Moving to Spillway without a database dump
The domain importer brings an existing website into Spillway from its public pages alone. It crawls, proposes content types, converts pages to blocks and lands everything as drafts with redirects, inside a workstream.
The hardest part of changing a CMS is rarely the new system. It is getting the old content out. Database exports need credentials that someone left with, custom field schemas nobody documented, and a developer who has a free week. Many teams stay on a platform they have outgrown simply because the move looks too expensive.
Spillway's domain importer starts from what every site already has: its public pages.
What it does
Give the importer the address of a site. It crawls the public pages, proposes content types, converts the page bodies into blocks, extracts the theme, and lands everything as drafts, along with redirects, media and menus. It needs no database connection and no credentials.
Drupal and WordPress have done a great deal for the open web, and both publish good APIs. When a site answers on Drupal's JSON:API or the WordPress REST API, the importer reads it through them for more precise results.
Nothing goes live by itself
The importer publishes nothing. Everything it brings in lands as drafts inside a workstream, so your team can preview the imported site as a whole, compare it, fix what needs fixing and merge when it is ready. The redirects mean the old URLs keep working when you go live.
A polite crawler
The importer respects robots.txt, honors a Crawl-delay up to 30 seconds and waits between requests: by default 500 ms, and never less than 100 ms to one host. A 300-page site takes a few minutes at the default delay. Requests go through the server's SSRF guard and identify themselves with the user agent SpillwayImporter, so the site owner can see who is visiting.
Getting started
Imports are run by an admin under Structure → Import. Choose New import, enter the site's URL and set the crawl options: maximum pages, delay, path filters and whether to use the Drupal and WordPress adapters. The Import a website guide covers each option.