title: Migrating Silverstripe to Wordpress - Change web platforms
body: <p>I'm going to re-design and develop a new site for my client (they prefer wordpress as the new platform). They have got an existing big site with membership (with paypal), member portfolios and directories (with search) which are largely done manually in php associated with Silverstripe CMS.</p>
  
  <p>I need some directions on how I best target this task with changing platforms from Silverstripe to Wordpress.</p>
  
  <p>1) They want to keep their membership, directories data and migrate it to wordpress without members have to re-enter it again manually, is this possible, how can this be achieved?</p>
  
  <p>2) For their membership, portfolios and directories, is it best to re-use the code, or is it too different between those two platforms? <strong>Or</strong> shall I search for some plugins to best match it and then manually add extra php code to match the existing site?</p>
  
  <p>Which would be a better approach?</p>
  
  <p>3) I've found some migrating companies who do migrations from Silverstripe to Wordpress with a cost, is the end product as logical as the original site? Or is it better to build it yourself in wordpress?</p>
  
  <p>Anyone had experience of changing platforms, any suggestions are appreciated.</p>
  
  <p>Thank you.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT:</p>
  
  <p>Sorry I've been away, thank you so much for your answers, Colyba, Cam and Zauberfisch, it is hard to choose one to be the answer. A little update, my client is more towards staying with Silverstripe after I used some of your knowledge, thank you. </p>
  
  <p>Now I just found out they have got an offline Miscrosot Access to keep the membership details as well, my first thought was to just use the website and ditch MS Access, but their admin person has been using this MS Access for a long time even before the site was built, so I am just wondering is there anyway to synchronise both data?</p>
  
  <p>I know the SS website membership database and MS Access membership database structures are set up differently, so I am just wondering is there any way to automatically update the offline MS Access membership when the SS website membership database is updated online? so they don't have to double add member details onto the offline MS Access. Any security issues? <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22446766/synchronise-website-database-with-microsoft-access-database?noredirect=1#comment34139764_22446766">See question here</a>,  any suggestions are appreciated. Thank you very much!</p>