Migrating from home.pl to Saplo: step by step

home.pl is one of the largest shared hosting providers in Poland, so statistically, a large share of this blog's readers have their website or domain there. Below, we explain exactly what moving from home.pl to Saplo involves, so you know what to expect before you even submit a request.

Migration is free with every plan.

Why it is worth taking a look now

home.pl works well to get started, but large-scale shared hosting has its natural drawback: hundreds or thousands of sites on one server share the same CPU, RAM and PHP process limits. As long as your site is small, you do not notice this. The problem appears later, when traffic grows or when a neighbor on the same server happens to get a traffic spike.

The most common reasons home.pl clients contact us about a migration:

• the site slows down during peak hours, despite having relatively low traffic itself, because a neighbor on the same server gets a traffic spike and consumes the shared pool of resources,
• the renewal price is noticeably higher than the initial purchase price, and the contract ends just when you least expect it to,
• there is no practical SSH access or ability to deploy anything beyond WordPress, so every idea involving Django, n8n or your own Docker requires a separate server and a separate agreement,
• email and the website are technically separate products in the price list, making it harder to plan costs for the coming years and obscuring the real cost of maintaining a single website,
• resource limits (number of PHP processes, memory per process, number of databases) are set from above and cannot be increased without moving to a more expensive, higher-tier plan.

If any of the above sounds familiar, below you will find the complete path to moving to Saplo, including email, without losing a single message along the way.

How Saplo really differs from home.pl

Every Box in Saplo is a separate, isolated container (LXC), not a slice of a shared server. A neighbor who happens to get a virus on Facebook has no impact whatsoever on your site, because they do not physically share the same processor or memory with you. This is the fundamental difference compared with classic shared hosting, where all clients on one machine stand in one queue for the same resources.

The second difference is scope. WordPress, Next.js, Django, n8n or your own Docker, all in one account, without separate contracts and without having to move to another provider when a project grows beyond WordPress. On home.pl, moving from a simple business card site to something more usually means changing your package or choosing a completely different product (VPS), with a separate price list and separate configuration from scratch.

The third is price: the rate you pay upfront is not a first-year promotion, but the actual renewal price. If we ever change the price list, we let you know at least 30 days before renewal, unlike promotional first-year prices, which can be significantly higher upon renewal.

Comparison in numbers

What to prepare before requesting a migration

We handle migrations entirely ourselves, but to make the process smooth, you should have the following ready:

1. access to the home.pl panel (your customer panel login and password), or your FTP and database credentials,
2. a list of domains and subdomains that should be migrated along with the website,
3. information about your mailboxes if you also use email through home.pl and want to migrate it along with the website,
4. access to your domain panel so you can switch nameservers or A records at the end (if the domain remains registered with your current provider, changing the records is enough without transferring the registration itself).

If you do not have something on this list, no problem. Mention it in your request and we will arrange it together before we start copying your data.

Migration step by step

1. Request. You fill out the form on the migration page (or write to us on chat), specify where you are migrating from and exactly what needs to be transferred.
2. Backup. We make a full, verified backup of the site from home.pl, including the database, files wp-content, plugins and theme if it is WordPress, or the equivalent files for a different stack.
3. Test. The site goes live at a temporary address on Saplo (subdomain *.saploapp.pl). You check whether everything works exactly as before, including forms, the admin panel and the store, before we switch anything over.
4. Domain switch. Once you confirm that the test looks good, we switch the domain to Saplo. DNS records update within a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the TTL previously set at home.pl, and the entire process takes 24 to 48 hours from the request, with virtually no downtime.

What about email at home.pl

If you have email accounts with home.pl, we migrate them from IMAP to IMAP, so all folders and messages stay in place, just on the other side, together with your correspondence history. We set up aliases and forwarding addresses from scratch together with you, so nothing gets lost in the gap between one server and the other. Unlike home.pl, where email is a separate product with its own price list, Saplo includes email accounts in the plan, with a storage limit that depends on the selected plan. Spam protection and webmail are included.

How much does it cost?

Migration itself is free, regardless of which Box you choose. You only pay for hosting on Saplo, starting at $29 per year for Box S. The starting price is not a first-year promotion, so you pay the same amount when you renew (we notify you of any price changes at least 30 days in advance). Before choosing a plan, it is worth comparing what you actually pay for home.pl when renewing your subscription, not just the price shown in the cart when you first purchase it. You should also add up the separate fees for email and any backup, which at home.pl often amount to the cost of the hosting itself.

When migrating from home.pl makes sense

Migration makes the most sense if you recognize yourself in any of the following:

• your site slows down during peak hours, even though your own traffic has not changed, because a neighbor on the same server is to blame,
• you pay separately for hosting and separately for email, and the combined cost is higher than you expected at the outset,
• you plan to expand your site beyond WordPress, for example by adding a dashboard in Next.js or automation in n8n, and you do not want to set up a separate server for it,
• you need real SSH access to install something non-standard yourself, but your current package does not allow it.

If, on the other hand, you have a simple business card site that works flawlessly and do not plan to expand it, migration can wait, unless you want predictable pricing for the coming years. We explain more about when it is actually worth considering moving from classic shared hosting to a container-based model like Saplo in a separate post. If you are migrating from Cyberfolks instead of home.pl, we also have a separate guide tailored to that control panel.

Frequently asked questions

Will the site stop working during the migration? No. Your home.pl account keeps working normally until the domain is switched over, and the switch itself is just a matter of DNS propagation, which usually takes a few minutes to a few hours.

What if I need more than WordPress, for example custom code or an online store? We also migrate Next.js, Django, WooCommerce and custom applications, along with the database and environment variables. If you're a developer, you also get full SSH access on Box L and higher plans.

Do I have to keep my domain with home.pl? No. You can switch nameservers or A records, and move your domain registration to another registrar later, or leave it where it is. It's your choice.

Do I need to do anything myself? Practically no. You provide access to the home.pl panel and approve the final test. We handle all the technical work, including SSL and web server configuration on the other side.

What about backups after the migration? It depends on your plan: Box L and higher include backups as part of the price (7 days of history for Box L, 14 days for Box XL, 30 days plus an offsite copy for Box XXL), while daily backups can be added to Box S and Box M as an extra. That means you no longer have to monitor the backup schedule yourself the way you had to with the home.pl package.

Can I run another application alongside it after the migration, for example n8n for automation? Yes, every Box can run any number of applications from the Saplo App catalog on different domains or subdomains, without creating another account or paying extra just for the number of applications.

If you're ready, submitting a migration request takes two minutes, and the rest is up to us.