Platform migration onto Drupal or WordPress, on your timeline
Moving a site onto Drupal or WordPress from Squarespace, Wix, Joomla, a hand-built site, or something else entirely. Unlike a Drupal 7 migration, nothing is forcing this decision — so the question worth answering first isn't how, it's whether it's worth the disruption at all.
What actually happens, platform by platform
Every move off another platform runs into the same three questions, whatever the platform. Here's the honest answer for each of the ones I'm asked about most.
Squarespace
What comes across: your pages, blog posts and images, with your existing URLs mapped and redirected rather than left to break. What doesn't: Squarespace's built-in section layouts and style blocks have no direct equivalent — they're rebuilt in the new theme rather than copied. What it costs: usually the more straightforward end of this category — Squarespace's content is relatively clean to extract, so cost tracks the size of the site more than its complexity.
Wix
What comes across: your content and media, the same as any move. What doesn't: anything built with Wix's own editor — animations, App Market features like Wix Stores or Wix Bookings, custom Velo code — none of it has a Drupal or WordPress equivalent, so it gets rebuilt rather than migrated. What it costs: driven mostly by how much of the site depends on Wix-specific functionality, more than by its size.
Joomla
What comes across: more than most — Joomla is a proper CMS with its own structured content, so articles, categories and users move across in reasonably good shape. What doesn't: Joomla-specific extensions and components, which is usually where a Joomla site's real complexity actually lives. What it costs: tracks how many extensions the site depends on, more than the page count.
Hand-built or static sites
What comes across: the design, if you want to keep it — HTML and CSS translate directly into a new theme. What doesn't: there's no content export to work from, because there's no CMS underneath to export it from — content gets entered into the new site rather than migrated automatically. What it costs: priced by how much content there is to enter, since none of that part can be automated.
Something else
An abandoned proprietary CMS, an old ecommerce platform, a system nobody remembers the name of any more — get in touch and I'll tell you honestly what's involved before you commit to anything.
Redirects protect what you've already built
Search rankings live on URLs as much as on content, and this is the part agencies most often get wrong on a platform move: launch a new site with different URLs and no redirect plan, and rankings built up over years quietly disappear. Every meaningful URL on the current site gets mapped to its equivalent on the new one and redirected — planned before the build starts, not patched in afterwards once traffic has already dropped.
A more straightforward job than it looks
A Drupal 7 to Drupal 11 migration is the hardest job in this category — the content model has to be rebuilt rather than copied, because Drupal 7's architecture doesn't map cleanly onto Drupal 11's. Moving from Squarespace, Wix or Joomla onto Drupal or WordPress is a more straightforward version of exactly that same problem: export, map, verify, redirect. If you want evidence that the harder version of this job gets done properly, that's what the Drupal 7 migration page is for.
What it costs
Priced on the same factors as any migration: how much content there is, how much of it depends on platform-specific functionality that has to be rebuilt rather than copied, and how many URLs need mapping. Get in touch with a link to the current site and I'll give you a realistic figure, not a guess from a form.
Who it's for
Organisations who've outgrown their current platform, or are frustrated by what it can't do, and want to move onto Drupal or WordPress properly — with a plan for redirects and nothing left behind. There's no deadline here, so there's no pressure to decide before you're ready.
Thinking about moving? Let's talk about what's involved.
Tell me what platform you're currently on and roughly how big the site is. I usually reply within one to two working days, and there is no obligation attached to the conversation.