by several well-known government entities, universities, and large companies (according to their description).
More All-in-One WP Migration features include:
- One-click migration: Migrate your entire WordPress site in one click
- No file size limits
- Supports custom uploads, plugins, theme folders, and more
- Support for a long list of hosting providers
- Easy to use with a user-friendly interface
- The core All-in-One WP Migration plugin is free
Pricing: Free to start, with paid extensions available if you need them
Get started with All-in-One WP Migration today!
6. Solid Backups (Previously BackupBuddy)
Solid Backups is a premium WordPress backup and migration plugin that can also be used to migrate your database, files, and plugins. It has a few features that set it apart from some of the other plugins on our list, such as automatically updating domains and URL references on your site if you switch domains.
Plus, Solid Backups has been around since 2010!
More Solid Backups features include:
- Works with locally built sites
- Move an existing site to a new location or spin up a new site using an archived backup
- Quickly clone existing sites as blueprints for new production or staging sites
- Deep malware and virus scans for every Stash backup as it’s created
- Store your backups with Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or Amazon S3
Pricing: Solid Backups starts at $99 per year.
Get started with Solid Backups now!
7. WP Migrate Lite
WP Migrate Lite is a free WordPress migration plugin that can be used to migrate your database and export full sites easily. It uses a pretty simple interface to help you create your full site export to a zip file.
With WP Migrate Lite, you can customize your exports by choosing to export your database, media uploads, themes, and plugins. You can also choose to exclude certain things like post types, inactive plugins, inactive themes, and more.
More WP Migrate Lite features include:
- Custom find and replace
- Easy to use with a step-by-step wizard
- Zip file can be uploaded to Local
- Automatically back up your database before running a find-and-replace operation, or on-demand as needed
Pricing: WP Migrate Lite is free.
Get started with WP Migrate Lite today!
8. WPvivid
WPvivid is a free WordPress migration plugin with over 300,000 active installs. It can be used to back up your site, set up a staging site, or migrate your entire site to another domain or host.
WPvivid is a solid option for a migration plugin because it supports site migration from a dev environment to a new server, from a dev environment to a new domain, or from a live server to another.
More WPvivid features include:
- Easy backups
- Clone and migrate with a single click
- Easily set up a staging site on a subdirectory of your production site
- Set a schedule to run backups automatically
- Storage options include Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, Microsoft OneDrive, DigitalOcean Spaces, FTP and SFTP
Pricing: WPvivid is free.
Get started with WPvivid today!
Which WordPress migration plugin is right for you?
Duplicator is our #1 pick for the best migration plugin. You can get its basic features for free, which will support a basic site. Then, it’s super affordable for the more advanced features, plus excellent support. We love that you don’t need any technical knowledge at all to use it!
That’s it! We hope you found the right migration plugin for your unique site in our list.
Want to add easy Google Analytics to your WordPress plugin? Make sure to check out MonsterInsights!
Here are a few other articles we think you’d love:
Best WordPress Security Plugins to Protect Your Site
Best WordPress Hosting Services
Best WordPress Backup Plugins
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