This page is about moving databases. If you are moving a laptop or a phone to a new one, this is not it. A database migration is not finished when the data has moved – it is finished when somebody can prove the new system’s numbers match the old one’s, and then switch the old one off.
That is the question this comparison of data migration tools is built around, because almost nothing else asks it. Moving rows is the easy part and every tool here does it. Proving the rows arrived intact is where they separate, and only two of the six publish anything that does it.
So the comparison below carries a column no rival page has: whether the tool can prove the numbers match. Every price and limit was read on the vendor’s own page on 8 November 2026. Nothing was trialled and no account was created.
One note before the list. If you are shopping for something that runs every hour for the next three years, you want a pipeline, not a migration tool – we rank those separately in our data pipeline tools round-up. This page is about getting off the old system this quarter.
6 Best Data Migration Tools: Quick Comparison
| Tool | Best For | Public Reviews | The Catch | Starting Price | Can It Prove The Numbers Match? | Access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1AWS Database Migration Service | A managed cutover into AWS that nobody has to operate | PeerSpot – 8.0 from 35 reviews, 91% would recommend; praised on cost, criticised on CDC throughput | One endpoint must be on AWS, so on-prem to on-prem is out | $0.0186 an instance hour for t3.micro, or $0.082 a DCU-hour serverless | Yes – row-by-row validation, plus a validation-only task you can run on its own | Pay per hour, no licence |
| 2Azure Database Migration Service | SQL Server estates moving onto Azure SQL, where the offline cutover costs nothing | G2 – 4.3 from 20 reviews; praised for ease of use, criticised on complexity and cost management | No assessment, no SKU recommendation, no logins and no TDE support | Free offline; $0.37 an hour online, free for the first 183 days | Not published | Free tier, no card |
| 3Qlik Replicate | Sources the cloud services will not read – mainframe, DB2, SAP – into any target | PeerSpot – 8.2 from 18 reviews, 100% would recommend; criticised on support response times | Every tier is Contact Us, so the bill is a sales call | Not published | No published source-to-target report | Talk to sales |
| 4Oracle GoldenGate | Oracle estates with a DBA team that will run the replication itself | PeerSpot – 8.2 from 52 reviews, 96% would recommend; the recurring complaint is price | It locks redo and archive logs, so long transactions can freeze | $1.3441 per OCPU-hour managed, $0.3226 BYOL | Separate product – reconciliation is Oracle GoldenGate Veridata, bought on its own | Pay per OCPU-hour |
| 5CloverDX | Legacy migrations where the field mapping and the validation are the work | G2 and TrustRadius – praised for the graphical view, criticised on the learning curve and documentation | Self-hosted, so you run and size the servers | No per-plan price; the calculator estimates from $42,000 a year | Validation and a human approval queue, but no source-to-target report | Talk to sales |
| 6Google Cloud Database Migration Service | Postgres and MySQL onto Cloud SQL or AlloyDB at no tool cost | G2 – exactly one review, and G2 says there are not enough to provide buying insight | The pricing page contradicts itself on the free backfill allowance | Free for homogeneous; from $2.00 a GiB a month for heterogeneous CDC | Yes, before the move – a validation run before the migration starts | Free for the common case |
Not sure which of these fits your stack?
Tell us what you are running today and what you need it to do. We will tell you which of these we would pick, and why. We are not going to pitch you.
How We Researched These Data Migration Tools
Nothing was trialled and no account was created. All six products need an account before they show you anything, so there is no screenshot of a logged-in console anywhere in this post. Every price, limit and licence term was read on the vendor’s own pricing or documentation page on 8 November 2026.
Nothing here is priced per seat, and we have not flattened any of it into a monthly figure. AWS bills by replication-instance hour or DCU-hour, Azure by vCore-hour, Oracle by OCPU-hour and Google by the gibibyte. Two publish no figure at all. Where a rate card stops – Google’s at 10 TiB of change data capture – this post says so and stops with it.
Two vendor pages contradict themselves and we print both readings rather than picking the flattering one. Google states its free backfill allowance as 500 GiB in one place and 50 GiB in another, and says homogeneous SQL Server migration is free on its product page while omitting it from the pricing table. Both are flagged in the entry.
