Step-by-step guidance on migrating an existing application from Heroku, Vercel, AWS, or other hosting providers to the illuminis Developer Platform.
Yes, you can migrate an existing application to the illuminis Developer Platform regardless of where it is currently hosted. Whether your app runs on Heroku, Vercel, AWS, DigitalOcean, Railway, Render, or any other provider, the migration process is designed to be straightforward. The platform supports a range of migration paths depending on your current setup and the complexity of your application.
The migration process follows five phases:
Heroku applications are among the easiest to migrate because both platforms use similar container-based deployment models. If your app uses a Heroku Procfile, the illuminis build system can interpret it directly. Heroku Postgres databases can be exported and imported to illuminis-managed PostgreSQL using standard pg_dump and pg_restore commands. Heroku add-ons should be evaluated individually. Many have direct equivalents in illuminis platform services, such as Stripe for billing and the illuminis auth service for authentication.
Applications hosted on Vercel, typically Next.js, Nuxt, or static sites, migrate smoothly to illuminis. The platform supports Next.js server-side rendering and API routes natively. Connect your existing GitHub repository to illuminis, configure the build settings in the deployment manifest,and the platform handles the rest. Vercel-specific edge functions may need adaptation to run as standard serverless or container functions on illuminis.
Since illuminis runs on AWS infrastructure, migrating from a self-managed AWS deployment simplifies infrastructure alignment. Applications running on ECS, Elastic Beanstalk, or Lambda can be containerized for illuminis deployment. RDS databases can be migrated with minimal downtime using AWS Database Migration Service. S3 storage can be connected directly or migrated to illuminis-managed storage.
The platform provides managed database migration support for common database systems:
If your existing application uses Stripe for billing, migration to the illuminis Stripe Connect model is streamlined. Existing Stripe customer records, subscription data,and payment methods can be transferred through Stripe's platform migration tools. This ensures that your current customers experience no billing disruption during the transition. If you use a different payment provider, you will need to coordinate with your existing customers to transition their payment methods to the illuminis marketplace checkout.
The recommended migration approach uses a parallel deployment strategy. Run your application on both your current provider and illuminis simultaneously during a validation period. Once you confirm that the illuminis deployment is performing correctly, switch DNS to point to the new platform. This approach typically results in less than 5 minutes of downtime during the DNS propagation window.