Migrating your WP website isn’t something you want to do unprepared. You have to have the right tools because everything has to go through smoothly. It’s a good thing then that there is a huge selection of plugins for that particular purpose on the internet today, but there are three that stand out by quite a lot.
Duplicator and All-in-One WP Migration have been around for a while, but over the last year or so Prime Mover has been rising rapidly in popularity and is now challenging the two for the top spot. So why not compare the three candidates directly and see what each of them has to offer? That way, you get a pretty clear picture of which tool to go for.
Truth be told, you probably can’t go wrong with any of them, but for the best possible solution, you’ll have to go through this article.
About Prime Mover
Since Prime Mover is somewhat of a sensation in the WordPress community, at least when it comes to migrating websites, we’ll start things off here. First of all, it needs to be said that Prime Mover has two versions you can choose from: the free one and the premium one.
However, it can be argued that it is the free version that put this tool on the map since it offers so many exceptionally useful features. Not only can you move single sites to multisite sub-sites and vice versa, but there are also no restrictions in terms of the size of the package.
It should also be emphasized that multisite migration is something other tools usually charge you for, which means Prime Mover has a huge advantage in that respect. Everything is very easy to use, and the tool works with literally all types of hosting companies, so you don’t have to worry about that nor the type of server when migrating.
Everything you need to do can be done from WP admin, and there are no complicated settings you need to worry about.
The whole process can be done in a few clicks, so pretty much anyone can do it, which means you won’t have to hire some sort of a computer expert to do the migrating for you. But that goes more or less for each of the products that are being reviewed here.
Packages can also be saved and/or downloaded, something that can be particularly good to have in certain situations, and the whole process is demonstrably secure and reliable.
Prime Mover PRO
One particularly impressive thing is that the PRO version takes security and reliability to a whole new level. But if the free version is perfectly safe, then what do you call this?
256-bit AES will cover pretty much any file you have, and you can take a snapshot to serve as your safety net while the migration is in process. Simply send it to your Dropbox and keep it there as a backup.
A migration log can keep you updated on every step of the transfer, but this is something you can choose to turn off if you so desire. There is a fair number of restoration options you can use too, and you have the freedom to customize many more parameters should you require it.
Oh, and the migration can be executed via a remote URL. Pretty nifty, huh?
It’s pretty clear that the PRO version of Prime Mover is geared towards professionals, and they are sure going to love a lot of these features. The great thing, however, is that the free version will be more than enough for you if you don’t do this kind of thing for a living, which leaves the other two candidates with quite a demanding task.
Prime Mover vs Duplicator
Duplicator is by many considered to be the top tool on the market today for migrating WP websites, for some pretty good reasons. Millions of downloads speak enough of its quality. But what does it actually offer?
Well, the bundling process is nice and smooth, and a neat touch is that you can keep the way you’ve bundled your websites across all packages, so there’s no need to repeat the same process multiple times. Everything looks good and is fairly intuitive, although we would argue that Prime Mover is just a tad simpler. This is because beginners sometimes have problems connecting to the FTP server, which may prove to be slightly frustrating.
Just like Prime Mover, Duplicator also has a free version called Duplicator Lite, but the big difference here is that multisite migrations are reserved for the premium version, Duplicator PRO. As mentioned earlier, that’s a huge advantage Prime Mover’s free version has over its competition, and that includes Duplicator as well.
Other than that, Duplicator PRO has a whole lot of interesting options, such as e-mail notifications, excellent support, scheduled backups, and cloud storage to multiple systems. These include Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, Microsoft OneDrive.
When it comes to technicalities, you should know that Prime Mover auto-restarts the processing for every 15 seconds (this default value is configurable also); so virtually it is impossible for the export and import processes to hit server timeouts, no matter how big the sites being exported/restored or how slow is the web hosting server. That’s a big plus since Duplicator often comes with a “host build interrupt error” in these situations.
Obviously, we need to compare the prices, too. Duplicator PRO starts from 59$, which gives you three site licenses. Prime Mover has a somewhat similar price at 19.99$ per site license, but the thing is that you can buy them one at a time, meaning that the initial investment can be about three times lower. Moreover, Prime Mover offers a free two-week trial to its prospective buyers, whereas Duplicator PRO doesn’t have that option.
All in all, we’re talking about two fairly similar products in terms of quality, with a big difference in the free versions, where we have to award a point to Prime Mover.
The other major difference is that Duplicator doesn’t have a free trial. So, given that the quality of both tools is exceptionally high, the more consumer-friendly approach brings victory to Prime Mover in this clash. One more to go.
Prime Mover vs All-in-One WP Migration
All-in-One WP Migration is also a migration tool with millions of downloads to back it up, so it will be interesting to see how it fares in this comparison. Right off the bat, we have to say that this tool is very intuitive and fairly easy to maneuver.
We have to also say that importing and exporting packages is remarkably easy and can be done in a few clicks. On top of that, exporting automatically creates a duplicate of your website that is stored and can be used as something to fall back on in case of any problems.
So, the process of managing packages is quite well executed. From a technical perspective, there is also plenty to be happy about because of both Prime Mover and All-in-One WP Migration work with different operating systems (Linux, macOS, and Windows).
Probably the main feature of this product is that it has figured out a way to get around the file size limit hosts usually impose. In other words, this plugin will break your site down into parts smaller than 2 MB and then transfer them as such. However, there is something else we have to mention when it comes to size, and that is the fact that the free version of this product will not import things bigger than 512 MB. Prime Mover has no such limitations in place.
Also with the All-in-One Migration plugin, you can restore the package within WordPress admin only if you get a paid extension. If the user attempts to download the package and re-upload it, there is a 512 MB limit. And that’s one of the main reasons why All-in-one migration plugin is very hard to use as a free version in a realistic website backup/migration scenarios. Today, most websites are probably bigger than 512 MB (due to the popularity of cheaper hosting with unlimited disk space, use of HD media, large web images for galleries, post videos, and social media use). With the Prime Mover plugin, there is no such package and restoration restrictions. Users can create a package as big as they want to, and it can be restored within WordPress admin as a backup or they can choose to upload it to a remote host without any package size upload restriction.
That, unfortunately, is just one of the setbacks. WordPress will need to be installed manually to the new location, and multisite exports require you to get (and pay for) an additional expansion. This just demonstrates how big of a deal it is that Prime Mover has this last feature in the free package.
Finally, let’s talk about the price. The premium package for All-in-One WP Migration will set you back 69$ for the Personal version. Given that it’s a lifetime deal, that’s great. However, you cannot use business invoices with that version, and if you need the Business version, you will pay 69$ right away and then 29$ per month. That’s not a good deal when you consider that Prime Mover essentially offers everything needed for personal use for free and gives professionals what they need for 19.99$ per year, with no additional payments required.
Conclusion
While all three products are indeed excellent and reliable ways to migrate your WP website, Prime Mover has to win this competition for two major reasons. First, its free version includes multisite migrations, which is something you have to pay for everywhere else. Simply, the free package offers much more. And second, its pricing model is the most customer-friendly of the three.
Compared to All-in-One WP Migration, Prime Mover is flat out more affordable, and while Duplicator is very close in terms of average site license price, it requires a bigger initial investment and doesn’t give you a free trial.
Other than that, all three are very simple to use and fairly intuitive, so you should be able to complete the process quickly and without too much trouble. If you want to save money, though, and lose nothing in the process, Prime Mover is the one to go with.