Review corpora here are uneven and we say so per entry. Google Cloud DMS has exactly one public review in the world, and G2 prints its own line saying there are not enough to provide buying insight. Neither PeerSpot nor G2 exposes a per-review permalink for these products, so every review was read from the product listing on 8 November 2026 and captured, because listings reorder. Reddit and Capterra were not used: both block automated reading and we do not work around that.
Four things decided the order:
- Whether it can prove the numbers match – a cutover ends with somebody signing off that the new system agrees with the old one, and most of these tools leave that step to you
- What it can read – the cloud migration services cover the mainstream engines and stop; a mainframe, a VSAM file or an SAP system rules most of this list out immediately
- Whether the bill stops when the migration does – a migration is a project with an end date, so an hourly or per-gigabyte rate behaves very differently from data migration software you license by the year
- Who has to operate it – a managed service and a self-hosted platform are two different staffing decisions, and the second one is only cheaper if you already have the people
Is This a Migration or a Pipeline?
These are two different purchases and the words are used interchangeably everywhere, which is why half the shortlists in this category are wrong before they start.
A migration ends. A pipeline does not.
| What you are doing | What you need | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Getting off an old system this quarter, then switching it off | A migration tool | You want a cutover, a parallel run and a reconciliation – and you want the bill to stop afterwards. That is this page, and it is what separates cloud data migration tools from a standing pipeline. |
| Keeping two systems in step for the next three years | A data pipeline | A standing sync is a different product with a different price shape – we rank those in our data pipeline tools round-up |
| Joining several systems so they can be read together | An integration platform | That is a modelling problem rather than a move; our data integration tools comparison covers it |
| Moving data that is already known to be wrong | Fix it first, or fix it in flight | A migration copies the problem faithfully. CloverDX at entry 5 is the one here built to clean on the way across, and our data quality tools round-up covers the rest |
| Migrating because the current system is slow | Check what is actually slow first | If the queries are the problem, a move to the same architecture somewhere else reproduces it |
- If you are in the first row, the comparison above is your shortlist.
- If you are in the second or third, you are on the wrong page and the links will save you a week.
1. AWS Database Migration Service: Best for a Cutover Nobody Has to Operate
What it does: A managed replication service that moves data between a source and a target endpoint, at least one of which must be on AWS, for both same-engine and cross-engine migrations, with optional change data capture and row-by-row validation.
Who this is for: Teams already running on AWS with no spare DBA to operate replication
AWS DMS is first here for one reason: it answers the question the rest of this list leaves to you. Its data validation compares each row in the source with its corresponding row in the target and writes every mismatch to a queryable control table.
Better still, you can run a validation-only task that moves no data at all. Point it at a cutover window and it tells you how many rows do not match, which is the sign-off a migration actually needs.
Key Features
- Row-by-row data validation that compares each source row with its target row and writes mismatches to a control table
- Validation-only tasks that can be pointed at a cutover window without moving any data
- Change data capture alongside the full load, so the source stays live while the copy catches up
- DMS Schema Conversion at no charge beyond the S3 storage it uses
Pros and Cons
Pros
- The validation step is part of the product rather than something you build: it compares every row and names the failures in a queryable table
- A validation-only task can be run against a cutover window on its own, which is the question a migration actually has to answer
- Billing is per replication-instance hour or per DCU-hour, so the bill stops when the migration stops
- Schema conversion is bundled free rather than sold as a second product
Cons
- Validation needs a primary key or unique index, will not touch views, and gives up after 10,000 failed or suspended records
- CDC throughput is the recurring complaint: one reviewer reports it could not keep up with month-end and year-end transaction peaks and is moving to another product
- Error messages are reported as ambiguous and sometimes misleading, which is expensive inside a cutover window
- One endpoint must be on AWS, so it cannot move an on-premises database to another on-premises database
What Users Say
Improvements could be made in AWS Database Migration Service. Because of that, I am moving out of DMS now to a STRIIM solution.
Avinash Gawali on PeerSpot
One valuable feature of AWS Database Migration Service is change data capture (CDC).
reviewer2057175 on PeerSpot
Pricing
By replication-instance hour, not by seat. In US East (N. Virginia), on-demand dms.t3.micro is $0.0186 an instance hour Single-AZ and $0.0372 Multi-AZ; dms.t3.medium is $0.0745.
