7 Best WordPress Migration Plugins For 2024: Move Your Site Safely

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Are you looking for the best WordPress migration plugin to safely move your website to a new web host?

Whether you want a migration plugin for personal use or use on client sites – I’ve got you covered.

In this post, I’m comparing the best WordPress migration plugins on the market. I’ll start off with my top picks to save you some time.

Note: Before migrating your site and deleting the old version, be sure to test your backups first. A staging site would be useful for this purpose.

The best WordPress migration plugins for your website

Here are my top picks:

  1. BlogVault – Best WordPress migration plugin we have tested. Simple 3 step process. Also happens to be the best backup solution for WordPress as well. Plugin runs on its own servers so it won’t slow down your site.
  2. UpdraftPlus Migrator Extension – A premium add-on for the most popular WordPress backup plugin.
  3. Duplicator – Great migration plugin. Can be used to clone websites as well. Free version available.
  4. All-In-One WP Migration – This migration plugin is specifically focused on website migrations. Free version available with paid extensions.

Now, let’s look at the full list of migration plugins in more detail:


1. BlogVault

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BlogVault is the best WordPress migration plugin we have tested and it’s what we use at WP Superstars.

Firstly, when you are preparing to migrate your website, you’ll need to run a backup. BlogVault’s backups run on their own servers so they don’t slow down your website. They have specialist plans for ecommerce sites using WooCommerce.

Staging sites come built-in and you will be prompted to test your backup on staging once the process completes. With most other migration plugins on this list, you’ll only know that the migration process files once you try to migrate your site. This feature removes a significant failure point from the process.

To migrate your site, just choose your host, enter your FTP details and start the process. It is incredibly simple.

BlogVault makes a lot of sense because you get the best WordPress backup solution, staging, easy site migrations and more.

Security features such as a firewall, malware scanning and malware removal are included on some plans. And BlogVault is ideal for freelancers & agencies thanks to their white label offering.

Price: Plans start from $89/year. Higher plans include security scanning and malware removal. 14-day money back guarantee available.


2. UpdraftPlus Migrator Extension

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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. Premium from $84/year.


3. Duplicator

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Duplicator is a great WordPress migration plugin 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 good 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.

Price: Free with a pro version that unlocks extra features, introductory price starts at $49/year.


4. All-in-One WP Migration

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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 from $69. Other extensions vary in price.


5. WP Migrate DB

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WP Migrate DB isn’t a self-contained migration plugin like others on this list. 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 introductory price starts at $49/year. They offer a 60-day money back gurantee.


6. Super Backup & Clone

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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: $35


7. WP Clone by WP Academy

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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


So, which WordPress migration plugin should you choose?

BlogVault is our go-to plugin because it offers other critical features, not just website migrations.

It happens to be the best WordPress backup plugin on the market and it includes other key features such as staging site creation, firewall, malware scanning and malware removal.

And, if you have clients, you will love the site management feature – you can update your plugins/themes and WordPress core directly amongst other things.

The migrator extension from UpdraftPlus is another great option if you use their core backup plugin.

Duplicator is a great option if you need a plugin to handle migrations and website cloning.

If you want a dedicated free migration plugin for your WordPress website, check it All-In-One WP Migrations.

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.


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