Migrator – Site Migration and Backup

Migrator packs your database and everything in wp-content into a single file you can download, keep as a backup, and restore, on the same site or on a brand-new install somewhere else. When you restore onto a different address, Migrator rewrites the old URLs and file paths to the new ones for you, so the site just works.

Everything happens on your own server. There is no account to create and no file size sold back to you, and nothing leaves your server unless you add an off-site destination you own or switch on Pull and Push. The source lives at github.com/wppoland/plogins-migrator, which is also where to file a bug or request a feature.

How it works

1. On the site you want to copy, create a backup. Migrator writes your database to a portable SQL dump and streams every file in wp-content into one archive next to it.
2. Download that archive (or, on a big site, build it from the command line, see below).
3. On the destination, the same site to roll back, or a fresh WordPress install to move to, restore the archive. Migrator imports the database, puts the files back, and rewrites the source site’s web address and paths to this one.

The address rewrite is safe for serialized data: Migrator walks the actual data structures rather than doing a blind text replace, so the byte-length counts PHP stores inside serialized options and meta stay correct and nothing breaks.

Scheduled backups and off-site copies

Back up every 2, 4 or 12 hours, daily or weekly, and keep as many copies as you choose. A second, database-only schedule can run more often than the full backup, with its own count of copies to keep, so a store can back up its orders every few hours and its files once a week. Each scheduled backup can also be copied off the server, to an FTP or FTPS server or to a local or mounted folder outside the web root. Older scheduled copies are deleted automatically, on the server and at the destination, once they fall outside your retention setting.

Switch on “Back up the site before plugin, theme and WordPress updates” and Migrator takes a backup, with the same settings as your scheduled ones, right before WordPress replaces any files, for manual and automatic updates alike. Several updates within ten minutes share one backup. Tick “Email me when an automatic backup fails” to hear when a scheduled or before-update backup fails.

Pull and push between live sites

Copy a whole site to another server over HTTP, with no archive to download or upload and no SSH or FTP. On the site you are copying, switch on Migrator > Pull and Push. On the destination, run wp migrator pull https://your-old-site.example: the first run prints a key, which you paste on the source’s Pull and Push screen, then you run the same command again (a source without the OpenSSL extension takes a connection token instead). The files and the database travel in small pieces, an interrupted pull carries on where it stopped when you run it again, and the next run fetches only what changed. Addresses are rewritten while the database streams in, the database keeps its exact bytes so accented text survives, and the old host’s own platform plugins and server-bound drop-ins are left behind. wp migrator push sends the destination’s file changes back.

A few things worth knowing

Backups are written to wp-content/migrator-backups. On Apache and IIS that folder denies direct web access. nginx ignores those rules, so every backup file name also carries a random token and is never at a guessable URL. The in-browser download is served only to logged-in administrators through an authenticated handler. Each item inside an archive carries a checksum, and a finished archive ends with an end marker, so a truncated or corrupted backup is caught before it is restored over a live site.

Restoring overwrites the parts you choose (the database, plugins, themes, uploads, other wp-content files), that is the point of a restore. Untick the database to roll back a plugin or theme without losing the orders and posts made since the backup, or restore only the database and leave the files alone. A restore asks for confirmation and is limited to administrators. Migrator never overwrites its own plugin folder during a restore, so it cannot pull the rug out from under itself mid-import.

For large sites where a browser request would time out, every job also runs from WP-CLI, which has no timeout:

wp migrator export
wp migrator import path/to/backup.migrator

What’s included

• One-click backup of your database and all of wp-content into a single archive
• Restore to the same site, or migrate to a new host with automatic, serialization-safe URL and path rewriting
• Choose what to leave out: media, themes, plugins, cache, spam comments, post revisions, transients, WooCommerce sessions or Action Scheduler tables
• Leave out files by name pattern (*.log, *.zip) and files over a size you choose, in the browser, on a schedule and with wp migrator export --exclude-pattern --max-file-size
• In-browser export in short resumable steps with a progress bar and a direct download, plus drag-and-drop restore that uploads in 4 MB pieces
• Scheduled backups every 2, 4 or 12 hours, daily or weekly, with a retention rule, plus an optional database-only schedule with its own interval and retention
• Restore only what you need: the database, plugins, themes, uploads or other files, in the browser and with wp migrator import --only
• A backup before every plugin, theme and WordPress update, and an email when an automatic backup fails
• Pull a live site to another server over HTTP with wp migrator pull: resumable, and the next run fetches only the changes
• Push file changes back with wp migrator push, and run the low-level transfer commands through wp migrator remote
• Off-site copies to an FTP or FTPS server, or to a local or mounted folder
• Download any stored backup as a standard .tar.gz that opens without Migrator
• WP-CLI export, import and replace commands for sites too large for the browser
• A snapshot of your database before every restore. If the database import or the URL rewrite fails, the previous database is put back automatically. If a later step fails, such as extracting files, the site is left partly restored and the message gives the path of the previous database dump to restore by hand
• Per-item checksums and an archive check before the database is touched, so a corrupt or unfinished archive is refused, not restored
• Serialization-safe search and replace across the database, with a dry-run preview and a wp migrator replace command, to change a domain, URL or path safely
• Inspect any stored backup before you restore it: source URL, WordPress and PHP versions, table count, plus pre-restore checks for table prefix, disk space and writability
• No account and no service of ours: nothing leaves your server unless you add an off-site destination you own

Documentation and links

• Documentation: plogins.com/plogins-migrator/docs/
• Plugin page: plogins.com/plogins-migrator/
• Source code: github.com/wppoland/plogins-migrator
• Bug reports and feature requests: github.com/wppoland/plogins-migrator/issues

Reporting a security issue: email hello@wppoland.com, and under our coordinated disclosure policy we confirm within two business days, assess within five, and patch a critical issue within seven days of confirming it.

