Comparisons and alternatives

Best SharePoint migration tools in 2026: a fair roundup

Microsoft's free SPMT and Migration Manager, the paid suites and where each one fits, judged on sources, fidelity, resume and licensing.

By Cameron ShieldsPublished 8 September 20269 minute read

In this article

Start with Microsoft's free tools
What the free tools leave open
The paid tools, judged on the same four things
The best tool by scenario
The constraints every tool shares
Frequently asked questions

Most roundups of SharePoint migration tools are written by a vendor and rank that vendor first. This one is also written by a vendor, so the way to keep it honest is to lead with the free Microsoft tools, say plainly when they are the right answer, and judge every product on the same four things: which sources it accepts, how faithfully it copies, whether it can survive an interruption, and how it is licensed. All facts come from each vendor's own documentation, checked in September 2026.

Start with Microsoft's free tools

Microsoft gives away more migration tooling than most buyers realise, and for two of the commonest scenarios it is the best tool available because it is free, supported and built by the team that owns the destination.

Tool	Sources	Strengths	Gaps
SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT)	SharePoint Server 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Foundation 2010 and 2013, file shares	Versions, permissions, managed metadata and term store, navigation, site features, web parts, incremental re-runs, out-of-the-box 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010 and 2013 workflows. Destinations include SharePoint Online, OneDrive and Teams.	SharePoint Online is not a source, so no restructuring inside a tenant and no tenant to tenant.
Migration Manager	File shares, Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, Egnyte	Agents that scale linearly, delta sync for file shares (July 2025), custom Azure storage and PowerShell (November 2025), 250 GB files, EU Data Boundary processing since April 2023.	Does not migrate from SharePoint Server or SharePoint Online.
Cross-tenant SharePoint and OneDrive migration (PowerShell)	SharePoint Online sites and OneDrive accounts in another tenant	One-and-done moves with redirects, up to 4,000 queued, 5 TB or 1 million items per site.	No incremental or delta passes; sites must not pre-exist; Teams channels and structure not migrated; workflows and Power Platform recreated by hand. The SharePoint site variant is only available to Enterprise Agreement customers and licensed per 100 GB moved; OneDrive needs the per-user Cross-tenant User Data Migration licence.
Migration Orchestrator (public preview from 22 December 2025)	Mailboxes, OneDrive, Teams 1:1 and group chats, Teams meetings in another tenant	Covers the personal workloads of a tenant move under one wizard; available to EA, CSP, web direct, SMB and EDU with the per-user licence.	Microsoft states it does not migrate shared data such as Teams and channels or SharePoint sites.

So the free path covers file shares and on-premises SharePoint into Microsoft 365, cloud file stores into Microsoft 365, and the personal half of a tenant to tenant move.

If your project is a SharePoint 2016 farm or a file server going into SharePoint Online, with no restructuring and no tenant change, try SPMT or Migration Manager first. A paid tool earns its price on assessment, restructuring and resumability, not on the basic copy.

What the free tools leave open

The paid market exists because of specific, documented gaps. In order of how often they show up in real projects:

SharePoint Online to SharePoint Online restructuring inside a tenant: site to site, library to library, merges and splits, content type and column mapping. Neither SPMT nor Migration Manager accepts SharePoint Online as a source.
Tenant to tenant SharePoint sites for customers who are not on an Enterprise Agreement, and delta passes for anyone: Microsoft's native move is one-and-done.
Tenant to tenant Teams channels with files and conversations, and Planner. Orchestrator explicitly excludes them.
Pre-migration assessment of permissions, path length, invalid characters and orphaned users across file shares and SharePoint Online. Microsoft's SMAT covers SharePoint Server only.
Cross-tenant sensitivity label handling; Microsoft advises removing labels before native moves.
A single resumable, auditable project across many sources and workers, with PowerShell automation.

The paid tools, judged on the same four things

Where a cell says not verified, the vendor's public documentation did not state it clearly enough to repeat; ask them directly.
Tool	Sources	Fidelity notes	Resume	Licensing
ShareGate Migrate	SharePoint 2010 to Subscription Edition, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, file shares, Google Drive; Box via PowerShell on Pro and Enterprise. Dropbox, Alfresco, Confluence, Documentum, Lotus Notes and Azure Files unsupported.	Insane mode uses the Migration API but not for managed metadata columns, document sets or ASPX pages. Teams conversations go to an HTML tab with the 50 most recent posted; private chats disabled since 5 May 2026; shared channels unsupported. Full PowerShell with `-WhatIf` pre-checks.	No. Migrations cannot be paused, resumed or reverted, only cancelled. Incremental copy of new or modified items.	US$5,995, US$9,995 or US$17,995 a year; per machine activation; one client per subscription.
AvePoint Fly	Server and SaaS editions; sources not verified for this article	Quote-only, so ask for the fidelity matrix in writing.	Not verified.	Per user, no data cap; prices not published.
Quest On Demand Migration	SaaS, tenant to tenant with identity	Suite positioned around whole-tenant moves.	Not verified.	Per migrated user for one project; UK G-Cloud list £16.91 to £35.76 per user.
BitTitan MigrationWiz	Mailboxes, documents, Teams, tenant bundles	Per-object products; the User Migration Bundle includes Teams private chat.	Not verified.	Consumption: US$14 mailbox, US$25 per library up to 50 GB, US$48 per team up to 100 GB, US$57 per user tenant bundle.
Cloudiway	Tenant to tenant and cloud sources	Secondary sources only.	90-day delta window.	About US$11 to US$17 per user, single use.
ShareShift	File shares, SharePoint Online libraries and site structure, OneDrive, Teams, Planner	Migration API with nested version history; site columns, content types, lists, views, items, attachments, modern pages, navigation and subsites via REST; Teams posts imported as native messages with original timestamps and authors; private channels; chats as archives. List item version history, term store and classic pages are reported as not migrated.	Yes. Pause, stop after package, resume from a checkpoint, incremental re-runs that preserve version history, schedule windows.	Per registered worker, unlimited data: Monthly US$499 or £399, Annual US$2,995 or £2,395, MSP US$7,995 or £6,395 with ten client slots.