Serverless is billed per DCU-hour: $0.082 at 1 DCU Single-AZ, rising to $31.46 at the 384 DCU ceiling. One DCU is 2 GB of RAM.
Homogeneous data migrations are $0.09 an hour, with no replication instance to provision – you pay only for the duration of the migration.
Provisioned GP2 storage beyond the included allowance is $0.115 per GB-month Single-AZ and $0.23 Multi-AZ. T2 and T3 instances include 50 GB.
DMS Schema Conversion is free beyond the S3 storage it uses, and all data transfer into DMS is free. T3 instances run in unlimited mode, so sustained CPU above the baseline is charged.
Bottom Line
The default when the target is AWS. The validation-only task alone is worth the shortlist place – test CDC throughput against your peak load before you commit.
The one that brings its own proof the data arrived.
2. Azure Database Migration Service: Best for SQL Server Estates That Can Take the Downtime
What it does: A fully managed Azure service that moves SQL Server databases onto Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance and SQL Server on Azure VMs – offline on the free Standard tier, or online with minimal downtime on the paid Premium tier.
Who this is for: Microsoft shops moving SQL Server on-premises or on VMs into Azure
If the move is SQL Server onto Azure SQL and you can afford downtime, this costs nothing. The Standard tier is free at 1, 2 or 4 vCores and does offline, one-time migrations – which is what most cutovers are.
Online, minimal-downtime migration is the Premium tier at $0.37 an hour, and it is free for the first 183 days from the day the service is created. Most migration projects finish well inside that.
Key Features
- Offline, one-time migrations on the Standard tier at no charge for 1, 2 or 4 vCores
- Online continuous migration with minimal downtime on the Premium 4-vCore tier
- Schema migration from source to target, included in the portal version
- Automation through PowerShell and the Azure CLI as well as the portal
Pros and Cons
Pros
- The whole offline path is free: Standard at 1, 2 or 4 vCores costs nothing, so a one-time cutover has no tool cost at all
- Premium adds online, minimal-downtime migration at $0.37 an hour and is free for the first 183 days, which covers most migration projects outright
- Fully managed, with no replication host to size or patch, and reachable from PowerShell and the CLI as well as the portal
- Reviewers rate it 4.3 out of 5 on G2 and consistently name ease of use and migrations that went through without incident
Cons
- The portal version does no assessment and makes no SKU recommendation, so the sizing decision stays with you
- It migrates no logins and does not support TDE-encrypted databases, both of which surface late in a SQL Server cutover
- Its scope is narrow: the documentation says it currently supports SQL Database modernization to Azure, so it is not a general-purpose heterogeneous tool
- Reviewers name cost management and complexity as problems, and G2’s own tags count complexity issues twice
What Users Say
Ui ux can be enhanced. Also needs versatile pricing for different customer categories.
Verified User in Computer Software on G2
During SQL database migration, Challenges may include data integrity issues, schema mismatches, downtime concerns, and potential performance bottlenecks. It’s crucial to thoroughly plan, test, and backup to mitigate these challenges
Verified User in Industrial Automation on G2
Pricing
Standard: free. Offered at 1, 2 and 4 vCores, generally available, and it supports offline – one-time – migrations.
Premium: $0.37 an hour for one size, 4 vCores. It supports offline and online continuous migration for business-critical workloads.
Premium is free for the first 6 months – 183 days – from the service creation date before any charge begins.
A savings plan on a fixed hourly spend commitment gives 35% off the price per vCore on both one-year and three-year terms.
The rate table is published per region – the figures above are Central US, not a global price.
Bottom Line
Start here if the source is SQL Server and the target is Azure. Check the logins and TDE gaps against your estate before you plan the cutover.
Free if you can take the downtime, and narrow enough that it rules itself out fast.
3. Qlik Replicate: Best for Sources the Cloud Services Cannot Read
What it does: A log-based change data capture and replication product that moves data out of sources the cloud migration services will not read – mainframe, DB2 z/OS, VSAM, SAP, Sybase – into any supported target, configured through a GUI rather than code.
Who this is for: Large enterprises with legacy sources still in production, banks and insurers in particular
Entries one, two and six all stop at the mainstream engines. If your source is IMS/DB, DB2 z/OS, RMS, VSAM or SAP, they are not an option at any price, and Qlik Replicate is on this list because it reads them.
