Best Cloud Migration Tools (2026): Top 10 Compared

AWS Transform MGN, renamed from AWS Application Migration Service, is the AWS capability for rehosting servers. It converts source machines running on physical hardware, VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V or another public cloud into native Amazon EC2 instances. It uses continuous block-level replication, automated machine conversion and orchestrated cutover, so the source keeps running until the switch.

AWS offers two ways to run it. The self-directed path uses the MGN console, step by step. The agentic path uses AWS Transform, which AWS says can initialise MGN, configure permissions, generate launch templates, install replication agents and enrich network mappings automatically. Both paths share the same engine, and teams can switch between them mid-project. Options such as operating system or licence conversion are available during the move.

Buyers planning with older AWS guides should note that AWS Migration Hub stopped accepting new customers on 7 November 2025. AWS names AWS Transform as its replacement for discovery, wave planning and tracking.

Azure Migrate is Microsoft's central hub for moving workloads into Azure. It discovers infrastructure, applications and data in an on-premises estate, shows dependencies and readiness, and produces assessments that align each workload with one of six treatments: rehost, refactor, rearchitect, rebuild, replace or retire. The hub also tracks migration progress across Microsoft's own tools and third-party ISV tools.

Microsoft now presents the service through the Azure Copilot migration agent, an AI-guided experience that walks teams from discovery through execution and coordinates with first- and third-party tools. Application awareness groups tagged, dependent resources so they are placed together for cost and performance. Azure Migrate is a non-regional service, and Microsoft documents it for modernisation after migration as well as for the move itself.

The hub and its tools carry no additional charge. The main exception Microsoft notes is agent-based dependency analysis, which has billed standard Log Analytics charges since July 2024.

Google Cloud Migration Center is Google's unified platform for planning and running a move into Google Cloud. It covers four stages. Cost estimation produces rapid estimates of future Google Cloud spend from the size of the current estate, using a three-year committed-use pricing track by default and projecting costs over five years. Discovery scans an on-premises environment to inventory servers and SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, or accepts uploaded data. Assessment produces TCO reports, identifies application and network dependencies and suggests target Google Cloud products. Planning and execution link to Google's migration tools.

Execution runs through separate tools: Migrate to Virtual Machines for rehosting, Migrate to Containers for moving applications off VMs, and Database Migration Service. Migrate to Virtual Machines is free for migrations into Google Cloud, with Compute Engine resources billed during testing. Google also runs the Rapid Migration and Modernization Program, which funds assessments and partner work.

VMware HCX is Broadcom's application mobility platform for moving virtual machines between VMware environments, such as from an older data centre to a new one or into VMware-based services run by hyperscalers and service providers. Broadcom now names it VMware Cloud Foundation Operations workload mobility.

HCX offers several migration types. Bulk migration uses vSphere Replication to move many VMs in parallel on a schedule, with an interruption equivalent to a reboot. vMotion migration moves one running VM at a time with no service interruption. Cold migration moves powered-off VMs. Replication Assisted vMotion combines parallel, scheduled bulk replication with a vMotion cutover.

Licensing follows VMware Cloud Foundation. vCenter environments licensed for VCF are entitled to all HCX services, and the paired site inherits the licence. There is no separate price list, so the cost depends on the VCF subscription.

OpenText Migrate, sold for years as Carbonite Migrate, is server migration software that moves whole operating systems, including files, applications, configuration and user permissions, between physical, virtual and cloud environments. OpenText lists VMware, Hyper-V, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud among supported platforms.

The process starts with a scan of the source environment and lightweight agents on the systems in scope. The tool then replicates each system in real time, at byte level, keeping the target in sync with changes to data, configuration and permissions. Transfers use AES 256-bit encryption, with bandwidth throttling and several levels of compression. Teams can validate and test cutovers without affecting production, orchestrate multi-tier application cutovers, and roll back to the source quickly if a problem appears.

OpenText positions the product for anything from a single server to thousands across several data centres, and for hardware refreshes and system upgrades as well as cloud moves. Pricing is quoted.

