How to Migrate from WordPress to Drupal: A Step-by-Step Guide
Migrating from WordPress to Drupal is a decision many website owners consider when they require more advanced content architecture, granular user permissions, or enterprise-grade scalability. While WordPress is widely known for its ease of use, Drupal is often preferred by developers for its flexibility and robustness in handling complex content workflows.
In this guide, we’ll walk through the process of migrating a website from WordPress to Drupal — including planning, tools, data migration, and post-migration steps. Whether you’re making the move for better performance or more control, this guide will help you make the transition smoothly.
Why Migrate from WordPress to Drupal?
Before diving into the technical steps, it’s important to understand the reasons why someone might migrate from WordPress to Drupal:
- Advanced Content Modeling: Drupal supports custom content types, fields, and taxonomies with greater depth.
- User Role Management: Offers more complex permission systems suitable for large teams and organizations.
- Scalability: Better suited for large-scale or enterprise-level websites.
- Security: Frequently used by governments and large institutions due to its strong security architecture.
- Multilingual Support: Drupal has built-in multilingual capabilities.
If these features align with your project goals, migrating may be the right choice.
Step 1: Prepare Your WordPress Site for Migration
Before beginning the migration process, you should audit your current WordPress site:
- List all your content types (posts, pages, custom post types)
- Identify taxonomies (categories, tags, custom taxonomies)
- Document user roles and permissions
- Export your WordPress media library (images and other files)
- Note any shortcodes, plugins, or page builders in use
Having a clear inventory will make it easier to rebuild the structure in Drupal.
Step 2: Set Up Your Drupal Environment
Next, install a fresh Drupal site on your server or local environment.
You can download the latest version of Drupal from Drupal.org and follow the installation guide. Make sure you have:
- A working web server (Apache or NGINX)
- PHP 8.1 or newer
- MySQL or PostgreSQL
- Composer (Drupal relies on Composer for dependency management)
Once installed, log into the admin panel to configure basic settings.
Step 3: Install the WordPress Migrate Module
Drupal uses a powerful Migrate API to import content. To move data from WordPress, you’ll need the following modules:
- Migrate
- Migrate Plus
- Migrate Tools
- WordPress Migrate (third-party plugin)
These can be installed via Composer:
bashCopiarEditarcomposer require drupal/migrate_plus drupal/migrate_tools
And then enable them using Drush:
bashCopiarEditardrush en migrate_plus migrate_tools
You can also enable modules through the Drupal admin interface.
Step 4: Export WordPress Content
There are two ways to prepare your WordPress content for import:
Option A: Use the WordPress XML Export
Go to Tools > Export in your WordPress admin and export all content. This creates an XML file.
Option B: Use the WP Migrate Module
For more granular control, use a plugin like WP All Export or write a custom script to export content in CSV or JSON format. This may be necessary if you’re using many custom fields or post types.
Step 5: Create Migration Configuration in Drupal
With your exported WordPress data in hand, you need to define migration configurations in Drupal.
This typically involves:
- Mapping WordPress post types to Drupal content types
- Mapping categories and tags to Drupal vocabularies
- Mapping WordPress users to Drupal user accounts
- Defining field mappings for title, body, images, metadata, etc.
You can create migration configurations as YAML files or use the admin interface provided by Migrate Plus and Migrate Tools.
Example YAML snippet for a post migration:
yamlCopiarEditarid: migrate_wordpress_posts
label: WordPress Posts
migration_group: wordpress
source:
plugin: xml
data_fetcher_plugin: file
data_parser_plugin: simple_xml
path: public://wordpress-export.xml
item_selector: /rss/channel/item
process:
title: title
body: content:encoded
created: pubDate
destination:
plugin: entity:node
default_bundle: article
Step 6: Run the Migration
Once your migration configuration is ready:
- Clear the Drupal cache.
- Use Drush or the admin interface to execute the migration.
Using Drush:
bashCopiarEditardrush migrate-import migrate_wordpress_posts
You can also rollback a migration if needed:
bashCopiarEditardrush migrate-rollback migrate_wordpress_posts
During this step, your content is imported into Drupal nodes, users, or taxonomy terms based on your configuration.
Step 7: Rebuild the Site Layout and Theme
Drupal and WordPress handle theming differently, so you’ll need to:
- Create or customize a Drupal theme (using Twig templates)
- Recreate menus, blocks, and navigation manually
- Configure layout using Layout Builder or a contributed module like Paragraphs
- Replace shortcodes or custom HTML with native Drupal features or blocks
If you’re migrating from a WordPress site that used page builders like Elementor or WPBakery, expect to do some manual layout reconstruction.
Step 8: Migrate Media Files
Media like images and PDFs must be copied to the correct directories in Drupal. You may also need to:
- Import image references using the
fileormediamigration plugins - Rebuild media entities and relationships if using Drupal’s Media module
This part of the migration can be time-consuming, especially for large sites.
Step 9: Test Everything Thoroughly
Before going live, test your migrated site thoroughly:
- Verify content accuracy
- Check for broken links or missing images
- Confirm user roles and permissions are correctly applied
- Test SEO metadata and redirects
- Validate the site on different devices
Run a crawl using tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to catch any technical SEO issues caused during migration.
Step 10: Launch and Monitor
Once you’re confident in the migrated site, update DNS settings to point to your new Drupal installation. After launch:
- Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console
- Set up 301 redirects for any changed URLs
- Monitor logs and analytics for unusual behavior
- Keep backups and security monitoring active
Final Thoughts
Migrating from WordPress to Drupal is a significant project that requires planning and technical expertise. While WordPress is easier for non-technical users, Drupal shines in complex use cases where structured content, scalability, and fine-grained control are essential.
By following a structured process, using Drupal’s migration tools, and testing thoroughly, you can make a smooth transition that sets your site up for long-term success.
For more WordPress tutorials and migration strategies, stay tuned to KnowbaseWP.