How Migrator compares

All six plugins named here back up and migrate WordPress. What separates them is what you get without paying, so the grid reads the free edition of each. Every entry was checked against vendor pricing pages and vendor documentation on 29 July 2026; the All-in-One WP Migration and Duplicator columns were checked again on 27 October 2026.

The columns, left to right: Migrator, AIO is All-in-One WP Migration, Dupl is Duplicator, WPvivid, Updraft is UpdraftPlus, WPMigr is WP Migrate. A cell reads yes if the free edition does it, paid if that vendor sells it in a paid tier or add-on, no if the vendor does not offer it at any price, part if only partly, and ? if the vendor does not say. A row of paid is a paywall, not a missing feature; no is the one that means the thing does not exist.

                           Migrator   AIO   Dupl  WPvivid  Updraft  WPMigr
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Full backup + migration         yes   yes    yes      yes      yes    part
No size cap, free tier          yes    no    yes      yes      yes       ?
Scheduled backups               yes  paid   paid      yes      yes      no
Cloud or FTP destination        yes  paid   part      yes      yes      no
Incremental backups            paid  paid     no     paid     paid      no
Encrypted archives             paid   yes    yes     part     part       ?
Server to server transfer       yes  paid   paid      yes     paid    paid
Multisite net. restore         paid  paid   paid     part     paid    paid
Imports chosen tables          paid     ?     no     paid     paid    paid
Paid plan, from               EUR49   $69    $79      $49      $70     $49

Where Migrator is ahead in free. Scheduled backups with a retention rule, an off-site copy over FTP/FTPS or to a folder outside the web root, no size limit beyond what your own server allows, and a database snapshot taken before every import and put back automatically if the database import fails. No other free tier here documents that rollback. Automation is not the paid tier here: a site that wants a nightly backup landing somewhere other than the server it protects needs nothing beyond the free plugin.

What PRO adds. Cloud destinations (S3, R2, Backblaze, Wasabi, SFTP, WebDAV), incremental backups, encrypted archives, recovery points, Table Sync, multisite restore, deploying to an empty server, resetting a staging site to a clean install, and a white-label mode that puts an agency’s own name on the plugin. From 49 EUR per year.

All-in-One WP Migration

Exports to a single .wpress file, and its AES-256 password-protected export is in the free plugin, which is one thing Migrator keeps in PRO. The free export is bounded by your host’s PHP limits; lifting them is the Unlimited extension at $69/yr. Multisite is a separate add-on at $319/yr.

Duplicator

Builds a package plus an installer. The vendor’s readme states that the free plugin makes backups of any size, encrypts archives with AES-256 and a password, and stores backups locally or on its own Duplicator Cloud. Scheduling, other cloud destinations, recovery points, multisite and server-to-server import are in the paid plans, from a $79 list price.

WPvivid

Scheduled backups with one retention rule, Dropbox, Google Drive, S3, OneDrive, DO Spaces, FTP and SFTP as destinations, and server-to-server transfer with a migration key. Archives split at 200 MB. The vendor states databases cannot be backed up incrementally, encryption in Pro covers the database only, and table-level merging is sold as a separate product.

UpdraftPlus

Free scheduling from every 2 hours up to monthly, with Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, Rackspace, FTP, Swift and email as destinations. Archives split at 400 MB. Multisite, incremental file backups and database encryption are Premium, $70 to $399/yr excluding VAT.

WP Migrate

Lite exports a ZIP and does not import at all. Moving files between live sites, and push and pull, are paid, $49 to $219 for the first year. No tier offers a cloud or FTP destination.

Competitor prices are in USD, Migrator PRO is priced in EUR, and no conversion is implied. List prices and tier limits change without notice, so confirm on the vendor’s own page before you buy. Migrator itself is free under GPLv2 with no account to create; PRO is 49 to 149 EUR per year.

Migrator Pro

Migrator Pro is a separate paid plugin that extends Migrator.

Included in Migrator:

• Single-file backup
• In-place restore
• Move to a new host
• Exclusions
• Size explorer

Migrator Pro adds:

• Incremental backups
• Recovery points
• Cloud destinations
• Server-to-server transfer from wp-admin
• Deploy to a new server
• Table sync

The free edition is not a trial and its features stay available without a time limit.

• Migrator Pro – plogins.com/plogins-migrator-pro/
• Compare editions and pricing – plogins.com/plogins-migrator-pro/pricing/
• PRO documentation – plogins.com/plogins-migrator-pro/docs/

Translations

Plogins Migrator is fully translatable and ships the plogins-migrator.pot template. Translations are delivered by WordPress.org language packs from translate.wordpress.org, which is where Polish, German and Spanish are being contributed; the package itself carries no compiled translation files.