• Features
  • JSON export data format
    • Semantic versioning support
    • JSON Schema
  • Extensibility
    • Third-party data integration
    • API
  • Managed WordPress support
  • Commandline interface (CLI)
  • REST API support
  • Scalability
    • Streaming API
  • Import Framework for websites from third-party website builders
• Generating custom content

Features

There are a lot of WordPress plugins offering Import Export capabilities.

ImpEx stands out with some unique features making it the perfect match for WordPress data management.

There ist built-in support for exporting/importing

• WordPress posts, pages, comments, categories, tags, custom post types, custom fields, users, taxonomies, navigation menus and more

• FSE related content like block patterns, global styles, templates and template parts

• WordPress media

For exporting additional data like third-party WordPress plugin settings or any other data, you can use the ImpEx API to configure your own Export profiles.

JSON export data format

ImpEx exports data in a JSON format.

The data structure can be validated using the provided ImpEx JSON Schema definitions (can be found here).

Semantic versioning support

The ImpEx JSON Schema format has built-in semantic versioning support providing upgrade capabilities for older exported content.

JSON Schema

The data format of ImpEx exports is described in the ImpEx JSON Schema definition files.

There are a variety of tools for working with JSON Schema.

Extensibility

ImpEx provides a foundation of core functionality to easily integrate custom WordPress data into the export

Third-party data integration

Third-party WordPress plugins and themes often persist data in custom database tables, wp_options or other data sources.

ImpEx provides WordPress actions and WordPress filters to integrate custom data into the export.

Third-party plugins can easily contribute their own data provider by registering actions and filters with ImpEx.

A ImpEx Data Provider is a import /export definition exposes plugin data to be used by other developers to integrate the data in their own export.

API

Custom profiles can be defined using the ImpEx API.

That does not mean that your own code depends on the ImpEx plugin to be installed and active. ImpEx uses WordPress actions and WordPress filters, so your plugin will also work fine is ImpEx is not installed.

The ImpEx API provides interfaces for

• Data provider

  Data provider expose data (Export) or consume data (Import). Typically a third-party plugin will register a Import Provider and Export Provider to ImpEx. Theses providers can be used by ImpEx profiles to integrate the plugin data into export and import.

• Profiles

  A ImpEx profile is a set of configuration options and tasks defining what data to export/import.

ImpEx provides a foundation of helpers to create custom ImpEx profiles with a few lines for posts, database tables and wp_options.

Managed WordPress support

If you operate your WordPress website using a managed WordPress hosting service, you often have limited or no direct access to the WordPress database / installation.

In these scenarios most WordPress Import / Export plugins will not work.

ImpEx only needs access to the WordPress REST API. Works like a charm in almost any managed WordPress hosting environment.

Commandline interface (CLI)

wp-cli is a great tool for managing WordPress installations. Unfortunately it needs direct access to the WordPress installation and database.

Thus ImpEx provides a CLI interface to interact with a WordPress installation using pure WordPress REST API. The ImpEx CLI works perfectly on managed WordPress instances.

REST API support

ImPEx provides a WordPress REST API extension for importing and exporting data. All ImpEx functions are available as REST API endpoints.

Scalability

It's easy to export a WordPress website with a few pages. But about a WordPress website with a lot of pages and hundreds of images ?

ImpEx is designed to be scalable. It can can handle hundreds/thousands of pages/posts and media files from scratch.

Streaming API

ImpEx API is designed to import/export a WordPress website in chunks of slices.

A chunk is a partial unit of the exported data. Its basically a directory containing a part of the exported slices. Each slice is a json file describing (and most times also containing) data like post(s) or any other WordPress data.

The API ist designed to be resumable. A aborted export (and even import) can be resumed at any time.

cancel/resume support will be part of a future release.

Import Framework for websites from third-party website builders

ImpEx is also a great choice to import a website from a third-party website builder or even a static website.

ImpEx provides a NodeJS Framework to convert any existing content to ImpEx WordPress content : @cm4all-wp-impex/generator.

Using @cm4all-wp-impex/generator you can convert html pages or any other content to WordPress content.

Since this package provides an API you can easily add custom transformations to suppport third-party site builder specialties into valid ImpEx export data.

Generating custom content

Even more, @cm4all-wp-impex/generator allows you to transform any data from anywhere into WordPress content.

There ist actually no limit - everything can be transformed into WordPress content using @cm4all-wp-impex/generator. See the Static website conversion tutorial as a starting point.