Umbraco to WordPress
Umbraco to WordPress Migration for .NET Sites Losing Support
Move an Umbraco site to WordPress and off the .NET hosting bill that usually prompts it. Umbraco migrations are driven by running cost and by how few people can maintain the stack; the work is mapping document types onto WordPress content without losing structure. Send the address for a written transfer plan.
Roughly what will this cost?
An estimate from the three things that actually drive the price. A fixed quote follows a look at the site.
Get a fixed quote- Document types mapped to post types with their properties intact
- Off Windows or specialist .NET hosting and onto commodity infrastructure
- Every URL redirected, one hop
- A platform with a far larger pool of people who can maintain it
What transfers, what gets rebuilt
| What | Comes across | Needs rebuilding |
|---|---|---|
| Content nodes | Yes | Mapped to post types rather than flattened |
| Document types and properties | Yes, as post types and fields | The field structure, deliberately |
| Media library | Yes, at source resolution | Library organisation |
| URL structure | Often one to one | Redirects verified for every path regardless |
| Templates and partials | No | Rebuilt as theme templates |
| Members | Yes, without passwords | Roles mapped to WordPress capabilities |
| Custom .NET code | No | Assessed individually; most has a plugin equivalent |
| Forms | No | Rebuilt with submissions stored where you control them |
An economic decision, not a technical one
Umbraco is a capable CMS. That is worth stating first, because most migration pages argue the source platform was bad and this one is not making that argument.
What drives these moves is running cost and availability of people. Windows or specialist .NET hosting costs more than commodity PHP hosting, and the number of developers who can confidently maintain an Umbraco site is far smaller than the number who can maintain WordPress. That combination shows up as changes taking weeks and quotes looking surprising.
Where neither of those is true for you, staying is the right answer. The test is simple: what did your last three site changes cost, and how long did they take?
Structure survives, if it is mapped rather than dumped
Umbraco’s document types are a content model, and a good one. Flattening them into WordPress pages would lose exactly what makes the site maintainable.
Document types become custom post types. Properties become fields. The content tree maps onto WordPress hierarchy, which is one of the closer correspondences between any two systems and the reason these migrations tend to go smoothly once the field mapping is agreed.
Legacy .aspx paths are the thing to watch: sites of this age often carry addresses from an earlier build that still answer and still hold links. Those get redirected too. What the new site then needs is ordinary and continuous – WordPress maintenance, priced on maintenance plans and pricing.
The economics, not the software
Umbraco is a capable CMS. What stalls these sites is the market around it: specialist .NET hosting, a small pool of developers, and a quote attached to every change. The same economic shape, not a technical one, drives moves from Magento to WooCommerce and from Wix to WordPress, where the ceiling is what the platform permits.
The migration method itself does not vary much between them and is on WordPress migration service. What changes after the move is that routine work stops being quoted – it is included, and WordPress price and package work service shows at what cadence.
How the work runs
- Inventory the old siteEvery URL, every page, every product, every form. The export is checked against a crawl, because platform exports routinely omit what was never a page - landing URLs, redirects already in place, files linked directly.
- Build on WordPress firstContent types, templates and the theme are stood up and populated before anything points here. The old site keeps trading throughout.
- Map every URLOld address to new address, one hop, written down before the switch rather than discovered from 404s afterwards.
- Test what earns moneyForms, checkout, search, login. A migration that moves every page and breaks the enquiry route has failed at the only thing it was for.
- Switch, then watchDNS moves with the TTL already lowered. Real 404s are checked against the redirect map for a fortnight, and the old platform stays paid for until it is provably unnecessary.
The redirect plan
- Crawl the live site for every reachable URL rather than trusting the content tree
- Map content-node URLs, which usually mirror the tree structure
- Redirect any legacy .aspx paths still answering from an earlier build
- Map media paths under /media/
- Publish as server-level 301s, one hop, verified before the switch
- Re-crawl and reconcile 404s for a fortnight
Plans that include this
- Starter$39/monthor $390 a year — two months freeBlogs, portfolios and brochure sites
- UpdatesMonthly
- BackupsWeekly, 30-day retention
- Uptime5-minute checks
- Malware removalNot included
- Most chosenProfessional$79/monthor $790 a year — two months freeSmall businesses and lead-generation sites
- UpdatesWeekly + PHP version management
- BackupsDaily, 60-day retention
- Uptime1-minute checks
- Malware removalIncluded
- Business$149/monthor $1490 a year — two months freeStores, membership sites, anywhere downtime costs money
- UpdatesWeekly, tested on staging first
- BackupsDaily, 90-day, multi-location
- Uptime1-minute + 2-hour restore
- Malware removalIncluded
The service that covers this
wordpress migration serviceMove a WordPress site to new hosting without the outage everyone expects. The new install is built and tested while the old one keeps serving, DNS…
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Questions people ask before calling
Why move off Umbraco?
Cost and availability. Windows or specialist .NET hosting is more expensive than commodity PHP hosting, and the pool of developers who can maintain an Umbraco site is much smaller - which shows up as slow, expensive changes.
Is Umbraco a bad CMS?
No, and that is worth saying. It is a capable system with a narrower ecosystem. The move is usually economic rather than technical.
Will the URLs change?
Often not much - Umbraco's tree maps closely onto WordPress hierarchy. Every path still gets a verified redirect, because probably is not a basis for keeping your positions.
What about custom .NET functionality?
Assessed one piece at a time. Most turns out to be a plugin, some a small amount of PHP, occasionally something that needs rethinking. All of it is scoped before you get a price.
How disruptive is it?
The site keeps serving throughout. The new build is tested on a staging address, and DNS switches only once it has been walked.