About this plugin
FastMigrate moves a WordPress site between hosts, servers, or environments – no downloads, no uploads.
It connects your two WordPress sites directly, server-to-server, so your data moves between the two hosts at full data-center speed and never touches your browser or your local disk.
At a glance:
- Typical sites migrate in 1-3 minutes
- HMAC-signed, expiring keys (24-hour TTL)
- One-click rollback until you confirm
- Full site clone (database + files)
- Works on managed, shared, VPS, dedicated – any host with PHP 7.4+
- Completely free
Why we built this
io, moving WordPress sites is daily work. We needed something that worked reliably on shared and restricted managed hosting providers, without depending on SSH, large zip downloads, or a fast local internet connection.
FastMigrate is what we built for ourselves — now free for everyone. Works between any two hosts, not just ours.
How it works
- Install FastMigrate on both the source site (the one you’re moving) and the destination site (the new host).
- On the source site: click Prepare Migration. The plugin backs up the whole site – database, plugins, themes, and uploads – into checksummed archives.
- Copy the key that appears once preparation is complete.
- On the destination site: paste the key and click Start Migration. The destination pulls every archive straight from the source, imports the database, rewrites URLs safely, and activates the migrated site.
- Verify, then confirm. Until you confirm, a one-click Rollback instantly restores your previous site.
Key features
- Fast – data moves directly between hosts at full data-center speed, never through your browser.
- Native acceleration – automatic use of native database export, native archive tools, and parallel transfers where available, with safe fallbacks everywhere else.
- Chunked and resumable – works within shared-hosting time limits; slow or restricted hosts won’t stall the job.
- True full-site clone – database (including custom tables), all plugins, themes, uploads, and root files (.htaccess excluded by default for safety).
- Safe by default – wp-config.php itself, WordPress core files,.git, and vendor/node_modules are never touched on the destination.
- Automatic URL & path rewriting – including serialized PHP data and page-builder JSON.
- Take this website live – one-click search & replace of the temporary URL for your live domain after migrating, with a dry run first that shows per-table change counts (also available anytime from the plugin page).
- One-click Rollback – previous site kept safely aside until confirmation; nothing deleted until then.
- HMAC-signed transfers – backups are never publicly downloadable; keys expire after 24 hours or can be revoked manually.
- Exclusions – skip heavy folders, specific root files, or database tables.
- WP-CLI support – wp hostwpio-fm backup, wp hostwpio-fm migrate <key>, wp hostwpio-fm status.
- Clean uninstall – removes every folder, file, and database table it created.
- Email notifications – get notified when migration completes or fails, with stats.
- Plugin conflict detection – warns about security/caching plugins that may interfere.
- Error recovery guidance – step-by-step fix instructions for common errors.
Privacy
FastMigrate does not collect, store, or transmit any personal data to external services.
- No tracking – no analytics, no telemetry, no phone-home.
- No third-party servers – your site data travels directly from your source host to your destination host, server-to-server.
- No user data collection – the plugin only accesses your own WordPress site files and database for migration purposes.
- Keys are ephemeral – migration keys auto-expire after 24 hours and can be revoked manually at any time.
- Local processing only – all data processing happens on your own servers; HostWP.io never sees your site content.
For full details, see the plugin source code – it’s 100% open source (GPLv2+).