Migrate to Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service
This guide helps developers transition from Adobe Commerce on Cloud or on-premises to Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (SaaS). This SaaS model offers enhanced performance, scalability, and integration with the Adobe Experience Cloud.
Overview
Migrating an established Adobe Commerce store to Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service is more than moving data. A real migration spans the following areas:
- Application - customizations and extensions built for Adobe Commerce on Cloud or on-premises installations
- Data - catalogs, orders, customers, and configuration
- Storefront
- Integrations with external systems
Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service is a versionless SaaS platform, which means none of these areas can be migrated without adapting them. Customizations are modernized into App Builder applications, storefronts are rebuilt on Edge Delivery Services (EDS), data is migrated into the new Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service tenant, and integrations are re-established using SaaS patterns.
Instead of considering migration as a single monolithic project, Adobe provides an integrated migration workflow built around three migration tools.
This shared workflow consolidates discovery, aligns engineering and delivery teams, and provides a consistent migration plan.
PaaS and SaaS comparison
Adobe Commerce on Cloud or on-premises (PaaS) and Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (SaaS) differ in how they are managed and how merchants interact with the platform.
Key differences
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Adobe Commerce on Cloud Infrastructure: Merchant manages application code, upgrades, patching, and infrastructure configuration.
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Adobe Commerce on-premises: Merchant manages application code, upgrades, patching, infrastructure configuration within Adobe’s hosted environment.
note NOTE Shared responsibility model for services (MySQL, Elasticsearch, and others). -
[SaaS only]{class="badge positive" title="Applies to Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service and Adobe Commerce Optimizer projects only (Adobe-managed SaaS infrastructure)."} SaaS (New - Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service): Adobe fully manages the core application, infrastructure, and updates. Merchants focus on customization through extensibility points (APIs, App Builder, UI SDKs). Core application code is locked.
Architectural implications
- Versionless platform: Continuous updates mean no more major version upgrades for the core.
- Microservices & API-first: Deeper reliance on APIs for extensibility and integration.
- Headless by default (optional): Strong support for decoupled storefronts (for example, Commerce Storefront powered by Edge Delivery Services).
- Edge Delivery Services: Impact on front-end performance and deployment.
New tooling and concepts
- Adobe Developer App Builder and API Mesh for Adobe Developer App Builder
- Commerce Optimizer
- Edge Delivery Services
- Self-service provisioning with the Commerce Cloud Manager
The migration journey
A migration moves through the following phases:
- Assess - Analyze the existing implementation and consider the following: inventory customizations, integrations, storefront characteristics, and data structures. After analyzing, create a roadmap with migration recommendations, complexity scoring, and effort estimates.
- Modernize the application and migrate data - Rebuild customizations as App Builder applications while migrating business data into Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service.
- Modernize the storefront - Rebuild the storefront on Edge Delivery Services (EDS) for Commerce.
- Cut over and operate - Switch traffic to Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, decommission legacy systems, and transition into ongoing operation.
Migration is usually iterative, not linear. Organizations can assess multiple environments, validate recommendations, modernize incrementally, and refine implementation plans before the final production cutover.
Migration tools workflow
Each of the following workflows has its own tool. Use them together to complete your migration with the migration assessment serving as the common blueprint used throughout the migration.
These tracks are not standalone. Use them together in the right order minimizes rework.
- Run the assessment first - Running the assessment first identifies unsupported customizations, estimates migration effort, exposes data migration considerations, and highlights integration dependencies before implementation begins. The assessment becomes the migration blueprint used by both the application modernization and data migration workflows.
- Application modernization - The Commerce Developer MCP uses the migration assessment to determine which customizations to modernize and how. Then the MCP generates the corresponding App Builder applications and storefront components.
- Data migration - The data migration scoping questionnaire captures the scope, volumes, and custom tables that were surfaced by the assessment.
- Custom and third-party data - Data held in custom tables by third-party extensions is identified during assessment, but it is not handled by the standard data migration and requires an App Builder customization.
Storefront modernization is not just a UI migration. In addition to migrating business functionality, you need to consider the experience architecture, reusable component modernization, performance optimization, and adoption of Edge Delivery Services patterns.
Integrations are assessed as part of the migration assessment, but their implementation varies depending on the scenario. Integrations can leverage App Builder, API Mesh, Adobe I/O Events, and Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service APIs.
These migration tools continue to expand and maintain a unified migration workflow centered on the migration assessment.
