How long did it take to migrate from WordPress to Gatsby?

Reader Question

I was reading your blog post about migrating from WordPress to Gatsby and had a question about the necessary timeline we should expect. How long did it take you to make your full migration?

If you are wondering what post is being referred to its Why and How I migrated my website from Wordpress to Gatsby?

My Answer

The timeline for the migration depends on the contents of your site.

I started the move away from WordPress to Gatsby in August 2019 and switched over in November 2019. You might think that 3 months is a long time for migrating posts, and you would be correct.

But, it's important to note that I was spending just a few hours a week on this. It would have probably taken me a few hours/days to make the switch if I worked on it full-time.

I used a starter, so I had a base to start from. But, there were a few things I had to modify(which is why it took time) before I was ready to make the switch.

• getting it to play nicely with Typescript.
• making sure all the internal links work.
• building an image gallery component for the image-heavy posts.
• hunting for the plugins not included in the starter and configuring them

If you are thinking of migrating your site, I would suggest doing what I did.

• Start with a gatsby starter/theme as your base.
• If the theme you have chosen doesn't have all the plugins, just add those plugins in.
• Get an initial version of your site up and running using Netlify.

Update the styling, components, plugin configurations, add automated scripts etc., as you see fit. This will probably be a continuous thing.