Using a migration tool can give you a lot of advantages during your SharePoint migration. If you have huge data sets to move, relying on manual efforts is simply not the best idea. Migration tools can help you in getting the job done in a much faster and simpler way.

Moving large document sets, managing correct metadata, migrating entire site structure with their libraries and folders are few things that a tool can help you achieve easily. Duplication of files is another common problem that many organizations felt during migration. These tools can help in getting rid of these problems as well. If not all, some of these also have a pre-migration check service. Using a migration tool, organizations can easily identify if their SharePoint is ready for the migration or not. And what must be done if something is not in the best shape for migration.

Multiple third-party vendors are available in the market to provide such migration services. So, once you have set up your migration strategy, it’s time for you to narrow down your migration tool. Based on our experience while working on SharePoint migration projects, we recommend ShareGate, Metalogix, and AvePoint as the top three available in the market.

Let’s do a quick analysis of which tool hold some advantage over others and in which areas.

AvePoint vs ShareGate vs Metalogix

AvePoint is well recognized as the market leader for SharePoint migrations. For enterprise-level projects, it is well known for handling a large volume of data. One of the key advantages of going with this tool is Pre-migration analysis. With its pre-scan functionality, it helps in preparing the inventory of your source environment. It also helps in legacy asset protection by ensuring that all information held in the legacy sources is appropriately preserved. If you are migrating to cloud i.e. Office 365, AvePoint surely holds an edge over others because of its ability to reduce cut over by supporting high-speed migration. Flexible job scheduling is also another known feature that gives power to admins to plan and schedule migration per business needs.

ShareGate is also a leader in this segment. What we loved about ShareGate is its ability to identify the issues that require your attention before migration like workflows or custom site templates. It gives you a simple option to clearly define inventory reports by providing information on the total number of sites collection, sites used or unused or the total number of workflows. It helps in visualizing the quickest migration path and list down the supporting APIs. One can quickly map metadata, content type, and user permissions. While the scheduling function allows prioritization and automating similar tasks. Lastly, it also has a very good way of tracking the migration process. With the detailed history and reports, you can easily track what has been migrated and where an error has occurred, even bringing out suitable suggestions for you.

Metalogix also offers similar capabilities to AvePoint when it comes to supporting legacy content. However, it does not pick the metadata automatically from the extract making it a not so useful feature for the users. There are still quite some benefits. The single platform views provide you with a simple way to asses and plan your migration tasks. It also helps you identify risks and possible bottlenecks with useful recommendations. Empowers you to run multiple migration instances simultaneously and distribute workload accordingly. While the self-service functionality gives end-users the option to control the migration using pre-defined configurations.

With any of these tools, you can easily take care of your complex migrations and rapid reorganization. And thus, get the right help for meeting the aggressive timelines.

Some common functionality that all the three-migration tool will be able to perform for you are as listed as here:

  1. Export and import files to/from SharePoint
  2. Supports bulk migration
  3. Migration scheduling
  4. Quick launch
  5. Migration of SharePoint documents
  6. Migrating document templates
  7. Moving files and folders
  8. Mapping content types
  9. Migration reports and tracking
  10. File shares
  11. Supports migrating to Office 365
  12. Email support

What Microsoft Offers

The Microsoft SharePoint Migration tool is also capable of moving files from a file share environment or previous version of SharePoint to Office 365 or the latest version of SharePoint. But it’s much-limited functionalities as compared with the above three third-party solution providers make it a less preferred choice for the organizations.

Mover, a leading solution provider of cloud file migration was recently acquired by Microsoft in October 2019 and can become a preferred choice for many organizations soon. This supports moving of files to cloud from a wide range of file repositories such as on-premises versions of SharePoint, Dropbox, Box, Google drives, One Drive, File Servers, etc. to name a few.

To briefly summarize, a reputed migration tool such as one of these will surely help you cover most of the enterprise-level requirements. However, in case of excessive customization that must be handled manually, an experienced SharePoint solution partner like us can guide you in the right direction.

If you are looking for ways on how we can help you strategize your migration approach or more information on which tool will best suit your needs, To get a free discovery report/ consultation on SharePoint migration services, please drop your queries to [email protected]

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