Next steps
When you are ready to migrate, begin by creating an assessment. The migration assessment establishes the plan the rest of the migration follows.
The Migration Assessment Tool and the Commerce Developer MCP use AI to assist you with discovery, planning, and implementation. As with any engineering workflow, AI-generated recommendations and implementations should be carefully reviewed and validated by your team as part of standard architecture, testing, and quality assurance processes.
Migration Assessment Tool
Before beginning development or migration, you must consider the size of the migration and determine the items that require development. An Adobe Commerce store on Adobe Commerce on Cloud or on-premises likely has custom modules, integrations, storefront customizations, and data structures, which might not be obvious until someone analyzes the implementation. The Migration Assessment Tool automatically scans your codebase to identify these items for development.
Assessment overview
The Migration Assessment Tool performs an AI assessment of the existing implementation and produces a structured modernization assessment and an Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service migration roadmap. It also builds a comprehensive view of the migration by assessing application customizations, integrations, data structures, storefront characteristics, and other implementation details that influence modernization. It turns discovery into a fast, repeatable process that allows you to evaluate effort, risk, and sequencing before making commitments.
The assessment that the Migration Assessment Tool produces is not just a report. The assessment becomes a shared migration artifact that informs planning, implementation, and validation throughout the migration lifecycle. As the first phase of the migration journey, its findings scope both the application modernization and data migration efforts that follow.
For more information on what is included in a migration assessment report and how to use it, see Migration Assessment.
Assessment stages
An assessment runs against the existing implementation and proceeds through a series of automated stages:
- Inventory — Catalogs the implementation. Includes: custom modules, Composer dependencies, third-party extensions, configuration, storefront components (where applicable), files, extensibility points, events, plugins, APIs, cron jobs, queues, database schema, and custom database tables.
- Analyze — Performs a static analysis to identify store customizations, divergence from a standard Adobe Commerce installation, and how those customizations interact across the application.
- Classify — Uses AI to interpret each customization, summarizing what the customization does, grouping related capabilities, identifying implementation patterns, and providing contextual migration recommendations.
- Map and recommend — Maps each capability to its Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service equivalent, including: default capabilities, App Builder applications, or Adobe services. Then the assessment recommends a modernization path, and evaluates complexity, dependencies, and implementation effort.
- Report — Produces an exportable roadmap for planning migration execution, which allows you to communicate risk to stakeholders. It also identifies priorities, dependencies, technical debt, and implementation risks.
Assessment value
The value of an assessment is the amount of confidence you can have before committing to development specifics. Instead of estimating a migration with regular scoping practices, the assessment provides an evidence-based understanding of the implementation. This includes which customizations are simple to migrate, which require redesign, and which can be retired altogether. Assessments routinely surface obsolete or unused functionality, allowing you to reduce technical debt.
Each recommendation includes supporting evidence along with citations back to the underlying implementation, which allows architects and engineers to validate during planning. Because every assessment follows the same methodology, you can compare multiple development needs using a consistent scoring and planning framework.
The assessment is not just a starting point. The downstream migration tooling uses the assessment’s findings to accelerate implementation and maintain consistency with the approved migration plan. The customization analysis becomes the blueprint for application modernization, while the data assessment scopes the data migration effort by analyzing database size, entity inventory, and custom tables.
Assessment scope
The Migration Assessment Tool focuses on understanding the complete migration landscape. It analyzes custom modules, plugins, events, APIs, cron jobs, queues, integrations with external systems, storefront characteristics, and the database schema those customizations depend on. The assessment maps what it discovers to available Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service capabilities and identifies where functionality should be modernized by using App Builder, or redesigned for the SaaS architecture.
The assessment is more of a planning tool than an execution tool. It identifies what should be modernized, estimates implementation complexity, and provides recommendations. Implementation decisions and architecture validation remain collaborative activities between Adobe, partners, and customer engineering teams.
Data stored in custom tables by third-party extensions is surfaced as a migration consideration. Standard data migration does not migrate this data automatically. Custom App Builder applications could be required to support these scenarios. Refer to Data Migration guide for more information.
The assessment provides analysis to the storefront customization and data migration workflows:
- Code and storefront migration - The assessment’s application analysis becomes the blueprint for the Commerce Developer MCP
- Data migration - The assessment’s entity inventory, database characteristic analysis, and custom table analysis establish the scope for the Commerce Data Migration Service.
You can also rerun assessments as your applications evolve. This allows your teams to validate remediation work, measure modernization progress, and continuously refine migration plans throughout the engagement.
