> Now - me - I too can run a SQL dump, a find replace and an import. But - I'm running a business. I have about 50 clients, so about 150 sites (local/staging/live for each). My imperative is to be able to do these migrations with zero effort and in minimal time. I could do it manually, but the time it takes me would be non-trivial.
Or you could write a script to do so. I don't use automated tools, because they all sucks, have limitations, and the time you spend learning and fixing tools written by others (assuming you can) is more than the time you spend writing your own scripts.
Instead of spending all that money on a tool that you will have to continue to pay, how much would have you spent to make a tool like that by built exactly for your needs and how you wanted? Probably a tool like that, without useless features like a GUI (a tool meant to be used by a technician doesn't need one), could have been built in a week, or even less time.
Ok, so say it took a week. (For me it’d be longer, I’m a mediocre coder at best…) - but say a week. That’s £2500 in my time.
That’s 10 years of me buying a license. Plus, my tool would be out of date pretty soon with no active development.
Granted, your way would be interesting (possibly fun!) and there are lots of things I do that I bring my own php skills to. But for something like this that has client data at risk, it’s a no brainer to pay someone else.
Or you could write a script to do so. I don't use automated tools, because they all sucks, have limitations, and the time you spend learning and fixing tools written by others (assuming you can) is more than the time you spend writing your own scripts.
Instead of spending all that money on a tool that you will have to continue to pay, how much would have you spent to make a tool like that by built exactly for your needs and how you wanted? Probably a tool like that, without useless features like a GUI (a tool meant to be used by a technician doesn't need one), could have been built in a week, or even less time.