ShareGate remains the broadest on SharePoint Server sources and the most mature PowerShell surface, and it is the tool to beat. Its published limitations are the reasons buyers look elsewhere: the ShareGate alternative article goes through them, and the pricing breakdown explains the tiers.

The best tool by scenario

Scenario	First choice	Why
File server into SharePoint Online, no restructuring	Migration Manager or SPMT	Free, supported, delta sync, agents scale. Add a paid tool only if you need an assessment of permissions and path lengths up front, or resumable, reportable runs.
SharePoint 2013 to 2019 farm into SharePoint Online	SPMT	It is the only tool here that is free and handles term store, site features and 2013 workflows. ShareGate is the paid option if you need restructuring during the move.
Restructuring inside a SharePoint Online tenant	ShareShift or ShareGate	No free tool accepts SharePoint Online as a source. Compare on version history handling, content type and column mapping, and resume.
Tenant to tenant on an Enterprise Agreement, no changes, one shot	Microsoft cross-tenant migration plus Orchestrator	Free apart from the per-user and per-100 GB licences, with redirects. Accept the no-delta constraint or add a paid tool for the SharePoint and Teams half.
Tenant to tenant without an EA, or needing delta passes, Teams channels or Planner	ShareShift, ShareGate or a per-user suite	Pick by user count: per user below roughly 100 users, flat above it. Check the Teams channel and chat answers carefully.
Mailboxes, identity and content together	Quest, BitTitan or ShareGate Pro, or Orchestrator for mail plus a content tool	ShareShift and ShareGate Essentials are content only.
MSP running many client migrations	ShareShift MSP plan	ShareGate needs a subscription per client; per-user vendors price each project. Slots and workers under one licence are the only published model that does not scale with client count.

The comparison of ShareGate, AvePoint and Quest specifically is in ShareGate vs AvePoint vs Quest, and the tenant to tenant guide walks through the phases whichever tool you pick.

The constraints every tool shares

No tool escapes Microsoft's envelope, and any vendor who implies otherwise is selling. Microsoft's migration speed guidance gives bands of roughly 10 TB a day for light content, 1 TB a day for medium content such as Office files, and 250 GB a day for heavy content, per tenant, with no SLA, and it states that throttling will not be lifted for migrations and that opening a support ticket does not help. Throttling is measured per tenant and app, so more machines or workers do not buy more budget; they buy bandwidth, packaging CPU and reach into other networks. Projects over 100 TB in 30 days need a support request from the tenant administrator.

All tools should use app-only authentication with a certificate, because Microsoft states that user mode triggers increased throttling; all should honour Retry-After on 429 and 503 and decorate traffic with a User-Agent of the form ISV|Company|Product/Version. Ask each vendor to confirm those three points. The throttling article explains the resource unit budgets behind them.

Finally, judge every tool on what it reports as not migrated. Microsoft's Migration API cannot carry certain things, Graph cannot back-date Planner tasks, and no supported API re-creates Teams chats. A tool that lists those limits is telling you the truth; one that does not list any is not. ShareShift's own limits are published in its documentation and on the ShareGate comparison page, and the pricing page has the plans and the 30-day trial.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free SharePoint migration tool?

Microsoft's SharePoint Migration Tool for SharePoint Server and file share sources, and Migration Manager for file shares, Google Drive, Box, Dropbox and Egnyte. Both are free and supported. Neither accepts SharePoint Online as a source.

Can SPMT migrate SharePoint Online to SharePoint Online?

No. SPMT supports SharePoint Server 2010 through 2019, Foundation 2010 and 2013, and file shares as sources. Restructuring within SharePoint Online or moving sites between tenants needs Microsoft's cross-tenant PowerShell (Enterprise Agreement customers only for sites, one-and-done) or a third-party tool.

Is ShareGate still the best SharePoint migration tool?

It is the broadest on SharePoint Server sources and has the most mature PowerShell module. Its documented gaps are no pause or resume, Teams conversations copied to an HTML tab, private chat copy disabled since May 2026, and a licence per machine and per client organisation. Whether it is best depends on whether those gaps matter to your project.

Which migration tools handle tenant to tenant Teams channels?

Microsoft's own tools do not: cross-tenant SharePoint migration excludes Teams channels and Orchestrator excludes channels and SharePoint sites. ShareGate copies channels with conversations as an HTML tab. ShareShift imports channel posts as native messages with original timestamps and authors through Microsoft's migration mode API.

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