Skip to content
Register

Looking for anyone who got the advertised 'free migration' to work smoothly

Reviews by petra 25 replies 1.5K views
petra

Member OP

#1

Looking for success stories: free migration that actually worked

I am writing a case study for my blog and need genuine positive examples. Contabo, OVHcloud, Vultr, Hetzner, InterServer, Hostinger, KnownHost, RackNerd, GreenCloudVPS, HostHatch, CloudCone, Leaseweb, Time4VPS — anyone completed a "free migration" with zero issues?

My own experience: two cPanel-to-cPanel moves, both had email downtime and missing cron jobs. Not catastrophic, but not "zero touch" either.

Please specify: provider, source control panel, approximate site complexity (static pages, CMS, e-commerce, custom applications), and whether DNS was included.

I will anonymize all responses.

DA

Member

#2

Tried Hostinger last year they said free migration I had wordpress with woocommerce and 200 products and custom theme they moved files but database was two weeks old I had to rebuild inventory from paypal emails never again free means you pay with time

singapore

Member

3 #3

Free migration is origin problem not edge problem

Just use Cloudflare

Seriously though I have seen three "smooth" migrations and all were static sites under 50MB edge cacheable no database no php no complexity of course they were smooth there was nothing to break

Your cron jobs failed because origin config is fragile by design route via anycast and cache the response

nate_pad

Member

#4

Sorry total noob here

singapore said:
I have seen three "smooth" migrations and all were static sites

I used RackNerd free migration for my hugo site (just 12 pages I think) and it was fine but I guess thats what cdn wizard means by simple

Is hugo considered static sorry if dumb

WI

Member

#5

What OS was Hostinger migrating from, cPanel or Plesk

wendy

Member

#6

Which cPanel version, 110 or the new 118?

Have you tried restarting it?
DA

Member

8 #7
wirewilliam said:
What OS was Hostinger migrating from, cPanel or Plesk

cPanel to cPanel. My old host was some Namecheap reseller plan — https://www.namecheap.com. Hostinger's own panel is hPanel so after migration they converted nothing, just dumped files. I had to manually recreate email forwarders and SSL was wrong for three days because they issued it for the wrong subdomain.

wendy

Member

#8

I had KnownHost move a small ASP.NET site last year, cPanel to cPanel, and it actually worked. Took 48 hours for DNS to settle but that was my registrar being slow. Site was just a dozen static pages and one small SQL Server db, nothing exotic.

The catch: they only include one free migration per account. I needed a second one later and paid $25.

Have you tried restarting it?
nate_pad

Member

8 #9

Thanks singapore and nate_pad for the hugo info. I think I get it now, no database means nothing to break. Going to try moving my other site myself this weekend.

singapore

Member

#10
david_nail said:
cPanel to cPanel

This is the trap. cPanel backup format changes between versions and nobody tests restore compatibility until production breaks. Free migration scripts are just restore jobs with a marketing label.

Your cron jobs died because absolute paths changed or because PHP version jumped and your shebang broke. Not the mover's fault, but they never warn you.

Post a reply

You need an account to reply. Log in or register to join the conversation.

Post reply Preview Save draft