HPE Zerto Software is best known for disaster recovery and ransomware resilience, but its continuous data protection engine is also used for workload mobility. HPE describes seamless moves between on-premises and cloud platforms using automation, orchestration, non-disruptive testing and real-time replication, without platform lock-in. Supported environments include VMware, Hyper-V, AWS and Azure.

The AWS migration listing shows how it works in practice. Zerto uses journal-based replication to move virtual workloads running on-premises to native AWS, with only minutes of downtime at enterprise scale. Teams can manage and test migrations of tens to hundreds of VMs simultaneously, run dry runs and roll back with one click. The migration product is available in AWS commercial Regions and AWS GovCloud.

The migration licence is priced per VM. HPE's licensing guide describes it as time-limited, with an upgrade path to the full Enterprise Cloud Edition for organisations that want to keep replication running for disaster recovery.

RiverMeadow sells a SaaS Workload Mobility Platform for moving servers from any source to over a dozen public cloud and on-premises targets, with a private deployment option for regulated organisations. Targets named on its AWS listing include Amazon EC2, Red Hat OpenShift on AWS, VMware Cloud on AWS, AWS Outposts and Nutanix NC2; its site also lists Azure, Azure Local, Google Cloud and HPE Morpheus VM Essentials.

The platform begins with discovery and assessment, including rightsizing recommendations from historical performance data and flags for servers on end-of-life operating systems. Sources are grouped into move groups by application or wave. Migrations can run through the hypervisor or the operating system, agentless or with agents, and RiverMeadow can upgrade the target operating system or SQL Server version during the move. The company cites Mitel moving 1,000 workloads to Google Cloud in under 90 days.

Buyers can run migrations themselves or buy RiverMeadow's managed service, which adds wave planning, execution, validation and project management.

RackWare builds a single platform for assessing, migrating and protecting workloads across physical, virtual, cloud and container environments, without dependence on a specific hypervisor or cloud. Its core product, the RackWare Management Module, uses file-system-based replication.

On Azure, the module is installed in the customer's cloud account and connects to source servers over SSH. It discovers and assesses each source, replicates it into the target cloud, provisions the new servers automatically and keeps them in sync until a final sync and cutover. RackWare highlights support for physical servers, iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage, and in-memory databases such as SAP HANA, plus non-disruptive testing in the target site. Assessment includes discovery, dependency mapping, planning and cloud cost analysis.

RackWare has deep integrations with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, IBM Cloud and Nutanix, and lists its products on the Google Cloud and Azure marketplaces. SWIFT extends migration and disaster recovery to Kubernetes, including moves off VMware Tanzu.

CAST Highlight is a SaaS platform that analyses the source code of an organisation's custom applications to guide portfolio decisions, including which applications are ready for the cloud. It suits the planning stage of a migration, when a team must decide whether each application should be rehosted, refactored or retired.

The Cloud Insights module reports cloud maturity and effort estimates, container readiness, cloud blockers and boosters found in the code, and recommendations for cloud-native services. The core product adds views of resiliency, maintainability, technical debt and private data risk, and other modules cover open-source security and licence risk, software bills of materials and green software patterns. Analysis runs without uploading source code or database scripts; results are stored in a client-reserved cloud on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, and the platform is ISO 27001 certified.

CAST publishes prices by portfolio size and offers a 14-day trial with a sample portfolio.

Cirata, formerly WANdisco, sells Data Migrator for moving large data estates to the cloud, and now markets it within Cirata Symphony, a wider data replication and governance control plane. The product targets organisations leaving on-premises Hadoop or Spark platforms, where the volume of data and the amount still changing make a one-off copy risky.

Data Migrator is installed on an edge node of the Hadoop cluster and moves HDFS data, Hive metadata, local file system or cloud data sources to any cloud or on-premises target. Existing data is read in a single pass, and ongoing changes are migrated continuously, so production systems stay online and applications need no changes. Supported targets include the major cloud storage services and platforms such as Databricks and Snowflake. Teams can scale capacity with more transfer agents and manage moves through a browser interface, a command line or a REST API.

Cirata publishes an indicative per-terabyte price for migrations and a negotiated enterprise tier for continuous replication.