Its capture is log-based and described as zero footprint, which matters when the source is a production mainframe you cannot slow down. The replication mechanics are the same ones we cover in our data pipeline tools round-up – here the point is the sources, not the schedule.
Key Features
- Log-based change data capture described as zero footprint on the source and target
- Mainframe sources – IMS/DB, DB2 z/OS, RMS and VSAM – alongside Oracle, DB2, Sybase and SQL Server
- SAP and Salesforce as application sources, not just databases
- GUI configuration with no manual coding for setting up a replication task
Pros and Cons
Pros
- It reads the sources that rule the cloud migration services out – DB2 z/OS, VSAM, IMS/DB and SAP are named on the product page
- A reviewer names the DB2 handling specifically, including converting packed decimal fields into integers correctly
- Log-based capture keeps the load off the source, which matters when the source is a production mainframe
- The GUI means a team without replication engineers can configure a task, and reviewers rate it 8.2 out of 10 with 100% willing to recommend
Cons
- No published price anywhere: every Qlik data integration tier is Contact Us, so you cannot size the bill before a sales call
- A reviewer calls the licensing itself complex, separate from the cost
- Support response times are named as a weakness, with delays in receiving replies to support cases
- It is a replication engine, not a migration project tool: there is no published source-to-target reconciliation report of the kind a cutover sign-off needs
What Users Say
Qlik Replicate’s ability to correctly map and replicate data, especially when converting complex fields like packed decimal fields into integers, stands out.
JohnZacharkan on PeerSpot
Support response times could be improved as there are sometimes delays in receiving replies to support cases.
Shraddha Waghulde on PeerSpot
Pricing
Not published. The Qlik Talend Cloud plans page shows four tiers – Starter, Standard, Premium and Enterprise – and every one carries a Contact Us button with no figure.
Qlik Replicate is not named as a priced line item on that page at all.
What Qlik does publish is the capability split: real-time synchronisation using log-based change data capture is a Standard-tier capability, above Starter.
Standard also adds cloud, client-managed or hybrid deployment. The client-managed route is reached through Contact Sales rather than a published price.
The pricing metric differs by tier – data volume on the lower tiers, and data volume plus job executions and duration higher up.
Bottom Line
The answer when the source is legacy enough that the cloud services will not connect. Budget a sales call, and plan your own reconciliation.
It reads the sources nothing else here can touch. You will need a sales call to learn the price.
4. Oracle GoldenGate: Best for Oracle Estates With Their Own DBAs
What it does: Oracle’s real-time log-based replication platform, run either as the managed OCI GoldenGate service or installed on-premises, used to keep heterogeneous systems in sync and to migrate databases without taking the source down.
Who this is for: Large Oracle estates with a dedicated DBA or platform team
GoldenGate is the operate-it-yourself answer, which is what separates it from entry one. Oracle names zero-downtime database migration on its own product page, and it is the replication path Oracle itself supports for Oracle sources – which removes the vendor-blame problem mid-cutover.
The reconciliation is a separate purchase. Source-to-target comparison is Oracle GoldenGate Veridata, a different product with its own documentation. If your sign-off needs a reconciliation report, budget for both.
Key Features
- Log-based real-time replication between heterogeneous sources and targets
- Zero-downtime database migration as a named use case on Oracle’s own product page
- Transformations applied in flight, including PL/SQL functions and filters, without a separate ETL tool
- A fully managed OCI GoldenGate service as well as an on-premises install, with a BYOL rate for existing licences
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Oracle publishes a real OCPU-hour rate for the managed service, which is more than Qlik or CloverDX do
- BYOL cuts the managed-service rate to roughly a quarter, which matters for estates that already hold licences
- In-flight transformation let one reviewer drop Oracle Data Integrator from the stack entirely
- It is the Oracle-supported path for Oracle sources, and reviewers rate it 8.2 out of 10 across 52 reviews with 96% willing to recommend
Cons
- The on-premises licence price is not on the pricing page at all – the link lands on the cloud price list
- Reviewers call the pricing high outright, naming it as the thing most in need of improvement
- It locks redo and archive logs for streaming, so a source with very long transactions can be pushed toward freezing
- Reconciliation is a separate purchase – Veridata – rather than part of the product
What Users Say
In some cases, we had performance problems related to the streaming because there was a lot of information to stream concurrently.