Next steps
Every Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service migration should begin with an assessment. It is a low-cost way to establish scope, reduce uncertainty, and create a shared migration blueprint before implementation begins.
For more information on assessment tooling and downstream developer workflow, see Adobe Commerce Developer MCP.
Code and storefront migration (Commerce Developer MCP)
In Adobe Commerce on Cloud or on-premises customizations can use in-process PHP—modules, plugins, and event observers that run inside the application. Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service is a versionless SaaS platform and that model no longer applies. Customizations run as out-of-process Adobe Developer App Builder applications that integrate with Commerce through events and APIs. Modernizing a store’s customizations for this architecture is typically the most significant engineering effort in an Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service migration.
Code migration overview
Starting from the migration assessment, the Commerce Developer MCP provides a conversational IDE experience for modernizing legacy PHP customizations into App Builder applications. It also provides assistance for rebuilding storefronts on Edge Delivery Services (EDS). By consuming the Migration Assessment Tool findings directly, the Commerce Developer MCP keeps implementation aligned with the approved migration roadmap by reducing manual interpretation, maintaining traceability, and ensuring consistency throughout the process.
While migration is the primary use case, the Commerce Developer MCP is designed as a comprehensive AI development agent for Adobe Commerce. The MCP supports modernization, new development, operational workflows, and all updates to Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service. This level of flexibility allows teams to continue building and extending Commerce applications long after migration.
Commerce Developer MCP
Using the findings from the migration assessment, the Commerce Developer MCP transforms identified customizations into App Builder applications through an iterative development workflow. Consider the following guidelines when developing using these tools:
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Start with the blueprint - The Commerce Developer MCP consumes the migration assessment, using its identified customizations, recommendations, and migration priorities as the foundation for implementation planning.
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Plan each customization - For every customization, the Commerce Developer MCP develops a specification that describes the recommended Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service architecture, required integration patterns, and any redesign necessary for transitioning to an out-of-process application.
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Build collaboratively - Instead of initially generating code, the Commerce Developer MCP assists you throughout the development lifecycle by planning implementations, discussing architecture, generating and refining code, validating recommended patterns, and providing deployment guidance. Developers can iteratively refine generated implementations through natural language, allowing the project details to evolve collaboratively throughout the modernization effort.
- Generated implementations are designed to accelerate delivery while remaining fully reviewable, testable, and extensible by engineering teams.
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Integrate and deploy - The Commerce Developer MCP connects applications to Commerce through the appropriate integration patterns, assists with deployment workflows, and validates implementations against recommended architectural patterns before deployment, which improves consistency and reduces duplicated effort.
- The Commerce Developer MCP contains the Adobe Commerce App Builder MCP, which provides domain knowledge, implementation patterns, architectural guidance, contextual product expertise, and validated coding practices directly in your development workflow. This ensures that MCP recommendations remain aligned with Adobe’s best practices whether developers work directly with the Commerce Developer MCP or in combination with other agents, like Claude, Cursor, or Copilot.
Storefront modernization
On the frontend, the Commerce Developer MCP modernizes storefronts on Edge Delivery Services (EDS) for Commerce using the Adobe Commerce boilerplate, Drop-in Components, and EDS blocks.
The Commerce Developer MCP loads existing storefront projects based on the Commerce boilerplate. It modernizes your storefront by:
- Generating responsive EDS blocks
- Generating Commerce-aware page data (home, PLP, PDP, cart, checkout, account)
- Composing and extending drop-in components
- Translating designs into EDS implementations
- Converting legacy monolithic storefronts into a composable EDS block architecture
The MCP also assists with:
- Component modernization
- Reusable block composition
- Experience optimization
- Alignment with current Edge Delivery Services best practices
Developer MCP value
Moving from in-process PHP customizations to composable App Builder applications represents a significant architectural shift. The Commerce Developer MCP closes that gap by embedding Adobe Commerce knowledge, App Builder implementation patterns, and product best practices directly into the development workflow.
The inclusion of this context provides improved consistency in both delivery speed and engineering quality. Teams can modernize applications faster while producing implementations that follow a consistent architectural guidance.
By embedding recommended implementation patterns, the Commerce Developer MCP reduces reliance on individual expertise and helps organizations scale modernization efforts consistently across projects.
The migration process is also an opportunity to improve the existing implementation. Teams can simplify legacy customizations, retire obsolete functionality, adopt SaaS capabilities, and modernize application architecture rather than carrying historical technical debt forward.
