Drupal Projects Offer SQL and XML Paths for WordPress Migration

Several contributed Drupal projects support WordPress migrations through either direct database access or WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR) exports. Drupal.org project records show differences in entity coverage, customisation paths, current release maturity, and security advisory status. Among the four projects compared here, WordPress Migrate SQL is the only one with a supported stable release currently covered by Drupal’s security advisory policy.

Those distinctions matter because WordPress migrations can involve more than posts and pages. Users, taxonomy terms, comments, media, translations, plugin-managed records, shortcodes, and legacy markup may each require separate mappings or processing. Drupal’s Migrate API provides the framework for extracting, processing, and importing that data, while contributed projects package different source and workflow assumptions.

WordPress Migrate SQL reads from a WordPress MySQL or MariaDB database and provides source plugins for users, terms, posts, and attachments. Version 1.0.1, released on 5 May 2026, works with Drupal ^11.2 and is a stable release covered by Drupal’s security advisory policy. Its Basic submodule provides an administrative import and rollback workflow, while drush generate wordpress-migration scaffolds a custom module with four default migrations that developers can modify.

A tutorial published on 30 July 2026 by Metadrop documents both the Basic and custom routes. Omar Mohamad - El Hassan Lopesino, senior Drupal developer at Metadrop, describes extending generated migrations for plugin-specific data, translations, broken links, malformed markup, and other content requiring additional processing. These examples demonstrate available extension points but do not establish that the module covers every WordPress configuration without additional work.

WordPress Migrate takes a different approach, importing WordPress eXtended RSS exports rather than connecting directly to the source database. Its project page lists posts, pages, comments, attachments, tags, and categories among the supported content and says imports can be rolled back. The 8.x-3.0-alpha9 release, issued on 18 March 2026, works with Drupal 10.5 and Drupal 11, but Drupal.org states that the project currently has no supported stable release. The WordPress Migrate Recipe for Drupal CMS packages that XML-based workflow with supporting modules, but currently has only a development release and is not covered by Drupal’s security advisory policy.

Wordpress to Drupal Migrate provides another direct-database route. Its project page lists users, posts, pages, categories, tags, media, and comments, together with rollback, resynchronisation, and processing for some WordPress-specific markup and shortcodes. Version 1.1.3, released on 20 March 2026, works with Drupal 10 and Drupal 11, but the project is not covered by Drupal’s security advisory policy.

The choice therefore extends beyond whether a migration uses SQL or XML. A WXR-based workflow removes the need for Drupal to connect directly to the WordPress database, while direct-database approaches can make records outside the standard export available for custom migration logic but require database connectivity. Release support and security advisory coverage are separate considerations from whether a project's documented entity mappings fit the source site. Production evaluation should compare those mappings with representative source content and test documented areas such as media handling, rollback, and required custom processing before the final migration.