EmmanuelCatalano on PeerSpot
There is room for improvement in Oracle GoldenGate’s pricing, which is a bit high.
PatrickKuria on PeerSpot
Pricing
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure GoldenGate: $1.3441 per OCPU per hour, shown alongside a $0.67205 per vCPU comparison price.
BYOL: $0.3226 per OCPU per hour if you already hold GoldenGate licences – roughly a quarter of the managed rate.
One OCPU is the equivalent of two vCPUs on x86 compute, which is why the two figures differ by half.
The on-premises perpetual licence is not published on that page: the GoldenGate pricing URL redirects to the OCI Cloud Price List, which prices only the managed service and its BYOL rate.
Oracle GoldenGate Veridata, the source-to-target comparison product, is a separate purchase and is not priced here either.
Bottom Line
The right call for an Oracle-to-Oracle move with DBAs to run it. Price Veridata at the same time if the cutover needs a reconciliation report.
Oracle’s own path for Oracle, billed by the hour. Veridata is the other invoice.
5. CloverDX: Best When the Mapping Is the Migration
What it does: A self-hosted data integration platform built around mapping and validating records on the way across, with a review-and-approve step for flagged rows – the parts of a legacy migration that are not the data transfer itself.
Who this is for: Teams migrating off a legacy system where business users own the field definitions and the data has to be cleaned on the way across
Every other entry assumes the hard part is moving rows. On a legacy migration it usually is not: the hard part is deciding what the old fields mean. CloverDX is built around that, with mapping by code, drag-and-drop or Excel template so the people who know the legacy system can do it themselves.
It also puts a human in the loop, with a queue to review, fix and approve flagged records instead of failing the load – which is what a legacy cutover actually needs on the day.
Key Features
- Field mapping through code, drag-and-drop or Excel templates, so business users can own the mapping
- Validation built into every pipeline rather than bolted on at the end
- A review-and-approve queue for flagged records, with a human in the loop
- Self-hosted deployment on-premises, in the cloud or hybrid – explicitly not SaaS
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Mapping and validation are the product, which is the right shape when the field mapping is the hard part of the migration
- Excel-template mapping lets the people who know the legacy fields do the mapping without writing code
- Self-hosted, so regulated data never has to leave your estate
- Reviewers describe automating an entire manual process of spreadsheets, PDFs and Access databases away, and name the graphical view of transformations as what makes maintenance easy
Cons
- No per-plan list price: the page prices three plans without printing a figure against any of them, and the DX Unit metric bundles Designer seats and Production Server cores
- The learning curve is the most common complaint – the lowest-rated G2 review calls it powerful but complex for new users
- Documentation is the top negative tag on G2, cited across several reviews
- It is self-hosted, so you run the servers, and memory sizing on large multi-step jobs is named as a real problem
What Users Say
The platform can be complex for new users, and setting up advanced workflows sometimes requires technical knowledge
Alison A. on G2
CloverDX designer as a standalone is well suited for fairly straightforward transformations of data. If you want to do large scale data integrations, then their server edition adds an extra level of automation and job control.
Michael Johnson on TrustRadius
Pricing
No per-plan list price. The page names three plans – Standard, Plus and Enhanced – and prints no figure against any of them.
What it does print, before you touch a control, is the estimate calculator’s default: Starts at $42,000 a year. The page calls it an estimate and asks you to talk for a precise quote.
Pricing is metered in DX Units, where one unit is either one Designer seat or one Production Server core – so the bill scales on developer seats and server cores together.
Standard includes a shadow non-production server licence, US and EU support and self-paced Academy courses. Plus adds instructor-led courses and more professional services.
It is not SaaS: the platform is self-hosted and can be deployed in the cloud, on-premises or hybrid.
Bottom Line
Shortlist it when the migration is really a data-quality project. The $42,000 estimate is a starting point, not a quote – get the DX Unit count agreed early.
The only entry here that treats the messy records as the actual job.
6. Google Cloud Database Migration Service: Best Free Route to Cloud SQL
What it does: Google’s managed migration service for moving MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server and Oracle databases onto Cloud SQL and AlloyDB – free when the engine does not change, and billed per gibibyte processed when it does.