Because the Commerce Developer MCP consumes the migration assessment directly, every modernization effort maintains traceability back to the original assessment, ensuring implementation remains aligned with the approved migration roadmap.
The Commerce Developer MCP also promotes composable application design by encouraging modular App Builder applications that can evolve independently as business requirements change.
Developer MCP scope
On the backend, the Commerce Developer MCP modernizes the customization and integration layer by transforming PHP modules, plugins, and event observers into App Builder applications and establishes integration patterns to connect them with Adobe Commerce. It also accelerates development across checkout, payments, and the Admin UI.
On the frontend, the Commerce Developer MCP modernizes Commerce storefronts on Edge Delivery Services.
The MCP does not handle data migration. Business data is migrated through the Commerce Data Migration Service. The MCP supports the App Builder applications needed when business logic or custom tables require application modernization.
Next steps
Code and storefront modernization begin once the Migration Assessment Tool roadmap has established migration scope and priorities.
For more information on how to install and use the MCP, see the Commerce Developer MCP documentation.
Data migration (Commerce Data Migration Service)
Migrating to Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service can require migrating years of data, including: catalogs, orders, customers, and configuration.
The Commerce Data Migration Service replaces a manual migration with a single, repeatable, automated process. It makes complex database migrations more predictable and efficient.
Commerce Data Migration Service
A migration uses a guided workflow, driven by a Docker command-line tool (./bin/console migration). A systems integrator or operator runs this workflow against the source store.
The core data migration is automated, but most migrations involve non-standard schemas, extensions, and edge cases, which is why all migrations start with an assessment of the source store. After validating credentials and connectivity, registering the migration, and establishing a verification baseline, you can proceed with the data migration.
The migration service tool performs the following data management steps:
- Extract and transform — Extracts all relevant data from the source in parallel and reshapes it for Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service. Incompatible data is filtered out and custom attributes and other structures are remapped.
- Load — Transfers the extracted data to the Commerce Data Migration Service. The service loads the data into the Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service and then rebuilds indexes, and ingests the catalog.
- Verify — Compares source and target data at the database level. Then the service validates a sample of live records through the storefront GraphQL and admin REST APIs to verify the data.
- Report — Consolidates the results from every step into a final migration report.
These data-moving stages require a maintenance window, but during the preparation phase, the store remains operational, keeping downtime to a minimum.
Migration service value
The Commerce Data Migration Service preserves data integrity by using evidence. Every migration is verified by comparing source and target data and validating a sample of live records through the APIs. Data that does not map cleanly to Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, such as custom attributes, is filtered and remapped automatically during extraction.
The migration service is designed for enterprise-scale databases. Data migration is partitioned and processed asynchronously, allowing large catalogs and extensive order histories to migrate reliably. Multiple migrations can run in parallel as the pipeline grows. If a migration is interrupted, it resumes from the last completed stage and stalled jobs are detected and retried automatically.
Downtime is minimized in the following ways:
- Most of the work is performed while the store remains live, which means only the final cutover requires a maintenance window.
- The data migration uses highly efficient direct SQL reads and writes and skips tables and records that do not need to migrate.
Because migrations involve production data moving through Adobe infrastructure, the entire path is secured:
- All uploads are scanned for malware before reaching the target
- The intake layer validates file types and blocks unsafe database operations
- Every request is authenticated using Adobe IMS and gateway signature verification
The Commerce Data Migration Service is live in production worldwide and has already delivered multiple enterprise-level migrations.
Custom and third-party data
The migration service supports first-party core commerce data only. The migration service does not handle custom, third-party entities.
Third-party data can be migrated on a per-case basis, which requires a corresponding customization to the Docker extraction tool. After creating custom tooling, the data can be extracted from the source and written into the App Builder or third-party database.
Because each extension models its data differently, a migration path for third-party data can only be designed after determining the schema and locations of the source and target storage. Third-party data migrations should be identified early to provide time for scoping.
Next steps
When you are ready to migrate, complete the data migration scoping questionnaire, which requires the source topology, entity scope, volumes, compliance constraints, cutover mechanics, and any custom tables required to plan the migration. Completing this questionnaire allows Adobe to assess your environment and plan a migration window.
Review the Bulk Data Migration Tool guide documentation to learn more about the workflow, supported data, and verification.
Systems integrators preparing a source environment can also use the standard Adobe Commerce Cloud CLI and the Adobe Developer Console for IMS credentials.