Who this is for: Teams already on Google Cloud moving MySQL or PostgreSQL onto Cloud SQL or AlloyDB, plus Oracle estates heading for PostgreSQL
For the common case this is free. MySQL-native to Cloud SQL for MySQL, PostgreSQL-native to Cloud SQL or AlloyDB – no additional charge, and a validation run before the migration starts.
Heterogeneous moves are metered per gibibyte, and the Oracle path is real rather than preview: Google lists Oracle as available now, and only the Gemini-assisted code conversion carries a preview label.
Key Features
- Homogeneous MySQL and PostgreSQL migration to Cloud SQL and AlloyDB at no additional charge
- Heterogeneous Oracle and SQL Server to PostgreSQL migration, billed per GiB processed
- A conversion workspace that converts schema and code objects from Oracle syntax to PostgreSQL
- A validation run before the migration starts
Pros and Cons
Pros
- The common case – MySQL or PostgreSQL onto Cloud SQL or AlloyDB – genuinely costs nothing in tool fees
- Heterogeneous pricing is published per GiB with a tiered rate card, which is rarer in this category than it should be
- Oracle sources are broad and documented: RDS for Oracle, Exadata, Active Data Guard and RAC, from 11g through 21c
- A pre-migration validation runs before you commit to the cutover, and the conversion workspace works offline from uploaded schema files
Cons
- Almost no public review corpus: G2 lists exactly one written review and says plainly there are not enough to provide buying insight
- The pricing page contradicts itself on the free backfill allowance – 500 GiB in one place, 50 GiB in another
- The product page and the pricing page disagree about whether SQL Server homogeneous migration is free
- The published rate card stops at 10 TiB of change data capture, above which it is a sales call
What Users Say
Google dms can be configured as serverless. That enables us with more to migrate at our windows and more cost control. There was very less points to consider even where we were performing heterogeneous migration.
Debabrata P. on G2
I am migrating the AWS Postgres database to the GCP cloud using the data migration tool. But the problem is migration is taking too much to migrate. There are around 100 GB and migration is running from the last 2 days till now it has migrated only 30 GB.
anonymous8 on Google Cloud CommunityA public post on Google’s own community forum by a distinct account, quoted as the forum shows it. It is a complaint, not a rated review.
Pricing
Free for homogeneous migrations: MySQL-native to Cloud SQL for MySQL, and PostgreSQL-native to Cloud SQL or AlloyDB, both at no additional charge.
Heterogeneous migrations are metered per GiB processed. Change data capture is tiered: $2.00 a GiB a month from 0 to 2,500 GiB, then $1.50, $1.20 and $0.80 above 10,000 GiB, in us-central1.
Backfill: the page says 500 GiB free in its summary and 50 GiB in a line above the rate table. The table itself shows 0 to 500 GiB at $0.00 and Google’s own worked example subtracts 500, so 500 is the figure to plan on – but you should know the page disagrees with itself.
SQL Server homogeneous migration: the product page says it is free, the pricing table lists only MySQL and PostgreSQL. Confirm before you budget on it.
Above 10 TiB of change data capture the published rate card stops and Google asks you to contact sales.
Bottom Line
Free is the right price for a MySQL or PostgreSQL move onto Cloud SQL. Read the backfill allowance carefully and get SQL Server confirmed in writing.
Free for the move most teams are making, if you read the backfill allowance twice.
Which Data Migration Tool Should You Choose?
Choose AWS Database Migration Service if:
- The target is on AWS and you want the validation step bundled rather than built
- Somebody has to sign off that every row arrived, and you would rather not write that yourself
- You can test CDC throughput against your own peak load before committing
Choose Azure Database Migration Service if:
- The source is SQL Server and the target is Azure SQL
- You can take the downtime, because the offline tier is free
- Logins and TDE-encrypted databases are not part of the scope, or you have a plan for them
Choose Qlik Replicate if:
- The source is a mainframe, DB2 z/OS, VSAM, Sybase or SAP system
- The cloud migration services cannot connect to it at any price
- A sales call before a number is acceptable
Choose Oracle GoldenGate if:
- The estate is Oracle and you have DBAs who will run the replication
- Zero downtime on the source matters more than the hourly rate
- You can budget Veridata separately for the reconciliation report
Choose CloverDX if:
- The hard part is deciding what the legacy fields mean, not moving them
- Business users need to own the mapping, by Excel template if necessary
- Someone has to review and approve the records that do not fit
Choose Google Cloud Database Migration Service if:
- The move is MySQL or PostgreSQL onto Cloud SQL or AlloyDB, where it is free
- Or the move is Oracle to PostgreSQL and you want the conversion workspace
- You can live without a public review corpus to check it against
Skip this category entirely if:
- You need a standing sync rather than a cutover. That is a pipeline, and buying a migration tool for it means paying twice.
- The data is already wrong. A migration copies the problem faithfully and at speed – fix it first, or pick the one entry here built to clean on the way across.
- Nobody has defined what success looks like. If no one can say which numbers must match before the old system is switched off, no tool on this page can finish the project.
What’s the Best Data Migration Tool in 2026?
AWS DMS if the target is AWS, because it is the only entry here that ships the proof as part of the product: row-by-row validation and a validation-only task you can run against a cutover window on its own.
Azure DMS if the source is SQL Server and the destination is Azure SQL – the offline path is free outright, and the online tier is free for its first 183 days. Google Cloud DMS if the move is MySQL or PostgreSQL onto Cloud SQL or AlloyDB, where it also costs nothing.
Qlik Replicate when the source is a mainframe or an SAP system nothing else will read. Oracle GoldenGate when the estate is Oracle and your DBAs will run it. CloverDX when the migration is really a mapping and data-quality project, which is more often than teams admit at the start.
And whichever you pick, settle the reconciliation question before the cutover rather than after it. Four of these six leave that step to you, and it is the step that decides whether the old system can actually be switched off.
How Algoscale Runs a Cutover
The tools above move data. A migration is a project around them: deciding what has to match, running old and new in parallel, proving the numbers agree, and switching the old system off with somebody’s name against that decision.
That is the part we do. Our data engineering team has run migrations onto Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks and Azure Synapse – including a move off a legacy SSIS and SQL stack onto Databricks and Delta Lake – with the parallel run and the reconciliation treated as deliverables rather than as something the replication tool is assumed to cover.
If you are earlier than that – still deciding what to move onto, or whether the data is clean enough to move at all – the explainer above points at the right comparison for where you actually are.
- A defined cutover: what moves, in what order, and what has to be true before the switch
- A parallel run with both systems live, so the comparison is made on real traffic
- A reconciliation that names the grain – which totals, at which level, have to agree
- A rollback plan, because the decision to switch off is only safe if it can be undone
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best database migration tool?
It depends on where the data is going and whether you need to prove it arrived intact. AWS DMS is the strongest general answer for a move into AWS, because it bundles row-by-row validation and a validation-only task rather than leaving the proof to you. Azure DMS is better and cheaper for SQL Server into Azure SQL – the offline tier is free. Google Cloud DMS is free for MySQL and PostgreSQL onto Cloud SQL. If the source is a mainframe or SAP system, none of those connect and Qlik Replicate is the realistic option.
What are the four types of data migration?
The usual split is storage migration (moving data to new hardware or a new storage tier), database migration (moving between database engines or versions, which is what every tool on this page does), application migration (moving the software and its data together), and cloud migration (moving any of the above from on-premises into a cloud provider). Business-process migration is sometimes counted as a fifth. The distinction matters here because a tool that is excellent at database migration – AWS DMS, for instance – explicitly cannot move an on-premises database to another on-premises database.
What are AWS data migration services?
AWS Database Migration Service is the managed replication service that moves data between a source and a target endpoint, at least one of which must be on AWS. It handles same-engine and cross-engine moves, offers change data capture so the source stays live while the copy catches up, and includes row-by-row data validation that writes mismatches to a control table you can query. DMS Schema Conversion, which converts schema and code objects between engines, is a free feature of the same service beyond the S3 storage it uses. Billing is by replication-instance hour or, on the serverless option, per DCU-hour.
What are ETL migrations?
An ETL migration usually means one of two different things, and they need different tools. Moving your ETL jobs themselves – rewriting pipelines that ran on a legacy platform so they run somewhere new – is a development project, not a data move. Moving data through an extract, transform and load process as part of a one-time cutover is what this page covers, and CloverDX at entry 5 is the entry built for the transform-heavy version where legacy fields have to be mapped and cleaned on the way across. If what you actually need is a transformation that runs every hour from now on, that is a pipeline – see our data pipeline tools comparison.
